Negarit 305: Merry Christmas and New Year
Holidays, festivals, and celebrations are days to escape the grind of life and unwind. Christmas is one of those holidays.
Before independence, though life choked with oppression and was brutal, we still remember it with nostalgia. Eritreans enjoyed a few holidays that we still cherish the memories despite the tragedies. Anything with limited supply is dear; so were holidays. The major celebrations were holidays like Eid, Meskel, Fasiga, and Christman and New Year that competed against Lidet and Qdus Yohannes. Gregorian calendar against Geez calendar. But there were other holidays that were not celebrated or not considered a big deal.
If you want to know which holidays are dear to Eritreans, check out how they were celebrated and if they had incentives or not. Are sheep, goats, or even a chicken sacrificed? If so, it’s important. Do children get new clothes if their parents could afford it, and if sweets and other goodies are served? If yes, it is also a very important holiday. If there are no rewards, it’s not that important a holiday.
Ramadan is a holy and spiritual month, but no celebrations. However, it came with rewards like running on the streets with drums receiving the month… and exotic food. If there were no special food like Mushebek and Legemat, Muslims would have just fasted and prayed; it would have been a normal month.
There were also several forced holidays that were mostly ignored or not even remembered. For instance, the Ethiopian occupation had imposed commemoration days like the victory of Adwa, where Ethiopia defeated the Italian colonizers. And there were other strange days like Crown Day; imagine! We were forced to celebrate Haile Selassie’s coronation day. Officially, all commercial places were supposed to hoist the Ethiopian flag; it was mandatory. Otherwise, a municipal penalty of 1 or 2 Ethiopian Birr must be paid. Why would Eritrean celebrate the day of the crown that was occupying their country and oppressing them?
I loved the trivial days that many traditionalists celebrated. My aunt celebrated the day of Sheikh Abdusalam of Emba-Derho. She made sure to catch the bus early in the morning and travel to the village of Emba-Derho and return home in the afternoon. I never knew who Shiekh Abdusalam was or why he was important to her and many people. All I know is he is considered a pious man, and he meant a lot to my aunt.
Next door to our house lived Adey Mizan and Adey Mle’te, two lovely sisters from Shmanegus; I can’t remember laalay or taHtay. They were the equivalent of my aunt Dahab and celebrated the days of a few holy people. They gave popcorn and sweets to the children.
But the champion of the commemorated holy men was Sheikh AbdulKadir Jilani, for whom Wednesdays were reserved. The men didn’t care much about him, but for the women, they revered him! I think he was an excuse for them to party every Wednesday, and they would have long coffee ceremonies. They went from one house to another and sipped coffee for hours—I wonder if they created a coffee bean shortage in the neighborhood stores.
But the Queen of festivals in Keren is St. Mary of Daari Day. It’s a pilgrimage where people flock to the shrine of the Black Mary of Daari. Kerenite scattered elsewhere made sure to return their hometown to visit families and participate in the Mariam Daari festivals. You might not believe it, but on that day the streets of Keren would be full of cars (okay, a few taxis and private cars) and overwhelm Keren. Sergeant Bahta, the only traffic policeman in town, will speed from one end to the other end of the two-kilometer town street on his motorcycle. He would be busy checking the traffic jams alone until in the town assigned Sergeant Negash as a second traffic policeman in town.
The only seven traffic lights in Keren (Google it if you wish) were not enough to regulate the traffic. and the municipality had to rent all the traffic lights in Asmara for a day, and usually they returned them to Asmara on the next day. Asmara had a total of ten traffic lights that serve the city to this day.
Natale, Christmas, reminds me of my father—influenced by his Italian associates in Asmara, he brought us a package that we opened on Christmas day. That’s when I was introduced to the Swiss Toblerone Chocolate bars and Panettone. It was a reason why I restlessly waited for Christmas Day.
Incidentally, how many holidays and commemorations are there in Eritrea under the PFDJ?
Of course, the original four are still limping; now there are several additional festivals, but mainly Independence Day and Martyrs’ Day. I would wish two days were reserved for reflection, days to remind people to safeguard the achievement (independence) and to give respect for those who paid the ultimate price to make it happen (martyrs). The rest of the PFDJ festivals are just clutter, useless, over supply of holidays… and that, as I mentioned earlier, oversupply decreases the value of holidays—particularly uncountable commercial holidays that keep increasing.
This Christmas came with sad news; a few days ago, I learned of the death of my teenage years friend Aklilu Isaac. I last saw Aklilu fifty years ago; he loved Christmas, and we never met or talked to each other ever since. Years ago, I learned that he was living in America and tried to locate him for many years to no avail. I gave up, and time went on!
Finally, I found out about his death through a Facebook obituary. It was sad. May he rest in peace, and may his loved ones get the strength to cope with the loss.
I hate to twist this seemingly innocent narration and make my point
What do you feel when such incidents happen to you—losing your childhood friend with whom you have been separated for too long due to the bad governance at home? Are you enraged whenever a dear one, someone you loved, an old friend, or just a neighbor dies? Are you outrageously angry because you can’t travel home to even dance the day away at Marriam Daari?
That happens to me always, especially in May! I get angry because I know even if I tried, I wouldn’t be able to genuinely celebrate if the cruel, unelected, oppressive PFDJ military rule prevails. It’s the military ruling Eritrea, Asker PFDJ. The alternative is to show a fake happy face and celebrate the holidays with you.
Merry Christmas and New Year!
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