by: yoftahe

Don't believe it when they tell you there are 12,000 Ethiopians in the Boston area... there are only 12 max, and that's counting multiple personalities. Don't believe it when they tell you there are more than 60 colleges and universities there, either... cuz, there are only three. There's that no-name school by the Chaaales Rivuh... and then there's this other equally nameless school two T-stops away on the same river... and then there are the others. "T" is Boston's name for subway, so it's Boston's favorite letter. Now, “R” is a perfectly good letter, too, but Bostonians dislike it for some reason, and deliberately omit the sound of it from words... and look at you like you are not Haavad material if you see “Worcester” for the first time and don't immediately know to pronounce it as “Woostuh.”

One afternoon this past summer, after weighing and thinking hard about all my career options, I accepted the only job offer I got and moved to Boston. Granted, it wasn't much of a move. I'd lived several years tethered to Boston, swinging around it, never beyond a three-hour radius. I finally gave in to the centripetal pull and crashed smack into the heart of it. Well, there was 1% vacancy there, but close enough. Now, if you are not from New York or San Fran., and comprehend the cost of living in Boston, Taxachusettes; or you are not f rom Minnesota or Illinois, and looked up how cold it gets in winter in Boston, you need a pretty darned good incentive to move here.

Mine was that I didn't have a whole lot of other options. But what made it palatable was the prospect of snuggling amidst the warmth of the sizeable Ethiopian community, of sheltering under the canopy of unconditional acceptance, and a bunch of other grand reasons induced by naïveté, overly high sprits, and overly hard spirits. Acceptance in the Ethiopian community is far from unconditional, you'll find out; if not, you'll have plenty of time to while walking aimlessly along the bank of the Charles River on a Friday night wondering where all the Habesha scene was happening, and wondering why you don't just don your shorts, strap on your walkman, and go for a jog like the 37 other people that just zoomed humphing past you. Nonetheless, unconditional acceptance drew a romantic vision to look forward to - after a long day spent playing the clash of egos with colleagues who believe that your entire worth as a human can be bundled into a three-digit number with a two-letter acronym; after a long day spent with people who care to know where you're from only when you've just mispronounced a word, and couldn't care less, outside of that, if you are the fifth incarnation of Genghis Khan from Mongolia or a two-legged lizard from the Amazon jungle. After a long such day, you walk out into the arms of a community that couldn't care less if your IQ size plus the number of episodes of “Friends” you've recorded on your TiVo added up to a single digit; a community to which your intellectual output is the least of what amounts to the bundle that sums up your worth as a human, and to which the only badge of identity you need to flash is a glimpse of your Ethiopian looks and a slight bow of your head. did I say, romantic...?

That Boston harbors such a sizeable Ethiopian community, you won't know unless you take somebody's word for it. So, you're left to wonder where all the Ethiopian folks are. Really, where are they? If you're in a questionable state of mental health, you start to consider several conspiracy schemes plotted to excommunicate you from the community. Either way, it hits you that you have fewer Ethiopian friends here than you did at your previous hometowns in the boondocks where the total number of Ethiopians couldn't string enough letters together to spell “community.” So, you read a lot. Books, even. You try to reset your expectations to the boondocks mode, but your system knows that there are 11,999 Ethiopians out there, all having orgies, and making merry, and you're excluded. So, you toss the mouse away, get on the phone, and tune to the virtual community via the QeCHin shibo. It hits you again - this was what you used to do in the boondocks.

In the boondocks, this was acceptable. While schooling, it was even the way I liked it - keep temptation at a reachable distance, and enjoy the Ethiopian presence without its disturbance. Live close enough to Boston so I could hop on the bus and flee to it when I'm gripped by a sudden hunger for injera, but far enough that my will-power to resist is reinforced by laziness. Savor those moments when I'm transported back home riding the voice of a teCHawaCh companion telling tales of Addis’aba, without forfeiting my right to yell weraj alle when duty calls. Treasure the opportunities to share a breathing space without sharing a breath, without uttering a word. bicha, my motto used to be: boondocks for reclusive diligence; Boston for recursive indulgence - weyim mot!

Enough about that. So, where're all the Ethiopians? In all truth, given the high cost of living in Boston, most Ethiopians slave away at two jobs or more, and have little time to hold orgies and make merry. For a one-bedroom in Cambridge, I pay triple what I paid for a one-bedroom in my past boondocks, and my boondocks was as expensive as boondocks come. No Ethiopian joints in Boston where one could mewzegzeg the night away with iskista, and mewwelegaged back home with siQitta. There are Ethiopian restaurants, two of them, but they are far outnumbered by several shops that sell packaged injera, so they end up catering to adventurous yuppies and a few Ethiopian tourists. So, that's definitely not where the Ethiopian folks are. These two restaurants, you'd never guess their names [ did you say... Fasika... and... Addis Red Sea...? you cheated !], fare a stiff competition for Ethiopian presence from a new coffee house called Ras Cafe, which to its credit serves TossiN shai and lentil sambussa, and a sparse sampling of non-tourist Ethiopian customers. One sweeping look around as you slowly stir your cup of TossiN shai, and a parting glance with one leg out the door two hours later, tell you that, no, this isn't where the Ethiopian folks are.

They are not at church either because I went to one. Can't tell which because there's no way to tell without getting political. But I went, anyway, and there were such few Ethiopians when I first entered that I was terrified that I may be called upon to hold the processional cross, a sacred task for which, needless to say, I'm highly unworthy. And, for fear of meQseft, I won't mention all the cults I've been to in search of the Ethiopian folks in Boston.

They are not on the T either. When I first moved here, and had to package into one breath a description of the kind of apartment I had in mind, the one requirement I put to the real estate brokers was that it NOT be within walking distance of work. Rather, I wanted it to be within a few T-stops to work. I hoped to find Ethiopian folks on the T, but neither that hope nor my requirement got fulfilled. So, sadly, I walk to work. But one of these days I may just take the T for a net distance of zero meters, but for a net value of so many vicarious life stories, for the value of looking into a random stranger's eyes and fathoming the depth of his world, plagiarizing his life story and adding it on as yet another chapter in my own book of a bland life story. I have tried my transfusion technique on several Toms and Tinas, but my system has flat out rejected them all. Where my life story stands right now, what it needs is an Ethiopian chapter, so I need to transfuse into it the life story of Temesgen, the life story of Misraq, the life story of Taddesse, of Asrat, Kebede, etc... their stories of long treks in the dessert to reach the Sudanese border, their story of buying a visa to get to Germany, and their stay in the German refugee camps, their flight to the Netherlands, the number of times they changed their names, downgraded their ages, and reapplied for immigrant status under new stories, before ending up here. I want the warmth of their uplifting stories...

But the way my sanity keeps fading away, I fear that I may never find out where all them Habesha folks are at, and end up in a mental asylum. Maybe that’s where they're at, maybe this search for a muliCHliCH center of unproven existence will terminate at the insane house... . Part of me thinks so, while my other part wonders whether MPD should stand for Massachusetts Police Department or Multiple Personality Disorder.

In the mean time, although it hasn't made my social life any richer, I did find Boston's equivalent of Gojam Berenda where some Ethiopian folks had been, thanks to hectic work schedules, hiding, from me and even from each other. When schedules permit, however, I know they hold feasts and make merry, secretly. I know because while on a visit to a fourth floor apartment, I walked down the long hallway alongside a friend going: sniff, sniff to the left - "Aah... abish!" Sniff, sniff to the right - "Aah... shiro!" Sniff sniff to the left - "Aah ... bunna!" Sniff, sniff to the right - "Whoaa! Somebody's got to throw their trash out!"