By Scott Gutierrez, SeattlePI.com

Ethiopians in Seattle rejoiced last year as they ushered in the new millennium on the Ethiopian calendar.

This week, they said goodbye to 2000 and embraced 2001. Thursday marked New Year’s Day on the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar and a celebration is planned for this weekend.

The Ethiopian Orthodox calendar is based on the old Coptic and Roman calendars and falls almost eight years behind Western calendars. About half of Ethiopia’s 80 million people are Orthodox Christian.

On Sunday, the Northgate Community Center, will host a free New Year’s event starting at 3 p.m. There will be food, cultural dancing and a fashion show. The event was partially paid for with money from the Seattle Neighborhood Matching Funds, said Wubeshet Assefa, chairman of the Ethiopian Educational Cultural and Sport Center.

Assefa, who lives with his wife, Mekdes Bekele, and has three children, helped organize last year’s millennium celebration and was interviewed by the P-I.

He fled Ethiopia 27 years ago as a political refugee and moved to Dallas before settling in Seattle on Labor Day in 1990.

He sees the celebration as a chance to unite all Ethiopians and to pass on traditions to the younger generations.

“On the New Year, we have hope. And, hopefully, we will have peace and the economy will come around,” he said.

Also, there will be a New Year’s service at St. Gebirel Church, built by the local Ethiopian community in the Central District, beginning at 9 a.m.

“This is the beginning of a new century. There is a lot of excitement, although people are not as excited as they were a year ago. But we look forward to a great century. I’ve had a very good and wonderful year,” said Ezra Teshome, a community leader who helped get the church built.

Teshome heads next month to Ethiopia on one of his many humanitarian trips to provide polio vaccinations.

– Information provided by staff reporter Scott Gutierrez
Posted by Hector Castro at September 13, 2008 12:58 p.m.