Two Ethiopian New Year celebrations to merge

By Hanna Tamrat, Staff Writer | August 30, 2006

Young Ethiopian girls meet San Jose council officials with bouquests of flowers (Photo: lapsedluddite on flicker)

Members of the Mesgana Dance Troupe, ages 7 to 12, will be among performers during "Enkutatash," the Ethiopian New Year celebration, at Lakeside Park Sunday afternoon. The event will be preceded by Saturday night's New Year's Eve celebration at the Oakland Convention Center.

"(The children) will be a hit," said Worku Negash, chairman of the Ethiopian Community Services of San Jose.

This year's New Year's celebration, hosted jointly by the San Jose group and the Ethiopian Community and Cultural Center of Oakland, aims to bring together families and friends who live miles apart in the Bay Area and who have been unable to celebrate the 3,000-year Ethiopian tradition and cultural event together.

The young dancers are part of the Utah-based Children of Ethiopia Education Fund, now touring the United States.

"People were split (in the past two years) trying to make it to both events and (they missed) critical moments of each (city's) festival," Negash said.

Senayit Hailu, a 20-year resident of San Jose, has cousins and friends in Oakland and San Francisco, and is delighted she can join them for New Year festivities.

"It's good for all of us to have it at the same place," she said.

Hailu, who runs a cigar store in downtown San Jose, said she was able to find someone to work for her Sunday so she can attend the event with her husband and two teenage children.

Next year, the celebration will be held in San Jose.

Sunday's event at Lakeside Park is free. Tickets for the Saturday event are $30; $25 before 9 p.m.; free for children 12 and under, at the Oakland Convention Center, Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway.

Endalkachew Getaneh, the Oakland's center executive director, said his staff didn't want to disappoint the Ethiopian community by not staging an event in Oakland this year. The joint effort is expected to be held through 2009, he said.The San Jose group has been hosting a New Year's event for more than 15 years.

Negash said "as it turned out" next year will be the millennium celebration, although it was not intentionally planned that way. Based on the Ethiopian calendar, also known as the Ethiopic Calendar, this year celebrates 1999.

The calendar officially used in Ethiopia and by Ethiopian Orthodox Church communities around the world is believed to have started with the year 5500 B.C. The church believes Christ was born 7 years before 1 A.D. the first full year in Christ's life in the Gregorian calendar.

The Ethiopian calendar starts its year with Sept. 1, which corresponds to Sept. 11 in the Western calendar, except in a leap year. Bearing some similarities with other ancient calendars, the Ethiopian calendar has 12 months of 30 days and one month of 5 or 6 days, which is considered a "13th month."

Although planning for this celebration started about 9 months ago, the center was not able to secure the Lakeside Park location for the weekend before Sept. 11, Getaneh said.

At San Jose City Hall, the green, yellow and red Ethiopian flag will fly alongside the American flag Sept. 6 through 13, proclaimed Ethiopia Week last year in San Jose. In Oakland, Sept. 11 was proclaimed Ethiopia Day two years ago.

The joint effort could be the basis for future cooperation between the two most active community centers in Northern California representing residents and citizens of Ethiopian origin.

"We would like to be examples for other (Ethiopian) communities in and out of state," Getaneh said.

The two centers perhaps can design and implement common programs across cities and benefit from a common source of funding, he said.

"We don't have to duplicate efforts," said Negash. "Our (combined) money will go further."

Every year, the Christensen Fund gives $25,000 to each center for their respective New Year's event. With the joint celebration, the centers will have $50,000 together to host one major event.

Performers will include well-known artist Newaye Debebe; local guest star Mimi Mebratu; UC Berkeley Ethiopian Student Group; Assaye Zegye of Washington, D.C., who will play "Kirar" (one of the traditional Ethiopian music instruments); and a Washington, D.C. dance group.

The performers will wear colorful outfits while singing and dancing to various rhythms representing a few of the numerous ethnic groups which make up Ethiopia, where about 70 languages and 400 dialects are spoken.

There will be food, craft and children activity booths, including health checks provided by the San-Francisco based Ethiopian Nurses Association.

(Source: Insidebayarea.com: September 1, 2006)