For all Ethys in DC area

A TRIBUTE AND FUNDRAISER FOR ARTIST LIMENIH TADESSE

Guests are allowed to bring friends to this event.

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A girl’s best accessory

Me and a friend were mucking around (as one Aussie would say to another) with the idea of “self-sufficiency”, or “rassin mechal”.

The word is one of those words that bring something particular to mind for most. Just the way “getting-away-with-murder” brings O.J. Simpson, the noun “adoption” the rainbow family, and the statement “I am not a crook” President Richard Milhous Nixon. The term “self-sufficiency” or the lack therein, brings a country that begs for her daily bread. It, my friends, brings Ethiopia!

Ethiopia is not a self-sufficient country. By which, according to wikipedia, is meant she [she is a she] “requires an outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival”. Why isn’t Ethiopia self-sufficient? Many a reason is given. Reasons that are approved or vetoed depending on the parties involved and their particular agenda. They all agree on one point though. That lack of self-sufficienc–y is a cycle. That’s it’s rooted in the [unproductive] past. That it ruins a would-have-been-bright-otherwise now.

The “self-sufficiency” me and the friend were referring to was, ofcourse, human self-insufficiencies -the emotional kind. To the people who try to compensate [substitute, stand in the place of, replace something] they feel they lacked with something unrelated to it. The relative, as I said earlier, who won’t feel “man enough” unless feeling superior to everybody around. The colleague to whom the sun doesn’t come out unless complimented on her looks. The classmate who stop to say hi everybody she comes across, or calls back every missed call, to show what an “ajeb” she has. Emotionally dependent people who can’t even travel a 65-cents taxi journey without rubbing thighs with you.

I used to be one of these people. I needed the love (or atleast a phone call) of a man to feel/show and prove I was lovable. The reverent gleam in my listener’s eyes to feel smart. Someone to spend an evening with, a good book or a movie to sufficiently numb me to the fact that I can’t get dates anymore.

How about now, you’d naturally ask. Does my usage of the word “used to” mean I’m completely healed (if I need to, that is)? No! I still feel down when I don’t see a comment when I open my blog in the morning. My steps are extra bouncy when I see a guy checking my booty out. Have yet to get used to sitting content in an empty room where the lights are out. But do I stop opening my blog, take a contract-taxi instead, beg my available-as-long-as-you-are-paying friends to keep me company and suffer the agony of listening to their mindless conversations?! No! The only thing I’m entirely dependent (self-insuffiicient in, if you like) on these days is my hand bag. Can’t go anywhere without it. If I’m bag-less and the setting isn’t a residence, I feel as good as naked. As if something major is missing from my person. As if I, abesheet/habesheet/abeet, am incomplete.

All for want of a bag!

Now I’m not saying a bag (in need) isn’t capable of doing damage. For want of a nail, here this poem tells us, a battle was lost! But it’s just an accessory, an ornament, a supplement. Something to compliment what I had on. [Instead of what I am]. It’s neither an extension of me or anything mine. Failing to define as well as incomplete me.

And when one day I grasp that fully, I’d master the courage/the maturity/the independence to walk out, bag-less, and say to the world “… Eye is free!” – Aster Aweke like :).

Artist Alazar Samuel

For those of you who don’t remember Alazar, here he is. He looks & sounds exactly the way I remember him (sorry for the video’s yeTiraat guDilet). His acting, however, didn’t impress me as much as I thought it would. Maybe it wasn’t such a great role to play or he is more of a stage actor.

The [Kadre] love letter

Contributed by: Eskinder G.

The politics of Beauty

Incase you, like me, came late to the hearing, the crowning of Miss Ethiopia 2009 was held at the Intercontinental Hotel on Saturday, January 17/2009.

The Winner, a 22 year old Addis Ababa University Student from Gambela.

According to the interview ETV’s reporter had with the judges (that aired yesterday afternoon), the decision couldn’t have been more unanimous. Ms. Chuna Okok/Okaka has been found beautiful “both inside and out”. [A concept explained by one of the judges as: gracefulness, the confidence with which a contestant holds herself, the fact that she can come up with an intelligent response at the drop of the hat, etecetra etecetra].

A fellow-judge has added how it’s no secret to any of us that Beauty pageants held in the last 60 or so years in Ethiopia have been selecting their queens from, mostly, the Northern part of the country. This pageant, he hopes, has proved how Ethiopia is a multi-cultural country where beauty comes in all colors.

Crowned Miss Ethiopia 2009, and winner of a 60,000 birr worth of Diamond, (whose own father didn’t know she was one of the contestants until she won, which she realized wasn’t a dream when the congratulatory-calls started flooding the next day) agrees. “This isn’t just my victory” she told ERTA, “it’s a victory to all girls who weren’t given this opportunity. I hope my crowning would encourage other, less confident, beauties to come out”.

In response to what she’s planning to do with her beauty, she’s hoped she’d put it to good use “if allowed to render her free-of-charge service to an NGO” (whereupon the undersigned held her chest, to support the heart she felt would break, and observed how it seems to take more than being crowned “the most beautiful woman in the land” to kick your self-worth up a notch).

According to Ethiopian Village Adventure Playground, the organization that devoted the last two years to prepare the Pageant, Miss Chuna Okok/Okaka would take part in Miss World Cultural Heritage of 2009 due to be held in Namibia this year. Deal with it!

Here are photos of the contestants.