by: Hussein Endalew

The commentator's voice is getting animated. As the runners round the bend for the final straight dash to the finish, journalistic decorum is thrown by the wayside. All the other runners are forgotten as the commentator and the camera crew working with him focus on just the two leading figures sprinting for their lives. The taller one starts the straightaway in the lead, pouring all he’s got into one manic stride after another. He is serious, focused, intent. The shorter one seems to be straining, even limping at a furious clip. The magnificent smile on his face seems to belie the apparent agony he is in. After 9,950 meters, it seems to have come down to the last 50 - no, 30 - no, 10 - no, 5, 3… Centimeter by centimeter, the blazing smile slowly eats away at the gap, closing it. The announcer is hollering, the crowd is on its feet, the commentator is reduced to making incoherent yells of the runners' names. The gap is closed, and within the last meter, half meter, half a leg, the short one finishes first. After 9,999 meters, Haile Gebresellasie has once again won another olympic 10K gold. This is one more for my hometown, I say. Bless you - Assella.

I look back on my childhood days, trying to imagine where Haile got his gold. He grew up on the outskirts of Assella, at a place called Kulumsa, almost prophetically located 10 kilometers from the Assella stadium where all the provincial races used to be held. I was a city boy, born and raised in Assella proper. Kulumsa is on the main Addis-to-Bale highway, just across the road from the Assella Hops factory. Maybe it was the daily whiff of fresh hops and a drink from the Gonde river close by.

I imagine Haile running to school everyday. He would leave his home early in the morning and run in the freezing air. The sun would have to climb out from behind Mt. Chilalo before it can throw its heat in with the early morning light. For a few of those kilometers, he would perhaps be sharing the road with the usual rural traffic of cattle and shepherds. It seems to me everyone - and everything - runs in Assella. Kids run, sheep run, cattle run. Sometimes, I could tell a young cow who sets a more exuberant pace from her more mature and sedate stablemates. Chickens would be greeting the morning incessantly, cuckooing like mad, as if they could not get enough of the invigorating air. If Haile had been tied up with chores, he would be running a little late perhaps, and maybe will have to cede the road for the more modern traffic of cars and trucks and buses heading to the hops factory, or to repair roads, or to reach Addis early.

I see him stopping at the St. Giorgis Church at the crest of the Welkesa river valley, perhaps asking St. George to give him the speed and stamina of his steed. And then he would be off again - running into the deep Welkesa gorge, following the looping road on its gradually descending path down to the river. If he becomes thirsty, I imagine him taking a drink from the cold clear water of the Welkesa, and then raising his head to look up at the road that will loop and rise again until it reaches Assella proper. Yes, it was not just the distance, but I can now see how running up and down the Welkesa gorge would be phenomenal stomping ground for a world-champion to be.

Once past the first few straggling shacks, huts and tea-shops, the first large building he would come to is Assella Comprehensive. As Assella lies on the north-south running Addis to Bale road, this would be the northern end of town. The other high school, more poetically named Chilalo Terara, is at the southern end of town. Maybe this was inadvertent feng shui on the town planners part, because this town that has both ends pinned by schools has produced a disproportionate number of educational achievers.

OK, back to Haile. So, where does my imagination take me? Is he in high school and so stops his run there? Or is he in elementary school - which maybe gives me a few more hundred meters? Why don't I take him downtown? Sorry Haile, you will have to play hookie for me today!

So, past Assella High he runs. He stops at the town's favorite chornaqe shop, to indulge a sweet tooth. Well, maybe not - his goal has not been reached yet! Just past the shop, he passes Assela Elementary on the left, and the hospital on the right. Roads peeling off to the right and left lead into the residential and commercial areas distributed among Assella's ten qebeles. By this time he would be in the hustle and bustle of a busy provicial capital, alternately dodging turcks, buses and fleets of donkeys staggering under their load.

Past Assella Hospital is another river, actually a smallish stream that has decided to grandly call itself the Sheleqo. Crossing the bridge brings Haile into an area which, for four hours every afternoon, is dominated by Cinema Ras. "How does a cinema dominate, o wise one?!" you ask. For the simple reason that a loudspeaker is permanently blaring the movie soundtrack at the traffic on the road. On a good windy day, the wafting sounds of Kung Fu kicks and screams, or Hindu godesses singing an Ode to Chapati would interrupt the earnest teacher trying to explain why “Abebe besso bella.” Perhaps in deference to the important guests lodging in the city's top of the line Ras Hotel right next door, there is no evening or early morning. Perhaps Haile looks at the hotel, and promises to himself that one day, he will be able to own something even grander and better.

Just past the hotel is another river - this one really big, and known as the Anqo. It, too, flows down from the Chilalo Mountain. If the morning fog has cleared up, the deep green-coated mountain top would now be exposed. Perhaps the sun would just have peeked out from behind, making for one of those cliché-esque painting scenes.

Crossing the Anqo bridge brings Haile to downtown Assella proper, a warren of shops, hotels, bars, gas stations. Behind the main bank is the town's main mosque, with its's muezzin Sheikh Usman. A beloved figure in town, his calls to prayers are affectionately called Sheikh Usman's Turumba, alerting people regulary to also mind their souls. Across the street from the bank is the bus station. I wonder if it brings a smile to Haile as it does to me when it reminds me of the standard Assella joke which goes like this: A woman rushes to the bus station, and after wildly looking around, asks one of the town dandies hanging about - "ye Balé mekina hédual?" The wise guy responds, "Iné ye-balish mekina Tebaqi neN yalesh mannew?"

I imagine Haile taking a decisive right turn at the bus station, to head south into Assella stadium. Perhaps it might be here that he would finish his almost ten kilometers of run, practicing his final laps on a real track, maybe imagining the crowd, his finishing form, where he would stand to receive his medal, how he would greet his fans. Or maybe he would just go around and around, still fired up and unhappy that the trip ended so soon. He is perhaps asking himself which way to go.

East, across the main road and behind the bank and Sheikh Usman's mosque, takes him through town to the field where St. Michael's church is located, and where Neway Debebe is reputed to have honed his art by singing "ye Tiqimt abeba" for the annual Timqet festival.

West, continuing further from the stadium, would take him to that curious place where the town's Medhane Alem church and cemetery sit cheek by jowl with a qalicha, reputed to have four wives and strong ties to the spirit world. The town, perhaps unconsciously trying to cool down the inevitable spiritual temperature, has set up a city park. Of course, it wasn't too long before the town wags decided to call it "mutan menafesha."

South would take him further into the town's hustle and bustle, its open-air market, its hockers. It would also complete the symmetry started when he entered town by going past Assella High and Assela Elementary. He would pass Mission Elementary first, to be followed by Chilalo Terara High. But he has made that trip so many times before. Not to run, not to go to school, not to attend the Monday market across the road from the high school, but to take a cow in heat to Teacher Getachew's prize bull. Perhaps, he, like me, also remembers waiting in line while other kids in front of him beg the teacher to have his bull take another go at their cows, just to make sure their cow gets their money's worth, only to be told that the bull has had enough for the day.

No, I imagine Haile running back home from the stadium. He does have school work, and farm chores to take care of. But he would have re-stoked his olympic dreams yet another time. Knowing what I know now, however, I can imagine him standing by the Kombolcha river, just south of the Chilalo Terara High School. I imagine him staring out southwards into the distance, planning his run past the huge ARDU compound, past the small town of Sagure. I imagine him aiming a high altitude, rough terrain, Olympic Marathon distance away, to visit Derartu Tulu and Fatuma Roba in their hometown of Beqoji, and talk about how best to mine marathon gold.