Malkam baal!

Happy New Year!

The 11th of September marks the New Year, or Enkutatash, in Ethiopia. The rainy season in Ethiopia lasts from early summer through late August, and Ethiopia has a calendar of 13 months based on this cycle of rainy and dry seasons. The return of the sun after months of rain marks the beginning of the cycle, the New Year.

Coincidentally, September 11th is also the date Eric and I discovered we were going to be the parents of twins. Two years ago today, we got our referral for and our first glimpse of our new son and daughter. Ben and Desi have certainly grown since then!

We were planning to celebrate the day with wat and injera, a typical Ethiopian stew and flat spongy bread, but our stove is currently out of commission (it kept tripping the circuit breaker, and we decided it was time to call in a repair man when it started emitting little poofs of smoke when switched on). So we'll be saving our feast for the weekend, once our stove is feeling better.

I did let the kids wear their Ethiopian clothes to school today:

(Rhys took a spill yesterday during our walk and caught herself with her hands and her face, hence the scratched nose and fat lip.)

I also tried to teach them how to say "Happy New Year" in Amharic, but it wasn't going well. "Inkwan laaddisu amat basalaminna badassita adarrasawo" is quite a mouthful for this American girl and her munchkins. According to my trusty language course book, the literal translation means "congratulations, he has brought you across from year to year", "he" being God - a large portion of the Ethiopian population is either Ethiopian Orthodox Christian or Muslim. We were struggling, so we went with "Malkam baal" (pronounced somthing like muhl-kahm buh-ahl), which is simply "Happy holiday".

If you happen to live anywhere near an Ethiopian restaurant, it would be a great place for dinner tonight. It's almost guarenteed to be delicious, and there's no time like a holiday to celebrate with a night out on the town!

Malkam baal!