Why we don’t have a “Qidus ValenT’inos”

Valentine’s Day is one of those days that gives me the “ickys”. It’s not [just] because I do not see it as an Ethiopian holiday. Or because I am a cynic who hears “deceit” every time the word “love” is mentioned (yes, if you scratch me you’ll find a hopeless dreamer who had her head hanked out of the clouds by cruel men and God). Or because it feels more showy than seeing a “Qen’tegna” brother walking with a huge parcel on Christmas morning. But because it is done for the same reason engagement rings are being worn in Ethiopian nowadays, “lelaw yaderegew ayiQribegn” bemalet.

Surafel Wondimu, of “Seifu YeMastaweQiya Derejit”, is one of those people who wouldn’t suffer from the “icky” feeling come February 14. In response to his audience asking why he kept bothering them with a concept that isn’t “ager BeQel”, he explained how he isn’t calling the Holy Man’s name because the ferenjis are calling it. But because it’s his firm belief lovers deserve to have one day, out of 365, in which they can celebrate their good fortune. He tried to elaborate this by giving an example. “I have a friend” he said “who is preparing to ask his girlfriend ‘taGebignalesh?’ the day after tomorrow..”.

I cringed at this. [As I do every time a DJ-something disgraced us with his presence on one of the FMs. When I hear Birhanu Digaffe, of Degaffe Mastaweqiya Dirjit, read an English letter from his various Ethiopian fans on an Amharic program which supposedly attempts to help College-youth swap their experiences. And every time my late-to-the-coming-Rastafarian neighbour plays Bob Marley in a way that makes you wonder if “those crazy Baldheads” that need a chasing out of town live anywhere near].

An Ethiopian guy “popping the question” feels as detached from [Ethiopian] reality as the behaviors the above media people are trying to cultivate in the youth. Where I come from, when a girl and a guy are dating, it’s “understood” where they intend (or atleast are pretending) for it to go. Dating is not, and has a long way to go before being, what it is in the west: where you try people, like an outfit, until you make up your mind about which one fits best. It is a subtle agreement, with consequences. She is expecting to one day be wed. And brother-man is playing along.

These expectations are displayed in her attempts to take over and be incharge of his house: The hiring and firing of the maid servant.

Knock-knock-knockin’ on..

Having been told I must present myself at the US Embassy to give a blood sample the previous afternoon, I’ve set my alarm clock for 06:00 in the morning. I wanted to make it back at the office by the time tea is served at 10:00 a.m, so I left my building before anybody else did, treading as politely as i could, the only form of apology available for the noise my shoes were making!

When, 45 minutes later, I arrived at destination’s end, four rows of the chairs that hold 5 person each were filled with individuals who look good and cold. Their eyes trailed after everybody coming through the embassy’s checkpoint: The [employee ID] badge wearing skinny girls who refused to acknowledge our presence. The badge-wearing young men whose walk reminds one of the slow-motion walk uniformed heroes walk with on TV. And finally the big bways who guard the gate that made gun-fire noises every time its opened. Neatly attired men and a woman who seem to enjoy the attention more than the subject under discussion, and laughed about it with a brief interruption in which one of them called out for the “stand by” and the stand by responded.

I took my place, on the row infront of the hall whose inside wall was bearing part of Lady Liberty’s head and a welcoming note. On my left sat a petit girl whose Motorola mobile phone, whose batteries she complained about later, seem to ring every other minute. On my right is a young man wearing the type of scarf that got Rachel Ray into trouble some months back. Soon we were friends. We started with the cold, the whether change and the respective clinics we went to. We then proceeded to what we were in for. The girl said she was giving blood sample for an immigrant visa which her Eritrean fiancée applied for in her stead. They met in Asmara, she told me, when she was there.

“So you are going as a Refugee” I said, driven to sarcasm by the VIP treatment these people are getting in a supposedly “enemy” territory, “I’ve heard on the news how our government is working over-time to facilitate visas for you guys”.

“I came here three years ago” she said with a shy smile

Last post on this subject, i promise!