Different countries observe their new years on different days and months of the year. Most countries, celebrate the new year in January. The Chinese for instance celebrate their new year between 19-21 of January. The Ethiopian new year, known as Enkutatash in Amharic, falls on September 11 or 12. Like anything in Ethiopia, the celebration of Enkutatash is also undergoing modernization. According to the Ethiopian Tourism Commission , “Enkutatash is not exclusively religious holiday. Modern Enkutatash is also the season for exchanging formal new year greetings and cards among the urban sophisticated -instead of the traditional bouquets of flowers.”
The other point that makes the Ethiopian calendar different from the Gregorian one is that the year does not only consist of 12 months but has also an additional five or six days that add to the 12 months. That was why Ethiopia used to be portrayed on tourist posters as “the land of 13 months of sunshine”. The five or six extra days of the year are considered like an extra month. And that was very attractive and symbolic of Ethiopia as a heaven for tourists where even the cold season is warm as the European summer.
The history of New Year celebration goes back to many centuries. “New Year’s Day, first day of the year, January 1 in the Gregorian calendar. In the Middle Ages most European countries used the Julian calendar and observed New Year’s Day on March 25, called Annunciation Day and celebrated as the occasion on which it was revealed to Mary that she would give birth to the Son of God. With the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1582, Roman Catholic countries began to celebrate New Year’s Day on January 1.”
Ethiopian new year has its own history. According to available information, “the Ethiopian counting of years begins in the year 8 of the common era. This is because the common era follows the calculations of Dionysius, a 6th century monk.”
September or the first month of the Ethiopian year is a time of holidays. The new year, the Muslim holiday of Mawlid, the Oromo festival of Irreechaa, the Christian annual celebrations of Meskel or the finding of the true Cross…all take place during the first months of the Ethiopian new year. We can say that these annual festivals follow the rhythms of nature. The three months preceding the festival season that starts in September are times of rains, cold, farming going on of the fields and the filling of rivers with the gather after travelling the mountains and pouring down into the valley and the lowlands. The three months of June July and August are busy months particularly in the rural areas where farmers labor in the fields during the farming season.
A new year is a time of new hope but also a time of big spending and big celebrations or a time of spending sprees. People spending money as if there is no tomorrow. The spending sprees are driven by the eagerness to enjoy rare moments of happiness, or get a respite or a break from the humdrums of daily life that can often be hectic or stressing. But this happiness seems to have costs, as all good things have prices.
The days and weeks preceding the Ethiopian new year are moments of excitement, expectation and hectic activities. It all starts with the holiday marketing spree. The queues are long not only in the banks but also at market stalls where food items, and clothing stalls are bustling with nervous and eager shoppers with worried looks hanging on their faces, scanning the price tags with their eyes. Prices tend to increase and goods might be in short supply.
The demographic profile of Mercato is shifting during the last days of dying old year and preceding the actual holiday. The crowds of shoppers that come from different directions converge at some of the famous malls. Nowadays, most of the shops in Mercato are located on the new buildings where the young and the not so young shoppers labor up the second and third stories, breathing laboriously and sometimes taking breaks on their way to the next floors while others sitting at the crowded restaurants and cafes nearby.
In former times. Mercato consisted of horizontal shops and shopping was easier as you travel through the mazes of narrow alleys taking you to the open air stalls. Mercato might have lost its former glory, its exceptional or historical features that gave it the coveted name as ‘the largest open air market in Africa.” Mercato is no more the largest open-air market in Africa. Nowadays, it is not even an open market and all the shops are located within the new buildings. Mercato has lost its old historical faces to modernization.
Although Mercato’s former allure has now faded, one should only welcome the new buildings as a solution for stopping the horizontal expansion of the old marketplace. This makes sounds sense when we look at Mercato’s new face from the point of view of vertical expansion that saves space and stops its unrestrained expansion. Is shopping in Mercato a pleasant experience? The answer is yes because the organized availability or location of shops within the new buildings makes shopping an easier and faster experience. This saves time, and prevents confusion for new shoppers in particular who do not know the entry and exit points of the vast market.
According to Wikipedia, Mercato is a huge market place indeed. “Mercato is the largest open-air market in Africa covering several square miles and employing an estimated 13000 people in 7000 business entities. The primary merchandize passign through Mercato is locally grown agricultural products-most notably coffee.” By the way, Wikipedia needs to update its information about Mercato which is no more an open-air market that was recently renovated or rebuilt and most of it nowadays consists of modern buildings.
Why are children’s clothing stalls are particularly crowded during the last weeks preceding the new year holiday? The answer is clear. First, children are, as a rule, the darlings of many families and enjoy top priority as buying new clothes new concerned. The second reason is that the new school year that starts soon after the new year holidays. It is obvious that children and the young need new clothes and shoes, in addition to the school materials and the uniforms.
New year holidays are usually periods of public excitement even under the present conditions of galloping inflation or rising cost of living. The traditions of holiday celebration in Ethiopia put enormous pressures on many households that cannot afford the means of covering the costs of celebration, that often require the need to set aside special budget for the occasions. Those who cannot afford to cover the costs are often forced to borrow money from their neighbors or friends or ask for financial support from their relatives living in the Diaspora.
Although it is considered by many as a bad culture, celebrating holidays with borrowed money has become a deeply entrenched habit that put financial and psychological pressure on many low-income households. It makes no difference whether the money is secured through borrowing from friends and relatives or from creditors or lenders at high interests rates. The headache starts after the festivities are over and heads of families sit down to calculate the costs or draw a balance sheet of their expenses. This may feel like trying to remember about last evening’s events after waking up the following morning with a heavy hangover. You don’t want to think about it because it causes you discomfort.
You may not suffer from memory loss ‘memory blowup’ may be inevitable. And you feel not only headache but also heartache: Why borrow money to just spend it for one day’s pleasures of eating and drinking sprees. You remember the idea behind your borrowing and spending spree: it was your ego that was playing tricks on you. it tells you to prove yourself equal or superior than your neighbor next door. If your neighbors kill a fowl for New Year dinner you have to kill a fattened sheep to prove to the world that you are the big guy from the neighborhood.
This is at least your pride or your ego that is whispering into your ears. So, you go to the money lender’s office and borrow money that would be paid after the next month’s payday. You may be trying appeasing your nagging ego but you will be the one who will settle the bills. In case that is not possible, you will keep on paying the interests until you pay back the entire money you borrowed.
Imagine the financial pressure that results from such a gamble. The costs in terms of lost sleeping hours and the stress and strain thereof can only be heartbreaking. It may take some time before you get rid of your ambitious borrowing gamble that cost you so much anguish. Why borrow money to prove that you are better off than your neighbor next door and then suffer the negative consequences ? This is in brief part of the post-holiday blues, perhaps with useful lessons for the next Ethiopian new year.
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SATURDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2024
