MAKING New Year’s resolutions in September? Seems like someone has just gone crazy. But hey, last Tuesday was a great day for millions of people as they gathered at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel t
Sep 13, 2007
MAKING New Year’s resolutions in September? Seems like someone has just gone crazy. But hey, last Tuesday was a great day for millions of people as they gathered at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel to welcome the new millenium.
By Titus Serunjogi
MAKING New Year’s resolutions in September? Seems like someone has just gone crazy. But hey, last Tuesday was a great day for millions of people as they gathered at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel to welcome the new millenium.
Besides making resolutions, revellers indulged in merrymaking, binge eating and drinking, ululations and fireworks. They gathered papyrus reeds and set them ablaze. The party was made more exciting by famous popstars, the Black Eyed Peas.
But what was this “seven years younger†slogan that most of the revellers kept chanting. There is no question, the new millenium started on January 1, 2000.
So is it not crazy that some people have only woken up?
One Ethiopian lady ushered in the new millenium by dancing with others.
She said: “It is not just that we were asleep seven years ago, but September 11 is indeed the end of the year and this time round, the end of the millenium.
According to the Coptic Church, it has now just clocked 2,000 years since Christ was born. The church is an offshoot of the Orthodox Church, but it leans more on traditions of Ancient Egypt.
So, until this day, Coptic Christians follow the same calendar that as the pharaohs and Julius Caesar used. It is not only the Coptic Christians who partied at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel.
There were several Rastafarians and businessmen.
“Who am I, to usher in another 1,000 years? This is so special,†says 54-year-old Fikru Abebe of the Kansanga-based Prickle-Up, a non-governmental organisation.
“I have always dreamt of being a teacher and this year, I have resolved to quit my job in an NGO to become a teacher,†he said.
Another Coptic calendar fan, said this year, he has resolved to be marry a Ugandan woman.
“Our women marrying Ugandan men, but why don’t Ugandan women want to date us? Jah help me hook two Ugandan women this year.â€
But merrymaking aside; what a mess that this so-called Coptic calendar sometimes causes! There have been stories of missed appointments, mistaken birthdays and confusion over public holidays.
The rest of the world uses the Gregorian calendar, which was invented in the 1500s by the Pope Gregory. Either someone forgot to tell Ethiopians of the invention or they ignored it.
“The Coptic calendar is uniquely African. It was devised by our ancestors from Egypt,†says Amdemichael Tekle, the counsellor at the Embassy of Ethiopia.
Ethiopians believe that the year is made of 13 months, each with 30 days and the last month consisting of five or six days. (The extra five or six days mark an additional 13th month).
Remember the myth that the world would end in the year 2000? Well, many Ethiopians were still fretting about this too, especially a few days before the d-day. But once the fireworks popped at the stroke of midnight, everyone threw the fears to the winds.
Age is just a number anyway, as Aaliyah once sung. So do not be surprised to receive a Christmas invitation on January 3, just when you thought that all the partying had ended. To some people, you will only be seven years younger.
MAKING New Year’s resolutions in September? Seems like someone has just gone crazy. But hey, last Tuesday was a great day for millions of people as they gathered at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel to welcome the new millenium.
Besides making resolutions, revellers indulged in merrymaking, binge eating and drinking, ululations and fireworks. They gathered papyrus reeds and set them ablaze. The party was made more exciting by famous popstars, the Black Eyed Peas.
But what was this “seven years younger†slogan that most of the revellers kept chanting. There is no question, the new millenium started on January 1, 2000.
So is it not crazy that some people have only woken up?
One Ethiopian lady ushered in the new millenium by dancing with others.
She said: “It is not just that we were asleep seven years ago, but September 11 is indeed the end of the year and this time round, the end of the millenium.
According to the Coptic Church, it has now just clocked 2,000 years since Christ was born. The church is an offshoot of the Orthodox Church, but it leans more on traditions of Ancient Egypt.
So, until this day, Coptic Christians follow the same calendar that as the pharaohs and Julius Caesar used. It is not only the Coptic Christians who partied at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel.
There were several Rastafarians and businessmen.
“Who am I, to usher in another 1,000 years? This is so special,†says 54-year-old Fikru Abebe of the Kansanga-based Prickle-Up, a non-governmental organisation.
“I have always dreamt of being a teacher and this year, I have resolved to quit my job in an NGO to become a teacher,†he said.
Another Coptic calendar fan, said this year, he has resolved to be marry a Ugandan woman.
“Our women marrying Ugandan men, but why don’t Ugandan women want to date us? Jah help me hook two Ugandan women this year.â€
But merrymaking aside; what a mess that this so-called Coptic calendar sometimes causes! There have been stories of missed appointments, mistaken birthdays and confusion over public holidays.
The rest of the world uses the Gregorian calendar, which was invented in the 1500s by the Pope Gregory. Either someone forgot to tell Ethiopians of the invention or they ignored it.
“The Coptic calendar is uniquely African. It was devised by our ancestors from Egypt,†says Amdemichael Tekle, the counsellor at the Embassy of Ethiopia.
Ethiopians believe that the year is made of 13 months, each with 30 days and the last month consisting of five or six days. (The extra five or six days mark an additional 13th month).
Remember the myth that the world would end in the year 2000? Well, many Ethiopians were still fretting about this too, especially a few days before the d-day. But once the fireworks popped at the stroke of midnight, everyone threw the fears to the winds.
Age is just a number anyway, as Aaliyah once sung. So do not be surprised to receive a Christmas invitation on January 3, just when you thought that all the partying had ended. To some people, you will only be seven years younger.