My Soul to Keep- The Movie

Movies based on books, as far as we are concerned here at SELEDA, are the best inventions since them easily forgeable QebellE mastaweQia cards. Taddiyama, when the book/soon-to-be movie is partially set in Ethiopia… a moment please while we thank Qulibiew Mike for this unearthly blessing… ay yante neger…

First Endurance and now My Soul to Keep… it seems that Hollywood is taking notice of Ethiopia… and soon there shall be plenty, as our well-placed Hollywood sources tell us. (Ok… we got no sources… but it sounded imposing, no?)

Blair ("hold us tight and never let go") Underwood brings Tananarive Due's much-acclaimed book to the big screen. My Soul to Keep, "part love story, part supernatural thriller", is about a wife in America who discovers her husband is part of a 500-year-old sect of Ethiopian intellectuals who traded their souls for immortality. (Unlike us who would trade our souls for a fabulous l'il rekebot… but that's why no one is doing a movie about us!)

Mr. ("wui! Toppiyawii aymeslm?") Underwood had the fortitude to film part of My Soul to Keep in Ethiopia with Ethiopian filmmaker Yemane "we are ga-ga for Gr-Gr" Demissie in tow as Line Producer, which explains the killer scenes of Ethiopia in the trailer. Slated to come out this fall, this is one movie worth shelling $9.50 for.

Check out the trailer and synopsis of My Soul to Keep. And here's to more of our own filmmakers telling our stories in our voices.

Mesob.org

Finally feeling like you should actually do something worthwhile than spending interminable nights at Bravo! Bravo! trying to read lips and drown out sorrows? Well, you are way ahead of us already. Here, wake up the deadened nerves connecting us to back home… pick a cause, any cause. You can't find a cause? Here comes Mesob.org to the rescue. You an ET tree hugger looking for same? Right there… Mesob has listed environmental NGOs and groups where all y'all can deliberate hibiscus meniscus. Education issues? AIDS awareness issues? Support group for SELEDAwiyan? There, there, not there but understandable.

The point is, and God knows we try to make one once in a while, this devastatingly organized page has gobs of informative information on where you can get information about doing the right thing. The rest is up to you.

Check out Mesob.org. Change your life.

KIDMIA

We have to have meetings at SELEDA in groups no bigger than three people because… well, that minor incident a few months back… "accidental stabbing"… yadda… yadda… "disturbing the peace"… Ye ferenjie neger…. Hulu neger "felony" hono indEt yhonal??? ECH!

Unlike us, though, the people at Kidmia.com, a group of Ethiopian parents in Arlington, Texas, have set up what seems like a peaceful organization to help their American-born children retain an Ethiopian identity. WOW.

Mission: "Our goal is to help our children grow into exemplary individuals who are able to identify themselves with their motherland Ethiopia."

And we ain't talking about "identity" as in parents dressing their kids in Gap-like abesha lbss and taking them to church once a week either! ("Sweetie… you feel like going to that place filled with smoke? The place with the drums? Do you, sweetie?") NO! The kids at Kidmia study Ethiopian geography and history; learn language and the cultural relevance of holidays (er… do they know that TnsaE is not "that Spring Midnight Ball" as upper management refers to it?)

We are impressed and humbled and inspired… and as soon as SELEDA chil'rens are born, we are moving to Arlington, Texas to be close to people who are serious of leaving a lasting legacy.

Learn more about Kidmia.com.

East African Fine Coffee Association- EAFCA

We have long believed that Juan Valdez, the dorky 'spokesperson' (he don't speak… he just has that goofy smile) for Colombian coffee is the anti-Christ. Just a little conclusion we came to after drinking libations that did not contain caffeine. How is it that Colombian coffee makers can get their product to the American market, and we can't?

Well, finally, the people at EAFCA are righting this egregious wrong. EAFCA is a promotion group set up by East African coffee growers (member countries are Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda) to auction off gourmet coffee beans on the Internet. Selling coffee futures to greedy Wall Streeters? Out! Being at the mercy of world coffee prices? Sooooo out! Being known as a second tier market? Outer than out!

More exciting is the formation of appellations (just like the French wine regions) for coffee. Right up there is Ethiopia's own YirgaCHeffE, slated to be one of the first regions promoted.

We love the EAFCA, and we would love it even more if it had a SELEDA brand coffee-catchy promo: "Guaranteed to make you dizzy and bouncy. Proven to kill 100 brain cells per microsecond."

Here is a great article on this… Also check out www.eafca.org. May it live long and prosper.

Want to see more of the same? Click here for past SELEDA Salutes