Fifty years of Accessories and Status Symbols used by Classy-Sassy-So-So-Siddiddy Ethiopian women.

By: Sza-Sza Zelleke

The sheer black rayon and polyester shash is firmly bound around my buttered hair and head to form a berfect black balloon. This beautiful black bubble must be bordered with blastic to reduce the flow of melting butter to a manageable moistness at the nape of the neck. The telltale trickle will be wiped away in regular dainty strokes with a delicate mehareb, a mehareb that has been marinated in odocoloN (eau de cologne). Was I born with a silver spoon? Well, a wooden one, anyway, and not in my mouth. The same lega QibiI put on my head has been melted down and carefully poured down my nose with my wooden spoon, on many occasions. Butter on the head? Butter down the nose? "What for? What for?" you ask. To purify my blood, and preserve my bones of course! Ah...the purity of blood, the essence of bone, one simply cannot buy it, nor doesn it change through time. You see, dear Seleda reader, the best things in life are...well, er, inherited, and, once inherited, they should be maintained and preserved. In our culture, blood and bone is preserved by butter and in the end, it's all about blood and bone. One counts the bones and questions the quality of blood and bile.... Yemanew lij? Yemannat lij? Yemanew? Yemanat? Who are these great pretenders?

1990 - 2000: The Bush Babe. She used to be thin but she's fat now. A bush babe once wild and fighting free, now fat and fashionable. She wears a man's leather jacket and sits astride on the balegi wenber in the sleazy dark bar in Addis Ababa's Olympia sefer. Leaning to her left, she intentionally exposes her holstered pistol on her right. Her special service security officer walkie-talkie sits in plain view on the bar counter. The security equipment being the STATUS SYMBOL of the moment. She flicks the fringe of her long "African Braids" that took hours to finish by the terrified staff at Sunshine Salon. She tosses the latest version of her shoorooba off her forehead and scarred brow (yetebeTa Qindib is also currently a status symbol) and she gruffly orders another drink..."Bwa, tolo bel inji, Goitom, mindinew shigiroo? " She wears THE ACCESSORY to have and to hold in Ethiopia today. It adorns not only her neck but also the halls of hotels and homes throughout the land: the Axum stellae. This is today's "classy lady;" commanding respect and fear, envy and awe wherever she goes. All are attentive to her every whim, all fight for her delight.

1970-1990: The Woman In Red. It was the same a decade ago, when the wives and daughters of the "men in blue" were considered equally classy. These women in red are the spouses and offspring of the elite blue-khaki-wearing-eessapaco-cadres. They did not carry walkie-talkies, their STATUS SYMBOL was ...the passport. Harder to get than a leopard's clitoris, the Ethiopian passport and special red mettaweQia allowed "classy ladies" to go abroad. In Addis it meant they could shop in special places to buy what they liked. Buying what you liked and going where you wanted to go had quickly become a luxury in those days. These "classy" women stuffed their fat feet full of corns into soft leather Italian sandals that exposed their mujeli-ed toes. The overstuffed sandals arrogantly pushed the pedals of the the Accessory of that era: A white white Toyota DX. The ultimate accessory of this era was indeed a car with the DX giving way to the pajjarro. "We are going to Soderi," they would boast...(Whatever for? None of them knew how to swim!)

1950-1970: Modern Lives And Modern Wives. It was the modern wives with modern lives who knew how to swim. They lived in imperial times and swam at the Hilton pool in the morning, the Itege Menen Hotel pool in Nazareth in the afternoon, then Soderi in the evening. They swam during camping trips by the Awash, and Omo Rivers - hell, they swam in the Red Sea. They spoke French, listened to the news in French on the radio in Addis, they lived in Ferensai Legacion and Casa Popolare and bought the French daily paper on Churchill Godana on the way to an Italian milla folle or Pizza at Horoscopo in Piassa where they would stop to buy a good book from Gianapoulos. The classy lady of this time had only one vital accessory. The Accessory was a can of hairspray. Lots of it was needed to sustain the huge bouffant which rose above her educated head. She slipped delicate cornless feet into dainty but deadly sharp-nosed stilettos and would not be caught dead in an abesha Qemis. The status symbol was the foreign degrees earned from England, France, USA and oh no, not India. This quickly turned into competition for their children's schools which also became status symbols. Sanford, Nazareth, St Joseph, Good Shepherd and oh no... not ACS. Understated accessories to die for from Teclu Desta, dance steps for the daring from Mary Armiday's school of visual arts and no wedding complete without the 30-piece armed forces orchestra singing "Ere beketemaw, CHirash behageru, ineman neberu. Indeed.

Today in Ethiopia, social experiments continue to be tried out. Without a shadow of a doubt however, three undeniable facts have emerged from the trial and error of tribalism, the so-called knowledge of modernist monarchs and the pseudo-science of socialism. We now know for a fact that blood and bone will not be nurtured into being what it is not. It has not been nationalized into oblivion and it definitely cannot be cut up and classified into kilils. It is true, the fever of class and clan confusion continues to rage over our body politic and the Alzheimer's disease that has set upon the very soul of our society is causing it to forget social and cultural borders, deny even the nations physical ones. But though we suffer from this partially self-induced mass social amnesia, Ethiopians still continue to ask, "Yemanew lij? Yemanat lij?" Yemanew? Yemanat?

Those who are lucky and proud enough to be born with wooden spoons in our noses, we will continue to preserve our blood and bone wherever we may be: from Bulga to Badme, from Bedelle to Boh, from Bichena to Borena, from Bole to Berbere Terra, from Butta Jirra to Balchee Terrara, from Boston to Baltimore, Bonn to Birmingham, Bujumbura to Banjul, Bankok to Bombay. Wherever we are, we will butter our heads and tie our black balloons, asking always, always asking, "Yemanew Lij, Yemanat Lij? Yemanew? Yemanat?" Because we know it's not about the status symbols and accessories. In the end, it's all about blood and bone.