A few weeks ago, I resolved to write a somewhat snarky blog-post referencing that Band-Aid classic “Do They Know It’s Christmas“, a song written & performed by a number of top recording artists around Christmas 1984 in order to raise funds for and awareness of famine in Ethiopia.
The wonderful irony of the song, of course, being that Christmas in Britain in 1984 wasn’t Christmas in Ethiopia at all- so they most certainly didn’t know it was Christmas at that time, as it would have had very little meaning to them.
Today- January 7th- is Christmas, according to the Ethiopian Orthodox (Ge’ez) calendar- 13 days after western (ferenji) Christmas. So, Merry Christmas from Ethiopia!
And, whatever I might have written about the irony of that song title, with a little snark mixed in, and perhaps a sideways comment about the importance of knowing your context before blundering in and making assumptions, fellow blogger and fellow Addis resident Brett Keller got there first about two weeks ago with a very nice pithy summary, so I’ll direct you to that instead.
Malkam Genna!
-MA
