We love the big get togethers. We love the drama. The sharing of emotion. The food. The ceremony. Numerologically correct rememberances. Unending reciprocations. The draining of bank accounts. The loonng entourages. The crowded (and seemingly interminable) church services. The exhaustion brought on by physical and emotional drain. The "who showed up and who didn't", "who was told and who wasn't". The professional crooners. The jumping, shouting, screaming, shaking. The very publicness of every minute of it. The flirtations, the polite nods, new introductions, long overdue reunions.

Take a coin and toss it. It might land on "serg", or then again on "leqso". Either way we challenge you to tell us which social event the above paragraph describes. And having introduced one challenge, we go with another and ask you to write to us about the serg and leqso's, the serg enna selest, the nfro and nuptials, the musho and mels, that you have experienced, dreaded or imagined. Write it, rhyme it, draw it or even... ahem... "volunteer" it from an unsuspecting wedding album. But we would like you to share those with us for our upcoming issue Just submit them to editors@seleda.com by August 25, 2002. .

2015

No, we are not talking about the new Dollar to nakfa exchange rate (13.55), nor the number of islands in the Federation of Micronesia (607), or even the number of genes a fruitfly has (13,000).

2015 is that number on the calendar, still far away and yet tantalizingly close, of a future just beyond. Having asked seledans to tell us about a past or a present, we now would like you all to peer into your own future. Will you change as a person, or will the world change your person? Can you entertain the possibility that you can get measured up for a replacement (organic) eye on your way to get measured for your wedding dress? Or that you may just hop into the Tefer Teqqes plane for that afternoon tennis game in the enToTTo mountains and be back to attend your neighbors dinner in Sacramento, Ca?

Or better yet, how about those things that really matter? To love and to be loved? Your imagined child and that moment when those of us who have none get the chance to truthfully exclaim "aynEn be aynE ayehut"? The job vs the bliss that also finances your comfort? Happiness, fulfillment, disappointment, sorrow - can you imagine them all? Can you imagine a path that you can look back in the year 2015 and say that the interveninig years have been fruitful, enjoyable, blessed?

We won't be pedantic and quibble whether you choose the European calendar or the Ethiopian. We just want you to either extrapolate from your present, or simply imagine something completely different. And most importantly, send us your visions by September 25, 2002.