O ye faithful…

A friend of mine gave me a call this morning. She won’t be in town till the end of the week, she said, for she plan to go to “Tsadkane Mariam” (a convent outside the town of Debre Birhan) to pray over stuff that’s been bothering her. Or “EndReGaGa”, as she puts it. I didn’t ask what brought about this feeling of anxiousness. For I have been in on the details, shaking the head despondently every minute of the two months the relationship lasted.

Two months! It doesn’t seem long enough to make a girl want to eat “Qitel” over a guy dumping her, does it?. But love is a tricky thing. Ask Einstein if you want. It makes a day feel like thousand years, and thousand years like a day. When you feel you have landed the “right guy”, especially, however “bad idea” he seem to those around, it’s hard to put time frame on it. Or so I’d have tried to defend my friend’s decision had I believed in it.

Yet I don’t. For I have been in on many a relationship she’d had before latest guy too. I know, for example, about a dude she was hoping to tie the knots with only two weeks before this one came along. She hasn’t dated this other guy for long neither. Infact, she hasn’t dated him at all. He was fresh out of a long-term relationship, he has told her, and not ready to move on. Could they be friends? Still, a heart was available, so he decided to make sure it stayed available incase the worst comes. He kept her hanging: by telling her his likes/dislikes, calling her every evening or texting to ask how her day went, complaining of being ignored when she didn’t call or text back, being extra attentive every time he saw her talking to a guy and running back to her every time he got rejected by a girl (one from a scheme that involved her best friend). Still, she insisted on hoping he’d realize “she was the one” until the week he started ignoring her and his friend answered her tearful call. Buddy boy has got a girlfriend, the friend told her, was no more than “being nice” to her so can she please take it easy? That’s when she decided it was time to send me (her “Maria Puza”, the God-Mother), an SOS. Whereupon I exploded, in a typical Mafioso fashion, and called him names. Then I called her names, names she simply sucked her teeth and pleaded guilty to, and asked, among other things, how long she was going to let these a-holes make a sporting field of her heart. And if she doesn’t have any respect for herself.

Too much of a tough-love, perhaps, to those used to being told they were helpless in matters of love, unless aided by divine intervention. So now she’s going to a convent and pray it out. She’s gonne ask the creator (in a typical Bethlehem Mekonnen “yet newu yemagegnih” fashion), why he isn’t giving her the guy he created for her, or make her heart stronger. The Lord may have said it’s the truth that shalt set you free. But there is no problem a faithful prayer won’t solve. Right? For some reason, the truth has never been an option with this friend of mine. Tell her what you will: that she was crying over every guy that gave her a call because she was desperate. That desperation came out of the rotten value her mother, only 15 years her senior, and the females around her instilled in her from childhood. That “no” really means “no” when it comes to them guys. And the sooner she was ready to face that, the better; she seems to prefer to spiritualize everything that comes her way and seek a spiritual answer. I don’t know if that is the case with all “tswami tselai” Christians. But I’ve noticed the more religious people are, the more in denial they seem to prefer to live. What’s worse, they take pride in it. Seeing it as being dependent on the creator which He likes, making him go out of his way to oblige. And when their hearts get broken with frustrated hopes, with dreams untrue and enemies not just going unpunished but prospering, they ask “Haven’t I believed you? Haven’t I put my faith in you? Haven’t I boasted that you were my Lord and Savior existing for the sole purpose of carrying out my wishes?!”. Using “faith” to blackmail Him who have nothing to lose! Sounds almost insolent, doesn’t? Or am I the one who is without understanding? Is that why we have an extra title (of flattery?) for him, on top of all those he has in the rest of the world? Calling him “YeEthiopia Amlak” to show, when it comes to this horn of African country, a special type of “Godness”, a customized one, is needed?!

So, anywho, has the case been with this friend. My repeated attempt to let the truth deliver her, or atleast make her know where to draw the line, seem to bear no fruit. Now, if this friend was 38+, with a past attachment (to a man or a child) or have some kind of handicap she fears would make her a liability, her spending so much energy on “YeWonDoch Ginbar” would have made sense. But this girl is the prettiest girl we had in our “batch” at the university. If Neway Debebe met her, he’d swear that song of his “Gojjam teshagire gobez hogne metahu” was inspired by her, for she hales from the windy city of Bahir Dar (speaking of Neway Debebe and his songs, I don’t mean to be the fault-finder my mother always accuses me of, but doesn’t the word “ye wUUraGe Lij naat” make you wonder if he is that ignorant or having a blonde moment?).

Like I said, my friend is beautiful in the classic sense of the word (with long hair and all the fixings). She’s 28 years old, has a job with a promising prospect and lives in a family that isn’t exactly wealthy but far from begging for its daily bread (from humans, atleast). She has everything going for her, you might have observed, and you’d have been right. Her biological clock, however, seems to tick as if she’s a woman twice her age. She goes out with guys that hold no interest for her & confessing as much. She does everything they asked of her. And cries her heart out when they, for a reason known only to them and He “from whom nothing is hidden”, decide to break it off. After shamelessly calling, and demanding and entreating them, she comes running to the sister to confess her sins and get the kind of whopping she said would make her behave (for some days to come anyway). But not before prophesizing she’ll never survive this one, wondering what’s so wrong with her no man seems to want to stay and asking “Egziabherin min arekut?”. She has now decided to take it directly with the big guy. I wouldn’t wanna be in his shoes. But would continue to find it embarrassing! The fact that a girl is taking an annual leave to go to a convent for the purpose of praying over a guy that didn’t want her, instead of giving him the finger and saving her money for stuff that is actually worth it.

Bon voyage my dear.