Weraj Ale: The Good, The Bad, The Addis

It occurred to me, after 24 hrs of flight, a duty-free shopping rendezvous through Frankfurt airport; a lot of bad airlines food [that I had out of boredom], and plenty of getting up to let a seat-mate [a seat-mate whose capacity for sleep is astounding] make his way to the rest room; it occurred to me that going to a country and living among the “indigenous people” [as we used to call them in my tour-agency employment days] is like being baptised into a new life. It’s not like a walk in the woods. Or a train ride through the country-side. Or even staying long enough to buy keepsakes and take photos, for family and friends, of things you were too busy to notice.

Once you figured out how to negotiate the roads so you can cross just in time to make it alive [the same roads that made you want to change your return date and fly home early the first two weeks, as all Diasporas do, and are a grave reminder how desperate it is to live in a country where no one can afford to say “Abet” on behalf of the average Yohannes], once you watched “Teketai Filega” and betted on who would make it and which judge would send the other one away with what Ama-Englizegna expression, once you got “home-bred” enough to tell a woyala “asgebat ene ezih ga ekemetalehu” and became ok with mixing one part of Rotana liquid-soap to three parts water to make it last longer, it’s hard to go back.

Go back you would try, ofcourse, physically atleast. The packing and the actual flight [to the civilized world] which should prepare you to be entered into the old life – a ritual meant to help you shed the new so you could be sawn into the old seamlessly; you spend it worrying about losing your luggage. You arrive at SEATAC airport; where you are ushered into, kicked about and run around in pursuit of those same luggage full of dirQosh that has been crushed to dust before you [even] left Bole Airport. Then you walk out into the American sky; bizarre and oddly familiar at the same time. You go home, through highways where strangers [man or donkey] don’t jump into to cross over, through industrial complexes whose appearance isn’t as much of an eye sore as every building in Addis seems to be. You recognize the old streets, how “White” America really is [gone are the days in which only brown eyes from black faces would be staring back at you instead of minding the road – as they should – every time you turn to look at something], how none of them would know where you have been and who you have been fighting with only 30 hrs earlier.

Then you stop looping around and give yourself unto the merciful embrace of a confused … drunk-like sleep.

Some 6 hrs later, you wake up. You murmur something meaningless into your partner’s ears, go back to sleep and find out that you were to be re-born into the old life – kicking and screaming – as if your days were rivers of wild waters that has to crush violently to be fitted together.

You go out into the streets, streets with signs – zip codes – and well-kept lawns no one has peed into, like a day hasn’t passed between January 1st and February 2nd, 2015. A shy and bewildered you .. trying to re-pretend to belong here, to be just another working girl standing in line, ordering a Latte – smiling her thankyou at the nice motorist who stopped for her even though he didn’t have to, another Seattlite who knows her way about – keeping the fact [to herself–yourself] that what you wish was to walk back into the old picture where your little sister is always around to go with on your errands, that home was a place where your mom is never too tired to heat you up a wot [with lots of Qibe – to show her love] while retelling the tales you have heard over a rekebot full of buna; that your heart would always belong to the country, a [3rd world] country nonetheless where your father tries to fix all your problems by asking if you need money and where your little brother is only a door away to check on.

Addis… then…
Qelemwa, as Abraham “Balageru” Wolde, would say, is Abwara, Tsehai and yeShint bett shita.

It is also a place where

A Eulogy for “Sholan Geremew”

They say the owner was a Lawyer, or “negere fej” as was called back then. A hard up business man who resumed the construction when he got money and didn’t when he didn’t. It took him more than 10 years to finish building! A fact which kept, legend has it, all of “Shola” (residents between “Qebena” and “Megenagna”), who no doubt were strangers to big buildings at that time (more than 45 years ago) in wonder. “Sholan Geremew”, the building was later dubbed. But that’s not the only reason why “Shola” was kept in wonder by the towering edifice in it’s midst. Not only did the owner die soon after, but nobody dared rent it for a long time to come. So, there it stood, looking high and mighty at the forested neighborhood beneath it, as cold & lonely as the high and mighty are always said to end up :-).

After Dergue took it, however, the top two buildings were taken by successful bachelors and the ground floor was rented out to, lemme see, a Cleaners (or laundry), a video shop which later adopted the name “Take Fun” and whose logo was drawn by my cousin Silesh who never impressed me as an artist, another Cleaners, a pastry slash café and a Kidus Gabriel clinic. Infront of which I once saw an old man crossing himself and bowing. On the bright side, he was literate! Edme LeMeserete Timhirt!

We grew up calling it “Bichaw foQ” while the adults, who witnessed its progress all their school life, kept referring to it by it’s original name. It was the coolest spot in my neighborhood when I grew up! It was the location you gave for your first “Qetero”, the place where cars dropped you off so nobody from your neighborhood would see you and where kisses were stolen before hitting ground.

And now.. there is none!

Well, almost! Herebelow is what’s left of it, front and side. No doubt about it, it’s the end of an era! Of a glorious era filled with childhood memories (both good & bad) that “will never return”, as we say in Amharic!

Which is why we fare thee well, oh your building-ness, with love and fond memories. And a promise that you’ll always remain in our hearts – just the way you were!

Sincerely,
YeShola Lijoch

The Remains of an Era!

P.S. For those of you who vaguely remember a tall “mamma” infront of British Embassy with “I love you hotel” subscribed on it’s side in a glaring paint, that ain’t it! This one was located infront of the Russian Embassy & Gene Bank.

P.S.2. Jofe Amoraw’s tribute to Sholan Geremew.