For Colorado’s Ethiopian residents, who measure time according to the Coptic calendar, the new millennium – 2000 Amete Mihret – arrives on Wednesday, just after the clock finishes striking midnight.
But most of the festivities begin the previous day, Sept. 11.
“It is unfortunate because that date is so sad, but we could not change the millennium to a different date,” said Haileyesus Zeryihun, one of the local organizers. (There will be a moment of silence to honor victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.)
Unlike the Gregorian calendar that Europeans adopted in 1582, the Ethiopian calendar is drawn from ancient Egyptian astronomic calculations, the Jewish calendar and the Julian calendar.
Knowing that celebrators from throughout the world already flocking to Addis Ababa and other Ethiopian cities, Ethiopians living in Colorado decided to assemble their own festival. The main event will begin at 4 p.m. Tuesday in Fred N. Thomas Memorial Park (East 23rd Avenue at Quebec Street).
“Because so many people are going like crazy to Ethiopia, we are trying to make a celebration for those of us who are not going back home, to make it as much like being at the Ethiopian celebration as possible,” Zeryihun said.
He and co-organizer Beza Hailu coordinated with dozens of Colorado Ethiopian church congregations, Ethiopian social clubs, soccer leagues and other organizations from a community that state refugee coordinator Paul Stein estimates at 10,000 to 20,000 Ethiopians.
Samples of defo dabo, a sweet yeast bread baked for the Coptic New Year, will be distributed. Vendors will sell Ethiopian jewelry and handicrafts alongside representatives of Ethiopian businesses and community organizations.
Zeryihun expects up to 1,000 people at the millennium festivities, which conclude with a countdown shortly before 9 a.m. local time, that coincides with the hour of the millennium’s arrival in Ethiopia.
