Happy New Year (belated)

Ethiopia recognizes the Julian calendar in which the year is divided into 12 months of 30 days each, a thirteenth month of 5 days, and 6 leap days in a year. Because of this, their new year and new millennium (2000) was celebrated on September 12, 2007. This weekend in DC there were many parties all around town. Last night Roz and I celebrated Enkutatash at the Ethiopian Embassy. It was a really fun event! When we got there around 9:30 a dance performance was just about to begin. There were three dancers, two women and one man, and they did some of what must be traditional Ethiopian moves cause they were doing the same moves as the Mesgana dancers we saw back in August! After the performance, we headed to the buffet table. They had a whole assortment of Ethiopian food including doro wat, green beans with carrots, spinach, some other meat-type dishes which I didn't try and some dish that had injera mixed into it. Beside the trays of food and nestled up by the plates and forks were what looked like rolled up napkins but were actually piles and piles of rolled up injera. The food was really yummy! I think I am actually starting to like it! :-) With our plates piled high, we headed to the open bar where they were serving beer and wine. I tried some Ethiopian honey wine. I still have to develop a taste for that. :-/ While we listened to the traditional Ethiopian music that was playing we looked at a wonderful photography display of beautiful Ethiopian people. The photos were headshots only, in color, about 24x36, which framed the perimeter of the room. Later on in the evening they did a traditional coffee ceremony. I tasted a cup. It was a little bitter but sweet at the same time. I don't normally like black coffee but for black coffee this was pretty good. The three dancers did several more dance performances and Roz I made our way around the room meeting various people. It was black tie optional so everyone looked very nice and we were lucky that it wasn't all couples since it was a ball. We met quite a few cool people in fact. Later on in the evening a DJ started playing dance music (from ABBA to Beyonce, Justin Timberlake to the Electric Slide) and everyone got on the floor. Beautiful people dancing and drinking wine--I couldn't complain. I had fun. Unfortunately, being the big, huge dummy that I am, though, I forgot to charge my camera before I left and it died after the three pictures. :-( Here are two of them--one of me and Roz and one of the dancers.