( New Ethiopia )

by: Y.M.

ay lij! BRAVO! BRAVO! I applaud your effort to do the CITIES thing. Go KALA KALA your friends and BUKOM in at the Sheraton. MILLIE & AL will probably wanna come, but FELIX is kinda a bust. TRYST the night away while HAVANA beer. Remember, keep those beer-swillin’ boys away from MADAM’S ORGAN or she’ll really get pissed. DC’s Live with music and at 9:30 Clubs will begin to fill up...the DIVAS are usually prissy but the folks from Tanzania (or should I say ZANZIBAR) are loads of fun….

Once upon a time, to be Ethiopian in the DC Metropolitan area was to be fairly unique. It was so unique, in fact, that no one would cater to our needs. I suppose you first have to be visible to warrant attention, and as we consider it a matter of cultural imperative to act invisible….well, let’s just say no one was just dying to throw their business our way. The cultural poverty here was so great for the Ethiopian Diaspora, that my father used to make me megagher his injera formulae concoctions at home…on a Teflon meTbesha; there was only one Ethiopian restaurant (Mama Desta’s on 14th Street in Northwest, Washington, DC); an Ethiopian face glimpsed on the streets anywhere in the whole metropolitan area was still comment-worthy; and people used to nod to each other in delighted recognition and respect. If you wanted to worship, you had your choice of the Greek/Armenian Orthodox Churches or you could, as my mother did while she was in New York, go to a Catholic church. There were so few Qés that, in a crunch, Greek Orthodox priests used to perform our wedding ceremonies - often irate with our seemingly congenital inability to keep time. Then we grew our own bete-christian, housed it in the church of another denomination until we were able to build our own.

Now, we can boast more than seven churches in the DC Metro area, and not all of them Ortodox.

Adams Morgan’s famous 18th Street strip as we have come to know and love (and sometimes hate) it today was birthed seemingly overnight after a silent gestation period. You will learn, if you care enough to ask, that the influx of Ethiopian businesses to what was a predominantly African-American/Hispanic neighborhood, resuscitated that area, turning it into the bustling business district, and the chic, expensive residential area it is today. Before that, characteristic white-flight was in vogue and Adams Morgan was doomed to dilapidation without any hope, even for eventual recovery with yet another urban phenomena, gentrification.

But then came the Ethiopians with their ethnic restaurants: The Red Sea, Meskerem, and Fasika were the staple places long before the whole smorgasbord of Ethiopianna along the main strip flooded in on the lucrative wave of the old timers. Soon, Merkato had opened its doors to a ready-made market group hungry to lap up anything smacking of authentic Ethiopian Q’mum, mighib, ina injera. Overnight (much to the delight of my palate), my father’s penchant for concocting injera formulae was rendered obsolete for there were people with access to Tef more than willing to sell their bounty. And then, much to our collective auditory pleasure, Ethio Sounds set up shop in a little basement store and filled their shelves with a collection of tapes and CDs - music for our souls - ay! Tizita.

I cut my teenage teeth on 18th street, eschewing the typically ferenge spots for what had become for me a cultural Mecca. Back in the day, Killi’s (the Kilimanjaro Restaurant, Bar and Night Club) was the place to be, with its insistent Mother-Africa beat, low, low lighting, and the myriad of African faces smiling at you in a way that no one at Cities, just up and across the street, could…or would, for that matter. I spent my summers earning enough money to spend in Adams Morgan, canvassing places like Bukom Café, The Roxy, and later, much later, Kala Kala. Tight, small places, all of them, with ill-placed bars and postage-stamp dance floors, but music soul-deep and soooo good! that we’d bump and grind with enough abandon not to mind the inevitable funk too much.

With the energy and stamina of youth on our side, we’d stay up all night, mostly on our feet, usually quite sober. Then we’d make our way to a zigubiN somewhere or to Montego Bay (now Mo’ Bay) Café for a 4:00 AM cappuccino and some much needed food. Yeah, those were the days!

Eventually, DC culture expanded to other parts of the city: U Street, F Street, Zanzibar on 17th Street, then on the Waterfront. And eventually, I grew up and away from my old haunts. I remember them now in the dawning of my 30s with acute fondness for a youth well-spent cutting the linoleum floor in a dark bar/club with music that sang to my burgeoning Ethiopian/African soul.

Now, my old New Ethiopia on 18th Street in Adams Morgan has pretty much disappeared with the new wave of Ethiopians. The new bees look askance at the same things that used to strengthen my bones. My young sistahs and brothas prance about, all ala mode an’ all, spouting hip-hop phrases, boys sporting cornrows and girls showing off their bellybutton rings. Nobody really drives cars with character any more, so 18th Street, between Connecticut and Columbia Avenues, is jam-packed with slick, shiny SUVs and Mommy’s Lexus (probably taken out for a spin because you brought home good grades) vying for parking spaces still being pointed out by the local hobos who you will pay for fear that they may key your shiny car otherwise.

I’m not so old that I cannot appreciate youth anymore, but our youth today don’t seem young enough, do they? Makes you wonder if we too looked so jaded, back then, hiding our naïveté behind a mask of cool. Our replacements don’t greet each other with kisses on the cheeks, like we used to, Ethiopian style - glad to see and be seen. In the crush of 18th Street humanity, Ethiopians mill about, their quintessential Ethiopian eyes meeting in recognition but pretending otherwise. We pass each other much like the strangers we never were back in the decade of my youth. We sublimate instinct and hide our Ethiopianess beneath the veneer or our new Western home….

ay guud!….now I remember why I don’t go there anymore.