Final Preparations for the Sigd Festival

Since mid-October, when we began our unit of study about the Beta Yisrael edah (Diaspora community) of Ethiopia, we've accomplished quite a bit in our exploration of its history and culture:

• Watched YouTube videos to learn what little we know of their early history, and much more about their recent history in the 20th century in Ethiopia, and their rescue by Israeli forces in 1984 (Operation Moses) and 1991 (Operation Solomon);
• Read "The Storyteller's Beads" novel, learning their versions of Biblical stories and how their Christian neighbors called them 'Falasha' - aliens or strangers - believing that they turned into hyenas at night, could poison food by just looking at it, and were the embodiment of the buda (the evil spirit);
• Listened to CD's to hear their religious chants; 
• Practiced speaking Amharic (their everyday language) and read a line from the Book of Enoch in their ritual language, Ge'ez;
• Tried out our skills as basket weavers to develop an appreciation of their craftsmanship;
• Discovered how their proverbs reflected their environment and values, writing skits in which we created scenarios to teach those values in more modern day settings; and
• Prepared a sweet dough snack called Dabo Kolo which they ate to break the fast during the Sigd Festival 

Our final project this past week was to design four posters - one for each of the proverbs we discussed in class. These posters will serve as scenery backdrop for the skits the students will be presenting during the Sigd Festival this coming Sunday, the culminating event for this unit of study.

First there was a brainstorming session within each group, to figure out how best to depict the proverb they were assigned:

Then it was time to execute the ideas generated during the brainstorming session.

There were a lot of materials I had set out for the students to use, and part of the brainstorming session involved figuring out which materials would best convey their assigned proverbs.

Since the Gondar Province where the Beta Yisrael lived is mostly composed of mountainous jungles, it wasn't surprising to see most of the groups using the plastic vegetation I had set out. The problem was figuring out the best way to make sure the relatively heavy foliage would remain on the poster board after it was hung up. One group decided to staple it on...

...while another group put their faith in scotch tape.

While some students were dealing with how to get the foliage to stay on the poster board, others were already beginning to create life forms found in the jungle relating to their assigned proverb.

Here's a body of water to break up the jungle scene - do you think there's enough glue to attach it?!

Once they had decided on the design of their posters and the materials to use, the students all worked so well together to execute their ideas.

They quickly figured out who would perform each task.

The result was quite impressive.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at the Sigd Festival on Sunday. May the day live up to its name so we can look forward to good weather for our "climb up the mountain."

Post note:  Following our Sigd Festival, I brought the posters back to the school building, and hung them up on one of our Edot hallway bulletin boards. If you didn't get a chance to see them at the Festival, you can now see them outside our classroom: