The Ethiopia Issue

Ohhh Ethiopia, really.....after which follows some long story about how they spent time in some other African country doing whatever and blah blah blah.

Lots of places, lots of people:

Ohhh Ethiopian, really, do you know so and so?

Walking to the movies, uniformed street sweeper in South Beach, Florida:

I knew you was from the islands girl. I knew it. Do they have more pretty girls like you over there?

Meeting with one of my neighbors for the first time in Austin, Texas:

Effiofia? Where is that? Somewhere in Africa?

Random stranger on a street in Manhattan:

I knew you were either from Ethiopia or Urethria? Ain't I right? You still got famine over there or are y'all doing all right now?

Talking to a cab driver in Rio de Janeiro:

Ethiopia, you guys are good runners. Yeah, I always watch you in races. There is Haile Gebremariam and the woman Fatuma (of course with great mispronunciation, but he at least knew the names). Yeah, I love running. Do you run? You know we say here that you guys are good runners because you always have to run away from the lions........HA HA HA HA.

A woman I meet for the first time at a party in Austin, Texas:

Ohhh Ethiopia, do you practice genital mutilation there?

Ethiopian convenient store worker:

Nesh inde, ennenma tiq'ur messelshiN.

Early eighties, I am a little over ten years old exiting a Thrifty's in Los Angeles, double scoops of ice cream in hand. Three very tall, bearded, dreadlocked, Jamaican men dressed like diaq'ons from church:

No reply, as I watched with my mouth open, they, all three, bowed down to the ground. I walk away, with my friends asking me what the hell just happened.