Fasil —

It seems as though the cyber-space screechings of Seleda editors refuses to abate till the question of Ityopia agere gara shentererewa is addressed. Where do they think Yeneta and Arogite with their biliCH dirgim tales hail from, I ask you?? MeTne yenesus neger iyalku, I send you a brief entry of a day in my life with the how, when and if Ethiopia graced me with an appearance or otherwise turned a corner, chuckling coyly. Before I launch into it all, I must thank you for such a pleasurable journey … there’s nothing quite as beautiful as imagination in flight… inna fly robin fly ilihalehu…

The moon a luminous eye in the sky … Gebre Kristos whispers, "Mn alech CHereka/bemeskotish gebta/sitneka fitishin/tedegifa algashin? I think about him while blowing streams of his poetry underwater in a pool all to myself one New Year’s eve in Addis Aba …I think about his words caught in the unabashed act of making beauty, the explosion of circles in his paintings and how his very skin was canvas …

I continue my wade into a thickening mass of swirling family alliances that I must pick my ginger way through, find the threads and braid them. Notions of a nation forged, a togetherness visualized and the constant thinly sheathed pain held in place by duty to the motherland visit my mind. I have a thirst for the pouring sounds of Tilahun and he obliges with "Sithed siketelat" (such yearning) and "Meleyayet mot new" (such finality).

I attend a talk on "Drinking the Word of God" — Islamic practices in Zender (Niger) and Bonduku (Ivory Coast). Inscriptions of the Koran, painstakingly rendered on wooden slabs are washed off and used as Tsebel. Slides of children wearing amulets against harms real and imagined flash across the projector. Assab’s sun, salt and sea traverse on tiptoes across my soul. I am seized with a need to make a huge amulet to protect the spirits of Ethiopia and re-align our own sense of well-being.

A man bussing tables at the restaurant looks like kinfolk. I pose the delicate question and he responds that he is from Addis Aba. The English rides uncomfortably on his Amharic intonation but my own efforts to bring respite in the form of Amharic words casually inserted are ignored. Fractured stories fall from his lips about his past peppered with his conviction that a history of the people, that of absolute truth, must be written for Ethiopia. I wonder about his krrir mrrir yale stance against different perspectives or interpretations, and his immediate dismissal of a dialogue of possibilities.

Is the flair that berberE brings to any dish it’s invited to … It is the playful percolation of shiro bubbles that, yemyashofu meselew, burn their presence upon my cautious hand at least once. I sense the desolation of a scarred and traumatized collective psyche emptied of such imaginative risings and hope for creative channels to direct our love, sharpen our instincts for tolerance, alleviate the plagues and pains of poverty, displacement, and indifference. I wrap myself up in my red tilet gabi, its warmth exuding comfort against my naked skin as the muse beckons me to a place where Ethiopia’s vibrant existence is real, and the Ityopia lezelalem tinur buna bEt in Kazanchis is renamed Isuma owo! I believe mystic poet Rumi on this, that fish would never run out of water to swim in and birds would never run out of sky in which to fly.

Heran

Heran — TenayistiliN.

Before I plunge headlong into whatever my cornered imagination might be kind enough to squirt through the nib of my bi’ir onto the ashen barrenness of the paper mutely staring at me, I must say that your bereka (definitely not the third draw of the coffee my own Maritu pours from the jebena into the fnjal) was worth the wait. Endiaw baCHiru: malefia malefia malefia new.

The sky weeping copiously, unloading what it has scoured from the seven seas onto the denuded land. Infinite clouds being squeezed not to nourish but to punish. Vein like rivulets swelling into vicious streams, frenziedly combing the rocky expanse in search of booty to carry off and scatter across an ocean of sand. Shrill thunderclaps interspersed with burrowing rumbles prodding deep into the earth’s innards. The firmament incandescent as if a wrathful god were dissecting it every which way with a white-hot sword. And I am trying to lull myself to sleep, in vain, because unlike the comforting whisper of a gentle shower, this torrent battering the zinc roof conjures up the horror of an apocalyptic hailstorm. Mercifully, the storm abates as suddenly as it has come, and gives way to profound rreCHta. Relieved, I am slowly drifting off to sleep when Gash Molla, the perennial drunk, passes by on his way home, disturbing the doff-cleansed neighborhood with a raunchy serenade in his molasses voice:

Mistim alageba lasabim alchekul
Andu yagebatin eQemsalehu yekul

True to his word, he has remained a bachelor.

My heart sinks as I crawl out of my bed because it is only Thursday and there is school waiting for me. On my way out, I dawdle in front of a neighbor’s house making fun of the little Welansa as she squats, over a steaming swirl of what looks like a baby rattle snake ready to pounce, with her doro dabbo split open to the morning sun.

A new teacher has come to our school — a potbellied, spindle-legged alcoholic halfwit who looks like a giant pear on stilts. He is mean beyond words and gets a kick out of terrorizing us. Two days ago, he rapped Lulit’s knuckles with a ruler and wouldn’t stop until she begged for mercy while hugging his knees. The reason? He had earlier barked at her to make a sentence using the Amharic word "hiyaw", and scared witless, she had whimpered: "Abebe hiyawun bellaw."

At the public buanbua wuha, a bunch of women with big clay pots are raising pandemonium because someone has upset the stones they have lined up as queue markers. Teshome’s mother is the one who shrieks the loudest. When she thinks she is treated badly, which is almost always, her eyes become as big as eggs and her nostrils flare like those of a furious bull. She has a loud shrill voice that can outshout any of the women’s in our neighborhood, and no one knows as many vicious words of insult as she does. Kids are afraid to touch her sons because when they do, she goes to their houses and harangues their mothers, and that will mean a whipping for them.

We are wild with joy because it is Friday evening. Saturday is just around the corner, Qidame Ehudin argizo / yefenTeziya feres yizo… We play soccer in front of the famous Tej-bEt because we know we have a better chance of wheedling money from drunks to start our yesport budin. The name of the Tej-bEt: "YeSoviet Kominnist Party Kegonachin New Tej-BEt"

As twilight falls, a man from the rich part of town pompously strolls by with his son and we all halt pounding the ball and gawk at them. Tilahun, the Tella kommari’s son, enviously watches the rich kid’s bright shoes while scratching his belly through a rip in his shirt and munching on an unsightly slab of yeTella QiTTa his mother has thrown him for mekses. The rich man’s kid turns to his dad with goggle eyes and says:

"Abbaye Abbaye ya lij gidgidawun bellaw!!"
And the father gravely admonishes: "Abbi, besew gidgida ayagebahim!"

Cher YigTemen.

Fasil.