7 years

During lunch I spoke with the head of the center where we work. He sat across from me as we both scooped up our wat with injera bread. We began to talk about the national holiday coming up next month, Awade Day, which is to commemorate a 19^th century victory of the Ethiopian army over Italian colonialists. According to the western “Gregorian” calendar, the battle took place in 1896, but the Ethiopian “Julian” calendar marks it at 1889. That’s because the Ethiopian calendar is 7 to 8 years behind the western one, and they just celebrated the millennium last year--on September 11, 2008 on our calendar. So from January to September the calendars are 8 years apart, and September to December are 7 years apart.