Students in the Ethiopian diaspora reflect on the beginning of the New Year

Photo courtesy of Abigel Nahu Asteraye ’25.
The younger sister of Abigel Nahu Asteraye ’25 celebrates the Ethiopian New Year on Sept. 11.

By Cynthia Akanaga ’25

Global Editor

For Ethiopians home and abroad, Sunday, Sept. 11, marked the beginning of the new year — or Enkutatash in Amharic. For Ethiopians in the diaspora, celebrating Enkutatash looked very different from back home.

Ethiopia is one of the few countries in the world that makes use of its own calendar. The East African country uses the Ge’ez calendar, which is seven to eight years behind the Western Gregorian calendar. On the Ethiopian calendar, there are 13 months in a year. 12 of these months each have 30 days. The last month, Pagume, has five days — or six days in a leap year. This makes September, called Meskerem in Amharic, the first month of the year. Other than the unique calendar, September also ushers in the period of bright skies after a long period of rain.

Abigel Nahu Asteraye ’25, a Mount Holyoke student from Ethiopia, detailed how Enkutatash is celebrated in Ethiopia. “New Year is certainly one heck of a time to be back home. The festivities usually start a week before the actual day. You would see the streets fill out with food, spices, cattle — you name it,” she said. “The already bustling Addis Ababa would even seem more lively than ever. The vendors will be filled with adey abeba, an endemic yellow daisy that only comes out during New Year.”

“You miss the smell and view of adey abeba — a unique type of flower that blooms for the New Year — and it’s not a surprise if your stomach sinks drowning in nostalgia ... You just let it be and let it pass with the best that [you’ve] got.”

— Salem Weldegebriel

She also described the Chibo, which is associated with the end of the rainy season. She continued, “Let’s not forget the Chibo. These are bonfires we light up on the eve of the New Year, symbolizing the beginning of a new season — bright and hopeful, now that the rainy season has ended. Gathered around with family and friends, watching these torches light up, it’s hard not to feel the flames of the new beginnings light up from within.”

Behind the festivities brought on by the celebration lies the overarching theme of hope.

Salem Weldegebriel, an Ethiopian student at Gustavus Adolphus College explained, “This celebration marks a new start. There’s this tradition done during the New Year’s Eve where a unique kind of amalgamated sticks designed for this very purpose are lit up on fire and family and neighbors would gather around singing the unique New Years song. … At about the end as the fire starts to die … everyone present takes turn in jumping from one side of the burning stick to the other. This action marks the transition — done with the old, and into the new. … That’s what New Year means to me. New chance, new everything. A new life awaits if acted upon.”

“New Year is certainly one heck of a time to be back home. The festivities usually start a week before the actual day. You would see the streets fill out with food, spices, cattle — you name it. The already bustling Addis Ababa would even seem more lively than ever. The vendors will be filled with adey abeba, an endemic yellow daisy that only comes out during New Year.”

— Abigel Nahu Asteraye ’25

Asteraye further explained how much the New Year means to her personally. “New Year is literally the epitome of social events for me. It brings family members who might have not seen each for a while to come and visit. At the same time, it’s also a time for introspection, where I get to look ahead and make resolutions for the coming year.”

Weldegebriel drew the contrast between the celebration at home and here in the U.S.

 “Back home, … the very words trigger memory, a kind of memory that imbues ever fresh nostalgia,” she said. “The contrast is ever clear cause here there’s no chime of neighbors and family gathered for the holiday. … Here, the best you get away with is perhaps [gathering] with friends coming from where you come from.” 

She continued, “Here there’s no smell of coffee or freshly baked traditional bread, here there’s no smell of a rising incense from the coffee ceremony, here the best you get away with is perhaps a friend bringing you over some Ethiopian food from [an] Ethiopian restaurant and you gather to eat that and have a chat … and you miss it. You miss the smell and view of adey abeba — a unique type of flower that blooms for the New Year — and it’s not a surprise if your stomach sinks drowning in nostalgia … You just let it be and let it pass with the best that [you’ve] got.”

Asteraye echoed similar feelings of nostalgia. In terms of celebrating the new year in the U.S., she said, “We do try to create that sense of togetherness by hanging out together and grabbing some Ethiopian food on [the] New Year, but [it] still won’t feel anything close to how it is back home.”

Tanzania elects first female president

By Cynthia Akanaga ’25

Staff Writer

Last year on March 19, Tanzania joined the cohort of African countries with female leaders with the swearing in of Samia Suluhu Hassan, a Muslim Tanzanian woman, as head of state. In Tanzania, Hassan is widely referred to as Mama Samia. 

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “As the country’s former vice president, Hassan became the constitutionally mandated successor of late president John Magufuli after he allegedly died from COVID-19 in early March 2021.”

In her interview in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania, Hassan talked about the challenges with assuming the role of president in the country. “Most of the people couldn’t believe that we can have a woman president and she can deliver. The challenge was to create a trust in the people that yes, I can do it,” Hassan stated, as reported by The New York Times. 

Hassan has taken measures to make leadership in Tanzania more accessible to other women. According to The Conversation, “Nine of her cabinet ministers are women, which represents 36 percent, a six percentage point rise from the previous cabinet.”

Sarah Chohan ’24, a student from Tanzania, echoed the idea of the challenges women face in authority positions. “I’m a Muslim Tanzanian woman, and it’s nice to see the representation, especially as a president. … Right now, things are getting better as people are getting educated. But there’s still a lot of backward mindset. Tanzania is still quite, I’d say, conservative. So, I’m not going to lie — we didn’t see this coming, getting a Muslim president woman especially.”

In the same vein, Vanessa Dickson ’25, a first-year from Tanzania spoke about the double standards facing women. “As a woman, you have to do double the work than what the man does to show that you’re capable of delivering the tasks. I think for the longest time, the majority of the people didn’t believe that a woman could lead,” Dickson said. “By Mama Samia now being the person who is leading us as a nation, it’s proving that women can actually lead, and they’re capable of doing it. There is hope for the rest of the women in Tanzania because they have someone that they can look up to,” Dickson added.

Chohan and Dickson both emphasized the improvements Hassan has made for the tourism industry in Tanzania.

“Mama Samia is definitely opening up Tanzania to the world, especially with her recent trips to the U.S. and meeting with Kamala Harris. She’s advertising tourism in Tanzania, which I think is great because we do have amazing things. She’s trying to put Tanzania on the international map, ” Chohan said.

Dickson also highlighted how much Hassan has done for the country’s tourism. She stated, “Personally, I really love [her]. I love what she’s doing for the nation, and one of the things that I really like that she’s doing is within the tourism industry. One of the things she talked about … [was] that many people, when you meet them and you tell them where you’re from, … don’t know it. They’re like, ‘Where’s that?’ Now, she’s made this new film called [Tanzania: The Royal Tour]. It’s a way to promote tourism in the nation and people are able to see Tanzania for what it is.” 

Hassan met with Harris on April 15 in Washington, during which she announced this “Royal Tour program … to showcase Tanzania’s touristic and investment potentials,” according to the White House. Hassan’s meeting with Harris also yielded “the investment of nearly $1 billion from American companies in Tanzania’s tourism and energy sectors,” as reported by VOA News.

“On April 18th, I attended the premiere of the Tanzania: [The] Royal Tour documentary in New York,” Hassan wrote in a Twitter post. “The one-hour documentary shot in Tanzania will promote our country’s unique and unrivaled tourism attractions and investment opportunities to a global audience.” 

In addition to her focus on tourism, Chohan also shed light on how Hassan responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, including how she publicly received her vaccine dose to encourage the citizens to also get vaccinated. 

Chohan stated, “Mama Samia is accepting that vaccinations are out there, [that] we need to get them, [that] they’re necessary, and [that] she believes in the science of it. I believe in the science of vaccinations too, so I agree with her. Tanzanians, for the most part, were very hesitant, and they were resisting the vaccinations.” Chohan continued, “I think her openly taking the vaccinations was more of showing support that, like, ‘I’m also with you guys.’ We’re all in this together,’ kind of thing. I think that was a really good initiative from her because [Some didn’t] believe in the science of it.”

According to CSIS, “As of March 2022, approximately 4.5 percent of Tanzanians are vaccinated against COVID-19. This is impressive given Tanzania’s late start to COVID-19 precautions as well as the pervasive public resistance toward the vaccine.”

Dickson stated, “We’re building relationships with various countries, which is a good thing because it helps both economies and the people of both nations.”