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Note from the Editors…Fasika is our favorite holiday around SELEDA… the Shimbrra Tsom tempers our miscellaneous qalichas, the midnight qidaasse soothes our notorious phobia du jours, and if it wasn't for SELEDA upper management who this year decided to use the sigdet part of this Amet B'al as an aerobics respite ("Ok, people… let's speed this up… and one.. and egzio… and two.. and mahrene… and pick it up… piiiicckkk it up…kristos… do you fell your quads yet?") we would have had a perfect holiday. But that is neither izih or iziya. Inkuwan aderesachiu. We suppose TinsaE is also a time to forgive and pretend to forget, so we are happy to report that former SELEDA higher ups, who you might remember have been quarantined in an anger management workshop for the past few months, seem to have been "healed" and are ready to come back to the fold now that they have been taught that SELEDA Interns are people too.Our present bosses, we mean, the, [sigh] "Creative Care Takers and SELEDA Soul Nurturers", (firja!) have promised to hand back power peaceably, and have ordered us to disregard the accidental mass emailing of an inter upper management memo entitled "Ya Machiavelli eko dehna sew nebere". Oh, well… maybe they were just taking philosophy classes again. After all, we are still in post- doro weT mode, still high from qirCHa acquired yeseba senga ber'e, so we are sure our caretakers will take care of us. [A moment, please, while we cuddle happy thoughts.] So what's not new at SELEDA? The ardent search for finding a [please lower voice and say it with reverence] purpose for SELEDA has hit a roadblock of sorts. In-house Computer Liqs want it to be the "Place where yeTefu bytes and PASCAL programs finally find a restful home"; the writers want it to be the Ethiopian version of the New Yorker "'cept without any 9-page ramblings from anyone named Stephanopolous"; the finance department has devised shady tax shelters and "Inc.-ing" SELEDA "just like the Colombians do some of their businesses"; the marketing people want to sell you SELEDA refrigerator magnets and call it a day; the Interns want to make an example of "yet another feudal institution" ripe be overthrown by the e-proletariats; and upper management… upper management just wants a bigger expense account and to rename all staff members after astrological signs. So, you see the "Y'hm ale leka" dilemma this puts us in. So, for now, we happily remain purposeless, or, "under purposed", or, "purposely challenged", or "Tsere purpose". But we have hope on our side. Welcome to the History Issue! We have taken the liberty of presenting different facets of history and the meaning of history for those of us in the Diaspora in our May issue. There are still a thousand ways to approach history, so it is certainly a subject we will come back to re- visit. (Right after the "All the Big Words that we know" issue.) Allow us to cyber mesged to all our contributors who have, once more, made this a SELEDA to remember. These are their stories, and through them ours, and we are grateful they agreed to put pen to paper. Group hug time. Group hug time. Something kinda old is new at Life Diaries... we have three entries for you, complete. We had originally planned to have the "ration card" LDs, but who has time to wade through hate email from our loyal readers anymore? Therefore, enjoy... go ahead and enjoy... see if we will resuscitate you from LD-OD!And we warn you, all hate mail shall be sent directly to our nefs abat so that he may appropriate swift and severe irgman. And finally, we have included a new feature, "Do the Right Thing", a list of relief agencies in Ethiopia working to combat the current drought. It is all of our responsibility to take care of our own, so, let's do the right thing and share. We hope we will hear from you on what you read. We survive because you let us know what has touched you and what you would like to bury with your 80's leg warmers and Kenny G CDs. Let SELEDA be interactive.
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