Enkutatash: Ethiopian New Year Calendar and a Workshop at Rekebot Ethiopia Newcastle
There is one week in the Ethiopian year when the long rains finally lift, the highlands dry out overnight, and the whole country turns yellow at once. That week is almost here. On 11 September 2026 Ethiopia will wake up in the year 2019 — and if you are a long way from home, that sentence is either a comfort or a puzzle.
This is our attempt at both: a short guide to the calendar we keep, the New Year we call እንቁጣጣሽ, and an invitation to come and fold paper flowers with us in Newcastle.
A calendar of thirteen months
Ethiopia keeps its own calendar, and it is a beautifully tidy one. Twelve months of exactly thirty days each — no thirty-one, no awkward February — and then a thirteenth month called ጳጉሜን which is only five days long, or six in a leap year, tucked in at the end to catch the calendar up with the sun.
The year opens on the first day of መስከረም. It runs roughly seven to eight years behind the Gregorian calendar, because Ethiopia never adopted the later Western recalculation of the date of the Annunciation and stayed with the older reckoning.
The day is measured differently too. The Ethiopian clock starts at sunrise rather than midnight, so what a British diary calls seven in the morning is simply one o’clock at home — the first hour of the light. It is one of those small differences that, once you have lived with it, makes perfect sense.
The year at a glance
New Year’s Day — መስከረም 1, which falls on 11 September 2026
The year beginning — 2019 in the Ethiopian reckoning
Months — thirteen: twelve of thirty days, plus ጳጉሜን
Also marked that day — ቅዱስ ዮሐንስ, the feast of St John
Next in the season — መስቀል, on 27 September
እንቁጣጣሽ — the gift of jewels
The name carries a story. When the Queen of Sheba returned to Ethiopia from her journey to Jerusalem, the chiefs are said to have welcomed her home with jewels — enku. The greeting stuck, and the New Year has been the day of the gift ever since.
Alongside it runs the older, quieter reading: the end of the rains as the end of the flood, the dove returning, the water going down and the ground showing itself again. Both stories say the same thing in the end. Something heavy has passed, and what comes next is bright.
The greeting
መልካም አዲስ ዓመት!
Melkam Addis Amet — Happy New Year
The flower that does the announcing
You always know before anyone tells you. In መስከረም the meadows fill with አደይ አበባ — a small yellow daisy that arrives in such numbers it turns whole hillsides gold. Children go out and come back with armfuls.
On New Year’s morning the girls put on white dresses, take the flowers from door to door with a drawing they have made, and sing አበባዮሽ. The boys carry ቴቦ, bundled torches, and sing ሆያ ሆዬ. Every house gives something back — bread, a coin, a handful of roasted grain.
Here in Newcastle the meadow does not oblige. So we make the flowers ourselves, out of paper, and they last the whole season.
From the workshop table
Photographs from last year’s Adey Abeba workshop.
Come and make one with us
From 10 August to 10 September our table in Newcastle is given over to paper, scissors and yellow. Everyone is welcome — you do not need to be Ethiopian, and you do not need to be good at making things. There is coffee on, roasted and brewed the proper way, and by the time you leave you will have a flower to take home and a year to look forward to.
Come with children, come with friends, or come on your own and sit with whoever is at the table. That, more than anything, is the point of it.
Making አደይ አበባ — workshop details
Dates — 10 August to 10 September
Days — Monday to Saturday
Time — from 2pm
Where — Rekebot Ethiopia, 115A New Bridge Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2SW
Cost — free with any order; materials provided
Reserve a table
Sit down to coffee, injera and doro wat, and take a paper አደይ አበባ home with you. Book ahead so we can keep a place at the table.
Or call 07481 156121 · 115A New Bridge Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 2SW