January 7 – Ganna in Ethiopia

nPostednon January 7, 2014

First,nlet me start by saying that I am not all that surprised to learn thatntoday is Christmas (called Ganna)nin Ethiopia. After all, Christmas is celebrated on January 7 by somenEastern Orthodox Christian churches and in Russia. (This date on thenJulian calendar translates to December 25 on the Gregorian calendar.)

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nNo,nthat is not the big shockeroo. What amazes me is that Ethiopia has antotally unique calendar and time system—different than any othernnation on earth! It is, according to my research, 7 years, 8 months,nand 13 days “behind” other nations!!! It clings to the Julianncalendar, but it has 13 months instead of 12 (12 months have 30 days,nand the 13^thnmonth has 5 to 7 days, depending on the year).

Thentime system is based on the fact that, since Ethiopia lies near thenequator, it gets about 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of nightnevery day. (People who live farther from the equator have muchnshorter days in the winter than in the summer.) So the day starts atnwhat most of us would call 6 a.m. every day – sunrise – and thentime that we would say is 7:00 a.m. is called 1:00 a.m., 8:00 a.m. isn2:00 a.m., and so on. Finally, at sunset (what we would call 6:00np.m.), it’s like our midnight, and the clock starts over with thenEthiopian p.m. times.

It actually makes a lot of sense tonme to start each day at sunrise instead of at midnight. Whatndoesn’t make so much sense is that it is different than time anywherenelse in the world! Many Ethiopians have to keep in mind internationalntime as well as Ethiopian time, because airlines and modernncompanies—even Ethiopian-owned-and-run airlines and modernncompanies—use international time!

These two clocks both tell time for Addis Ababa,
the capital of Ethiopia. But the top one is its international
time, and the bottom one is its local, or Ethiopian, time!

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nSo, to figure out dates in Ethiopia, you have to subtract 7 years, 8nmonths, and 13 days, and to figure out times in Ethiopia, you havento subtract 6 hours from the time zone Ethiopia lies in (which is 3nhours earlier than Britain).

nNow…aboutnGanna!

nChristmasnin Ethiopia usually means a long church service in the morning andndancing, feasting, and playing sports in the afternoon and evening. Gifts are a very minor part of the day, if gifts are given at all.

At the church service, everyone gets a candle as he or she enters the church; after the candle-lighting, everyone walks around the church threentimes. It probably looks especially cool in one of those 12th-Century churches carved out of stone.

The sport played during Ganna is a form a field hockey called—get this—ganna. The sport is so linked with the holiday, its name is also used for the holiday!

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An Ethiopian Christmas feast traditionally involves cooking chickens, sheep, or goats. The meat stew is served withnflat bread and no forks or spoons! People use the flatbread, calledninjeranbread, to scoop up mouthfuls of stew.

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