More about Tamrat

I watched this video on Police Program a few days before I came here. Inspite of the hustle of last minute details of: Bett MasreKebing, NiBret MaKefafeling, document authenticating and keeping lunch dates with colleagues and families alike, the story haunted my thought. I kept trying to imagine how dumb you must be to credit an Adobe-photo-shopped-picture of a guy flying in the sky as legit. I thought of the celebrities who wrote songs in reverence to his name and the officials who bowed before him. The husbands whose wives were raped and the young men who lost their job, their credibility, their sanity – right down to their boots in his service. And those that died. “You gotta give the bible a credit”, I thought over and over, “if for nothing else, for it’s proper diagnosis. The love of money is indeed the root of all evils”.

The song, suitably entitled “EyanGwalele”, however, I found hard to explain away. It kept me awake at night — to the point of fearing there may be some truth in this guy’s ability to read minds. I stared imagining a presence in my room, having that creeping feeling of being watched, the hair on my neck stood on end. Wild imagination and a vulnerability to phobia aside, you must admit there is something disturbing about the song. Something sickly fascinating. Something definitely unholy.

I neither had free internet access, nor the time to sit and blog about it. So I told my devout protestant friend Muluken Mamo, I said to him “you guys are gonne write about this and when that article comes out, make sure you sent it to me”. He promised he will. This morning, he was able to keep his promise. So herebelow is EnQu magazine’s article about Tamrat Geleta.

ENTER — on your own accord .

I say, more power to them!

You’ve all heard how San Diegan Miss USA 1st runner-up, Carrie Prejean, slammed gay marriage infront of the gayest man in the world; lost her crown and become the kind of celebrity she wouldn’t have hoped for.

Our instinctual response to this piece of news, no doubt, would be to defend and rally after her, had rallying been needed. Because you and I are Ethiopian. We neither believe in gay rights nor feel women should stand alone on stage speaking their minds; not to mention how Lev. 18:22, Lev. 20:13, Lev. 20:13 & Rom. 1:26-28 has clearly indicated how detestable lying next to a man is. Political-incorrectness, the one right we can afford to exercise!

Alas, this Ethiopian does not see eye to eye with this kind of conservatism — for once. Not because she can’t be a bible-totting Christian who reach for the good book when in need of guidance and comfort if she tried. Or due to her tendency to see things the way them “ferenji”s do, as Tazabi aptly observed (and expect her to apologize for, I guess ), who believe gays, too, are humans with as much right to misery as the rest of us. Or because she feels being gay is something you are born with so can’t be helped. She neither believes nor feels such nonsense!! Women chose to becme gay when they get tired of men while men are forced into gayhood because somebody messed up with them when young. Neither should be encouraged, nor allowed to adopt kids. Or so she thinks.

/mode {change} + personal pronoun = first person singular

Why, then, am I pro gay couple entering the unholy state of matrimony?! Because I hope allowing them to marry each other will be the first step to making gay men keep their hands off our kids (that’s how men become gay in my country anyway). If there is anyone who knows of any reason why the Rev. Shnorr should not join two men (and two women) in lawful marriage, please speak now or forever hold your peace.

Commercials I like (in that order)

The talented kids on Cricket Broadband commercial
.

The pizza guy in DiGiorno Pizza

The guys @ the Heineken Beer commercial

The Kid on MasterCard’s “Priceless” Commercial

A home away from home

It was like stepping back into a restaurant in Addis. There was the waiter in cheap “shemiz”, smiling at all the wrong places and trying to show off his English. His friend, and the guy who run the Free WiFi service at the back, was singing loudly along one of Ephrem Tamiru’s 80’s hits and acting as if he owned the place to the uninterested patrons on the two tables: a family of four (where a father was attempting to discipline a daughter by threatening to bring out his belt, while the mother babbled about something she saw or didn’t see in “SanTeeYaaGo”); me & mine. By the time he gave it up and decided to walk home “qess eyale”, our dinner of Tibs and Kitfo has still not come. When it did, it surprised me by tasting better than I expected it to taste. Which, unfortunately, didn’t change the fact that the price was too expensive, that the AmboWuha tasted like it’s already been used and refilled with cold water and there was only one toilet for both the sexes – with a door that doesn’t lock! Not to mention how deserted the restaurant looked for a Friday evening.

However, I still enjoyed every moment of it. Not because Awash [Ethiopian] Restaurant, 4979 El Cajon Blvd – San Diego, proved to be one of the two places in America I can go to whenever I needed going home and seeing my people. Or because I’ve started missing Injera, after repeated attempts to eat healthy made me realize how difficult preparing a meal without “maBaya” was. But because it was the one place I knew I wouldn’t give the impression of being mentaly challenged, intellectually delayed and developmentally disabled — or vice versa.

The last month has been a season of discovery and excitement, with the discovery outweighing the excitement as my Week 2 post would reveal. And the thing that’s been casting shadows on the adventurous spirit has been my apparent inability to understand — English. From the Vietnamese woman to the pregnant Mexican lady trying to push a shopping cart alongside a stroller all the while screaming for her “leMiGib yalanese, leSira yalDerese” son to keep up; be it a shop assistant or a waitress; I have found myself saying “Sorry?”, “I beg your pardon?”, “What was that?!” every time I’m offered help or asked if there was anything else I wanted. With the jokes, I laugh. Laughter is the easiest language in the world; and Americans laugh easily, more so when sex [size or position], drugs [the lack of] and wives [selfishness, stupidity] are discussed. If more than two words (“thank you”, or “excuse me”) are demanded of me, however, I call Chris over and let him do all the talking. I have developed so much doubt and misgivings on my thus-far “alright” English, that I am finally understanding why my country men and women never dared venture out of the herd. Can’t be easy surviving, when you have an inherent objection to learning something new.

Friday evening, however, I was da boss! At home! Among people who know my language, and whose language I recognize without wracking my brain for something resembling the sound. I was so self-possessed and dismissive that it was Chris, the same Chris who has been there once before and was relieved at finding out this was unlike any “MiGib Bett” he knew back in Addis (where he was mistaken for a rich guy by virtue of being half-caucasian), who was stammering and laughing nervously.

It’s good to be home!

@ cross roads

I haven’t received my social security number yet but I’m swamped with career choices: with what to do, where to go and what to study. Chris, who knows what it means to do a job you hate, wants me to join the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) to study literature. I do not want to, since pursuing my passion instead of what would bring food to the table feels too spoiled, especially at a time like this. An editing course here, a graphic designing or a photography class there, that’s as far as I’m willing to go when it comes to getting involved in the fine arts.

I googled my options, ofcourse. Nothing satisfactory. Then I sought advice from a couple of abesheets who have been here before me. My cousin Rute (that’s how she writers her name) said I should go to school first, for I wouldn’t have the heart to go to school once I started working. My ex-colleague Biruktayit said I should give it time, weigh my choices, and decide what I want to do. While Enat, the youngest of my cousins, begged me to pro-create first, before it’s too late and I regretted it, then to go to school and study nursing. “Kezia behwalama..”, she added confidently, “kuch bilo birr meZaQ newu, beAmmet eske semania shih yemikefelachew alu…alwu”.

Now I want to know what you think:

[Taking the job market, convenience and affordability into consideration] which do you suggest I consider:

• Working or going to school?
• College or university?
• Online or offline?
• Criminal Justice, Law or Psychology?

And why?

To: Mazzi, sistu, Inem, others..

Dear SELEDA Friend;

Uh, oh.

Okay, that’s no way to start an email.

IndEt alulinnnn–n? Lijochu, kebtochu, mistochu, balochu…. T’ru… T’ru… shega.

So you probably thought we had finally located our dignity and scuttled to Land O’ CHewinet and respectability. Yes? You misunderestimate us. We’ve been busy living off our Ponzi Scheme—selling SELEDA stock and figuring out the best time to tell our investors that, um, there is no such thing as SELEDA stock, hahaha. But it turns out it was all illegal or some such. Goddamn Commies!

So, as we watch our 401Ks resemble ET politics- one ginormous pile of sketchy, dubious worthless absurdity—we thought, why are we suffering in silence? Why not spread the misery? Now, THAT we are good at.

So, we’ve decided to come back for one last issue—a “goodbye-thank you-the money is on the night stand” issue. It dawned on us that we never said a proper goodbye. The asadagi yebedelew in us is telling us, “Damn straight. It’s how we roll.” But then—this ikek that is ye ItyoPiyawi CHewinet is murmuring sweet nothings about closure. Goddamn Commies!

What do we have to lose? We wanted to put out a plea to our best writers for one last roll in the hay. We hope we can depend on you to dust off your shul b’er and pen one last missive for out “Intin Issue.” Yep. You read that right. The Intin Issue. You basically decide what’s Intin… and then write about it.

Deadline… yes, there is one because our webmaster has to re-enter anger management class on May 1. So, April 30. Plenty of time.

Hoping we hear from you even if it is to say, “InnantE hafrete bisoch….”

SELEDA Editors
seleda1@yahoo.com

Week 3 (A night at Manderley)

My husband’s ex-colleague is married to a woman who is originally from Côte d’Ivoire. He, the husband, not Chris, has been hoping she and I will strike up a friendship (go out shopping, braid eachother’s hair and have naked pillow fights while our husbands whistled and cheered over a glass of beer..i suppose). The logic is, ofcourse, obvious. We are both from Africa. We are both married to men from a different tribe. We both have kinky hair & are likely to be addicted to shopping. A [logical] reasoning that appaled me. So I’ve been avoiding answering the phone every time the ex-colleague, pressed by his wife, gave my husband a call. And kept sending messages like “so when are you guys coming to visit us?”, “why are you guys avoiding me?”, “does she think she’s too good for us”, etcetera, when the calls got no response.

Still, it’s gotta be done and we decided to do it last night. Carrying a 15$ pie, the most expensive in town, we drove to their house with the intent of surprising them. We were the one who were in for a surprise, however. Their neat little house, furnished extravagantly and complete with a fish tank, was filled with the smell of food and strangers’ voices. The voices belonged to guests who decided to drop on the newly-wed that very night, too. A pastor and his wife: both from Côte d’Ivoire, both speaking bad English, both with more abesha & abesheet in them than meets the eye.

We decided to stick around a bit, dropping pies and departing felt rude even for America. Soon we found ourselves in a dinning room where a steamy pot of rice and various salads were awaiting our descent. We sat around the table and said grace, at the end of which the Protestant Pastor crossed himself in a way that made me wonder who the guy was trying to impress more: us or his God.

You can’t sit across your distant cousins, digging with spoon and fork, and not talk. So after politely dancing around, studying each other’s moves, the pastor came out of his polite shells. And there, sited across me, I saw my uncle-in-law Faris: the know-it-all, dismissive-of-anything-he-hasn’t-came-up-with, “better” half of my aunt’s. Starting with the European cities he’s been to and their exotic cuisine, he went on to shamelessly lecture us what we should and shouldn’t eat (making a disgusted face every time he talked about the ills of “this country” we were in).

His wife, who look over-burdened by the traditional dress she was wearing, seem to have sat at the dinning table for the sole purpose of making us feel guilty for eating. She kept refusing what’s suggested to her, and chewed the little she had on her plate in a way that would impress a Southern Lady. (Proving to me how coming to the feast table and taking pride in not eating isn’t a strictly Ethiopian affair).

The lady of the house, a shy woman whose wig has covered half her face, was the perfect hostess: avoiding our eyes while trying to force feed us. She was switching between English, Côte d’Ivoirish and French: gossiping with her country-woman even after the rest of us have fallen into an awkward silence.

After bidding every one goodbye, and promising to consider his ex-colleague’s proposal to do this every other Wednesday, Chris breathed a sigh of relief and turned to ask how I was. Not too difficult to read what was at the back of his mind. He’s wondering if I wasn’t exhausted from pretending to enjoy my surrounding and if my cheeks weren’t hurting from all the polite smiles already. It must have come as a surprise to him, therefore, when I confessed I was glad we came out. “Really? You liked it?” he asked eagerly, looking both cautious and guilty. “What is there not to like?” I laughed “The food was great. The conversation instructive. He reminded me of my uncle-in-law, she my aunt. I have no intention of doing it again, mind you, but it sure was an adventure that actually made me realize how much I’ve missed home”.

He smiled, happily confused. Even after 9 months of living in Ethiopia, he still doesn’t seem to have gotten used to our [African] ways.

Seriously.. God.. why?!

With the approach of Easter, both Discovery Channel and History.Com have been trying to win audience by “Christening” it up a bit. Saturday morning History.com was talking about “The Apocalypse”, which I learned actually means “revelation”/”to reveal” instead of the Doomsday I understood it to be. At 8:00pm/7c, it went through every word in the bible to look for evidences on the eternal battle between “God vs. Satan”. Sunday morning we had a historical account on the nature of “Angels: Good or Evil”. Yesterday afternoon, Discovery channel had three consecutive programs based on the bible: the Ten Commandments (whether they can be scientifically proven or not — surprise surprise they can!!); whether the “Shroud of Turin” (the linen cloth Jesus’ body was supposed to have been covered with at the time of his “death”) is real or a medieval forgery and finally looked into what Jesus’ life must have been like with regard to the socio-economic affairs of the time.

“The Anti-Christ” has been airing on History Channel for the last hour or so. The source, apart from interviews with various theological professors is, ofcourse, “Left Behind”. The “man of lawlessness” has been discussed in great measures. How charismatic he would be, how he’d start off by preaching peace, then gains everybody’s trust (to the point where Israelites & Palestinians lay down their arms and rebuild the temple; can’t say fairer than that) and how, on the third day, he’d “drop his fangs”. He’d give up pretension and reveal his true colors. From then on, you are given one of two choices: you bow or you die. Until Christ comes, cross hand, to the rescue!

Here is a summary of things that precede Christ’ return:

• The appearance of the Anti-C
• The Gospel being preached to all nations
• A time of great tribulation
• The coming of false prophets showing signs and wonders
• Great wonders in the heavens
• The Salvation of Israel

And a little something from: http://www.signsofchristreturn.com/:

Did you sigh a sigh of relief? Not so fast! The second-coming isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning! A beginning from which “Nobody would have been left alive if Jesus didn’t appear at this juncture”. Before the show down: Christ rules the world for 1,000 years. Satan escapes bondage (apparently, nobody paid this part of the bible any attention). Armageddon, from Har-Megiddo, a lavish plain located in Israel, would then be fought (I wonder what it would be fought with; nuclear weapons or good ole “torina gasha”, “Feresina BeQlo”, “beGenna ena Mesenko”?). Then “the judgment” would be upon us.

My question: Why all the drama?

I mean we have all heard how God is eternal. How there is no beginning nor an end to him. Alpha and Omega and what not. So he’s bound to have some time in his hands he won’t know what to do with. So some sort of “teWnet” is to be expected. Why does this drama have to come at our expense though? Wouldn’t it be far more wise and merciful (two qualities we’ve been told God is richly endowed with) to simply cut to the chase and put an end to it already?!

Just wondering!

Zikr’e Wegayehu – Final

Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35, Chapter 36 & Chapter 37.

“I’m all for moderation — one drink per ego. But you see, I inherit the ego of every character I take on. Now, I’ve even taken on characters that had multiple personalities. So, every night, I have one drink for each (burp) of my alter (hic) egoes…” (Wegayehu Negatu)

Read more: “FiQir Iske MeQabir” – An Ethiopian Masterpiece by Haeran Fisseha.

Week 2

On the evening of my husband’s birthday, his parents decided to give me the real “American experience” in the form of a visit to the local Casino. This was a huge edifice located 6 or so miles out of town, past two Indian reservations that are considered (I was told) “sovereign nations” with their own rules & regulations.

Inspite of it being only a Thursday, Harrah*s had it’s parking space, every nuke and corner, filled with cars numbering in thousands. The restaurants were filled to the brim, with every machine and table occupied by men and women (mostly overweight women in their 40-50’s who appear to have gotten out of their bed in the clothes they were wearing, holding on to their bags for dear life and hitting the machine with the obsessive concentration of the addicted) exchanging money for luck.

After an expensive dinner of shrimp, lobster and everything the sea has to offer; we walked over to where all the action was taking place. Me, as a tourist; everyone else to see where they are likely to hit the jackpot. There we met two childhood friends of my husband’s who got into all sorts of trouble with him when they were kids. They haven’t seen each other for some time and were swapping developments. One of these young men has been to prison on a DUI charge until of late. After clearing that charge, he said, he plans to go to school and study (what else?) nursing. The other young man has neither been to jail, nor driven while drunk. He hasn’t so much as got involved into the various gang fights his childhood friends freely indulged themselves in back in the 80’s. He’s been a serious young man all his life: working upto 16 hours a day, three jobs @ a time, and putting himself through a 3-year nursing school. The only substance he abused seem to be expensive sports foot-wear. Gambling, he took with a bit of salt. He plays, he said, only when he’s invited by someone. That’s when his karma smiles at him. Unless he’s invited by someone, he’s bound to lose. And since he has his eyes on the big prize, namely one million dollar, and is looking for a job right then, losing isn’t an option.

I’ve been told how superstitious gambling can make you. So this part of his conversation didn’t surprise me one bit. It’s the next part that made me stop and wonder how a person who has been through so much can learn so little about life. “When I got a job,” he continued excitedly, “I will bet even more. That’s what I wanna get a job for. So I could bet more and more–until I won the million dollar prize. After that..” here his voice became dreamy.

Narcissism

While discussing what he called “American Narcissism”, looking into a mirror every now and then and appearing absorbed in his looks, Stephen Colbert defended the term “Narcissism” as something that is the foundation of America’s prosperity. He even went so far as saying “We need ambition, self-confidence and extreme good looks to rebuild America”. The dictionary meaning of Narcissism, however, shows Narcissism is no laughing matter. It’s a disorder that’s synonym with: vanity, conceit, egotism and being indifferent to the plight of others.

Now this maybe one country full of ambitious people who work hard to attain their piece of “the American dream”. But they are also the type of people who go out shotting everybody they met if and when something goes wrong [to that dream]. It’s a country where your life can be sacrificed over a spilled milk. Where a man goes to his wife’s work place and kills half the residents just to get back at her. Where a teenage boy cuts up his younger kins with a cake-knife just because he exchanged rough words with the birthday girl. Where an immigrant goes on a shooting spree and kills 14 people just because somebody made fun of his stupid English. The cruelty is so astonishing that Americans seem to no longer need terrorists in flying saucers to do them harm. Why climb the mountains of Tora Bora to look for those wishing you ill when your neighbour could go waco on your behind any minute, right?! The scariest part: he doesn’t even have to be the “typical” Caucasian male, 18-32 years old, who likes to dress as a clown at children’s partes. It can be the Mexican guy who took your order at Taco’s Buttitos. The black man who reminds you of your favorite rapper. Or the Vietnamese dude with the weird accent. 

So.. yes.. I’ve decided to start my own not-reality-actuality show the minute I got a sponsor. The show would be entitled something like “Educating the Ingrate”, whereby I’d fly every “troubled” young American to the poorest of nations and give him a hard-lesson on how the other half lives, or serve him a spicy foot up the ass.

Until I’ve secured my Social Security #, though, I will do what I can do best: hit the machines and pray I win my $20 back.

Related Posts: But Enough About You…

Zikr’e Wegayehu – Part III

If you, like me, have been confused by the inconsistencies in the bible; can’t help noticing how the Hebrew God sounds like a dictator with a bad self-esteem; and more than once felt that you and Esau have more in common than drawing the short-straw in the selection process for the Almighty’s-favour; then you should pay the Barnes & Nobles book store near you and check out “The Good Book” (The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible), by David Plotz. An honest, and most hillarious, work that tries to make [a logical] sense of the old testament [stories, characters and God's treatment of them]; the book has no answer to give. But it makes reading, the and about, the bible fun — for once.

["The Good Book" isn't recommended for the Faithful.]

Here is an introduction by Slate Magazine.

I have always been a proud Jew, but never a terribly observant one. Several weeks ago, I made a rare visit to synagogue for a cousin’s bat mitzvah and, as usual, found myself confused (and bored) by a Hebrew service I couldn’t understand. During the second hour of what would be a ceremony of NFL-game-plus-overtime-length, I picked up the Torah in the pew-back, opened it at random, and started reading (the English translation, that is).

I was soon engrossed in a story I didn’t know, Genesis Chapter 34. It begins with the rape of Jacob’s daughter Dinah by Shechem, the son of a local chief named Hamor. Shechem and Hamor visit Jacob and his brothers to resolve the mess. Hamor begs on Shechem’s behalf: Shechem loves Dinah, he says, and yearns to marry her. Hamor and Shechem offer to share their land with Jacob’s family and pay any bride price if only Dinah would be Shechem’s wife.

Jacob’s sons pretend to agree to this proposal, but they insist that Shechem and all the other men of his town get circumcised before the marriage. Shechem and his father accept the demand. They and their fellow townsmen get circumcised. Three days after the circumcision, “when they were in pain,” Jacob’s sons Simeon and Levi (who are Dinah’s full brothers) enter the town, murder all the men, and take Dinah away. After this slaughter, Jacob’s other sons plunder the town, seize the livestock and property, and take the women and children as slaves. Jacob, who hasn’t said a word in the chapter till now, complains to Simeon and Levi that other neighboring tribes won’t trust him anymore. “But they answered, ‘Should our sister be treated like a whore?’ “

This is not a story they taught me at Temple Sinai’s Hebrew School in 1980: The founding fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel lie, breach a contract, encourage pagans to convert to Judaism only in order to incapacitate them for slaughter, murder some innocents and enslave others, pillage and profiteer, and then justify it all with an appeal to their sister’s defiled honor. (Which, incidentally, may not have been defiled at all: Some commentators, their views dramatized in Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent, think Dinah went with Shechem willingly, and even the language in the two translations I looked at is ambiguous. One says Shechem “lay with her by force,” while the King James say he “lay with her, and defiled her.”)

Like many lax but well-educated Jews (and Christians), I have long assumed I knew what was in the Bible—more or less. I read parts of the Torah as a child in Hebrew school, then attended a rigorous Christian high school where I had to study the Old and New Testaments. Many of the highlights stuck in my head—Adam and Eve, Cain vs., Abel, Jacob vs. Esau, Jonah vs. whale, 40 days and nights, 10 plagues and Commandments, 12 tribes and apostles, Red Sea walked under, Galilee Sea walked on, bush into fire, rock into water, water into wine. And, of course, I absorbed other bits of Bible everywhere—from stories I heard in churches and synagogues, movies and TV shows, tidbits my parents and teachers told me. All this left me with a general sense that I knew the Good Book well enough, and that it was a font of crackling stories, Jewish heroes, and moral lessons.

So, the tale of Dinah unsettled me, to say the least. If this story was strutting cheerfully through the back half of Genesis, what else had I forgotten or never learned? I decided I would, for the first time as an adult, read the Bible. And I would blog about it as I went along. For the millions of Jews and Christians who know the Bible intimately, this may seem obscene: Why should an ignoramus write about the stories and lessons that you know by heart and understand well? I don’t intend any kind of insult. My goal is not to find contradictions, mock impossible events, or scoff at hypocrisy. Nor am I quite stupid enough to pretend that Judaism (or Christianity) is just the Bible. Jews are not only the People of the Book but the People of Many Books. There is the rest of the Hebrew Bible—the Prophets and Writings, the vast commentary of the Talmud, the stories of the midrashim, and thousands and thousands of years of other law and story and commentary. This 4,000years’ worth of delving and discussion is totally unfamiliar to me—I can’t hope to compete with its wisdom. Nor is there any shortage of modern advice on how to read the Bible. (Just look up “How to read the Bible” on Amazon.) There are experts to tell you why the Bible is literally true, others to advise you how to analyze it as history, and still others to help you read it as literature. You can learn how to approach it as a Jew, a Catholic, an evangelical Protestant, a feminist, a lawyer, a teenager.

So, what can I possibly do? My goal is pretty simple. I want to find out what happens when an ignorant person actually reads the book on which his religion is based. I think I’m in the same position as many other lazy but faithful people (Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus). I love Judaism; I love (most of) the lessons it has taught me about how to live in the world; and yet I realized I am fundamentally ignorant about its foundation, its essential document. So, what will happen if I approach my Bible empty, unmediated by teachers or rabbis or parents? What will delight and horrify me? How will the Bible relate to the religion I practice, and the lessons I thought I learned in synagogue and Hebrew School?

I’ll spend the next few weeks (or months) finding out. I’ll begin with “in the beginning” and see how far I get. My wife, struck by my new biblical obsession, gave me a wonderful Torah translation and commentary for Hannukah, the Etz Hayim, which was prepared by conservative Jewish scholars. I’ll read that and dip into the King James and other translations on occasion. (But I’ll avoid most commentary, since the whole point is to read the Bible fresh.) I’m sure I’ll repeat obvious points made by thousands of biblical commentators before; I’ll misunderstand some passages and distort others—hey, that’ll be part of the fun.

And, ofcourse, the next 10 chapters of FiQir Eske MeQabir – Wegayehu endeterekew: Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20 & Chapter 21 (Yes, Chapter 11 is missing).

Zikr’e Wegayehu – Part II

For those of you who found downloading sistu’s shared files difficult, herebelow is a complete-mp3 version of “FiQir Eske MeQabir” – Wegayehu endeterekew. Courtsey goes to Daniel who burned the CD and mailed it to the undersigned, sparing no expense, in his passion to make this great work a part of the world wide web. Further chapters to follow:

FiQir Eske MeQabir – The Introduciton

Chapter I – Tidar
Chapter II – YeSet Lij
Chapter III – YeWelaad Mekan
Chapter IV – YeQolo Temari
Chapter V – Tekl’e Alpha

Chapter 6 – Bichegninet
Chapter 7 – Difrett
Chapter 8 – Kassa Damte
Chapter 9 – Debdabe Le’Asege
Chapter 10 – Wede Feress Meda

Photos: EthioMeda

Week 1

While waiting at the airport:
A fellow-traveler (who lived in America for 6 years and seem to have spend those years accumulating hatred towards Mexican Americans, whom he referred to as “Kebtoch” – “Kebtoch nachewu sewu endaimeslush”) warned me about single moms. How I shouldn’t associate with their welfare-Sebssabi-behind unless I wanted them to destroy my life (by sweeping in and taking my husband), etcetera. I’ve had an “aRaaQi, aQgni, astemari” experience with a single mom, a good woman associating with whom wasn’t such a good thing for me. Since what came out of that toxic friendship was what became of BewQetu’s character in his poem “YeHulet Zemen Sewoch”. Not so much in the aging department, although i aged faster than I’d ever age in those two years, but in throwing away all the good things I had to embrace my friend’s silent anger and bitterness; and not noticing the 10 years difference when she started giving me advices using words like “BeNena banchi edme yalu setoch..”).

It’s gotta be admitted though, there are things worse than associating with a single mom. One of these my waiting-room buddy topped his advices with. “You know who you should hang out with?” he asked, sprinkling me with a bit of ‘miRaQ’ while he talks, “married women! That’s who you should limit your extra-curricular activities with.. women like you!”

Right!

On the plane:
I sat next to a talkative man who looks like a big-bonned version of Actor Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson, Fracture, The Notebook) who told me he and his crew were on their way to Illinnoise. The crew is comprised of three male adults and 6 or 7 teenage boys. They were active members of a youth group of his church, he added, going home from an educational trip to Rwanda (where they were allowed to see how the ‘other half’ lives, and get a reality shock in the process). By cooking for kids in a camp and going down to the river to hand-wash clothes with them. “How nice” I said, looking at the 5/6 blonde boys i felt should be living high and doing drugs that were busy walking around bare-footed, playing mobile games or farting in their sleep, “so there is hope to the world”.

Looking down at the dark world from 3?30?,000 feet was like watching a garden-party between the branches of a tree. The fish was delicious. The waitresses, mostly bored.

23 hours of flight (made 27 by the various authorities in whose door I had to park my luggage and present my self), a night at freezing DC, and a 1 hour drive on the free-way later, I’ve arrived at destination’s end.

Stop. Fwd.

A week and two days later:
I’ve gotten used to taking a bath, sometimes, twice a day; using a machine to wash my ‘yanGet libs’ and having my drinking water come out of a can. I’ve had as much KFC (minus skin) as I can chew, made friends with one of the waitresses at Ihope and tipped a generous 2 dollars for the delivery boy from Pizza Hut; things I promised Babi and Blen I would do (and report the results of).

Alas, the food section of ‘America’s Finest City’ isn’t the only place I showed my mug in. I’ve sat at a corner in Barnes & Noble, with a Frapuccino infront of me, and chuckled at The Teacher’s Version of Jon Stewart’s “America: The book”. I’ve gone out jogging in the middle of the day, and been both surprised and amazed when realizing that nobody seems to find my jogging odd. I no longer look deaf and dumb when everybody seems to offer to help me; when drivers give me precedence however far I am to their car. And made a habit of reaching for the seat belt the minute I got into my husband’s car.

I have done all these things yet none of those things I thought, & were told, I’d be doing by now: have a hard time sleeping due to time difference, miss my mother’s cooking, home! Nay! I sleep like a baby, have no intention of opening my “yeMiGib Shanta” any time soon and, when it comes to “home”, all I remember is the viciousness — the fact that I’ve been treated as a stranger, a “negro”, in my own country.

So, tell me, when did it happen for you? The realization that you aren’t at home, surrounded by people who can look at your face and read your thoughts? When did you stop marveling at how everything (the quite neighborhoods and the rooms in them, the roads/streets/lanes/avenues/Blvds/Pkwys with their intricate traffic lights, the supermarkets and the stocks they boast of) seem to be well thought of and designed to make your life easy? When was it you stopped uttering the word “if this was Ethiopia..”/“if that was in birr” after observing how nobody seems to notice (laugh, “meteQuaQom”, make faces at) the stupid mistakes you make or have found yourself in the “clearance” section of an Old Navy, WalMart, or Payless respectively. When did you, be honest with me now, stop secretly thinking if there is a God in Ethiopia, America must be where He comes to vacation?!