After many, many years I finally made a decision to do what my parents have begged me to do every time they visit. No it's not marriage, and I'm not having a baby but travel to Ethiopia. Year after year I had an excuse from — I have too much responsibility at work to I am just not ready to take the time off. The reality was I was terrified, mortified, and scared out of my skirt. Why? I had no idea. I didn't have any horrible memories to re-live, or any debt to settle it was just out right fear. There is nothing to fear but fear itself!
The day finally came when I purchased my ticket and I knew — it was too late to turn back now, I believe, I believe I'm boarding the plane. No refunds and no transfer of passengers name was clearly printed under the terms and conditions. The only thing that gave me comfort was that my sweet brother agreed to accompany me on this travel of a lifetime because he's just like that, sweet as a honeycomb.
I couldn't eat anything, or sleep the day before the trip. My brother assured me, "it's a long flight, you'll have plenty of time to sleep". God, I hope he's right, I mean he's almost always right, but what if he's wrong today after all he's only human. I wanted a net to catch the butterflies in my stomach and set them free, they must be suffocating by now God knows I am.
It's on baby…The boarding began on none other than Ethiopian Airlines, with the handsome pilots and the well dressed hostessoch. What pride I felt but dang why are the butterflies having a block party ene hode wuste? Boarding was easy but getting a drink, of any alcoholic beverage, to help me pass out was a little tricky because the flight must first take off per the FAA Airline regulations. Dangit we have to get that changed.
The drama…I knew after a while, when I viewed the monitor in front of me, it was too late to holler help! Another darn FAA regulation. We were clearly out of the continental US of A bye, bye. So I did what sometimes works for me, I had a little pep talk with my inner-self "set your ass down and enjoy the flight" and took a short nap. The nap kind of worked but waking up was a bitch. It took me at least 5-10 seconds before my eyes could focus then I grabbed my brother and asked him "where the hell am I?" He looked at me as if I lost my mind. He said, "are you serious, you need a real drink, girl don't wake me up again until we get there" then he laughed ha/ha. I didn't find it too funny but we talked about other things and I got distracted. What a sweet brother I tell you, one in a million.
Yene Ethiopia…I would like to say I now know that I have always had a place to call my real home and wonderful relatives I never knew about. From the moment I arrived at the Bole Airport I can smell it in the air – pure love from my Ethiopia! I knew that my heart and soul have finally taken a deep breath of real life.
I was finally back home!
As the tears ran down my face and my heart was grinning at me with every beat, I thought to myself, oh what a feeling! I observed the looks and interactions of my Ethiopians and I realized exactly what I have been missing in my life: I missed the kind smiles. I missed the heartfelt greetings. I missed the love one gives from the heart. I missed the fresh air. I missed Amarenga being spoken all around me and written on signs and buildings. I missed the cars with the big license plates. I missed the poor man/woman, the rich man/woman, the policeman, and the strangers in the streets. I missed the big beautiful churches. I missed the injera, dabo, fanta, kolo, kurte and kitfo. I missed merkato. My home away from home, what I missed out on by not growing up in Addis. I love you my Ethiopia!
Podcasted Hager by Neway Debebe
ya i know exactly wat ur talkin about i was gone from ethiopia for 7 months and every day i was crying its a very emotional detachment if youve been living there 4 a while its like a big part of your life is back im happy you got to go back
WOW!! celebratelife what a beautiful piece. You know its been 13 years since ive been in ET and I am too terrified to go back. I dont know why either. for some reason i feel i might not come back. weird huh?
I too havent gone back to ager bet since I left… Life in the US is very hard … no time or money to take a long break to go back….
I am sure going back is hard for the first time…
Betam nice peice, the first time I went to ethiopia, I was in shock, couldnt leave the house for about 2 weeks…
Just when I started to get the hange of it…boom I had to get back… I have ever since gone back a couple of times…
I love my country.. I wish i could live there!
Celebrate Life as always poetic as ever! A song comes to mind. I will attach to this article, if you dont mind!
serously a song with the exact message!
funny part is, it is the planning or the ‘thinking about going there’ that is a biggie… being there is the loveliest and the easiest.
makes you hate the ‘abesha food’ they sell you in the US, and the routine, and .. and everything else… once you get back. so, ande keteQemese behuala, you end up going back 90 gize::
I too went back after a VERY long time. I was totally heartbroken by the number of street kids that have to fend for themselves. With Christmas around the corner, I’ve been thinking about how materialistic kids are here (God forbid you get an Ethio-American kid a Gameboy when it’s a PS2 that they asked for) and how mature and simple the street kids are there.
Speaking of, I would love to hear your opinion about all these celebrities having african-baby-fever. Do you think these kids are really better off?
I arrived in Addis after 16 years in 2001, I saw Addis for the first time I was an adult Standing at Bole International Airport which looked like a bus stop at the moment… The new Airport still under construction!!
Well, I was without a fear… I held my tongue
like a stone in my mouth, haven’t spoke real Amharic for a long time… it was just a memory.
But in my suitcase, I had Amharic books – old cassets of Mahmood and Tilahun songs that I took with me when I left home -
and my name – which was changed durring Durg on a fake passport to get out the communist country… my grandfather had passed away so is my grand mother.
The Taxi driver asked me when I left there? Well, I told him, I remember not the year,
nor the month, but the feeling:
the time when the System put a sold sign on my freedom
and a nightmare ran naked through the streets of my imagining, chanting its name in capitals:
Mengestu, Mengestu, Mengestu Haile-Mariam!!
When I arrived there, I sat at a Hilton Gazibo table
with a plain white cloth.
Ate a meal of Injera in courses. Sanctuary.
Picked up the strange Teff injera – but like an impulse
put it down, used the right hand,
as we’d always done.
And as I scooped mouthfuls, I wept Time. Grief.
I looked up for mirrors occupying other seats – but they were empty.
And so,
I began
a testament
to thinking. Writing. Being Here.
But lived a sixteen-year-long!
When the Ethiopian sky changed and grew birds
with dream-long wings in delicate lower case,
I returned, not with a boy’s, but a man’s voice.
It’s strange: a plane ticket buying you Time,
backwards, down a tunnel of years to arrive
outside your childhood home.
In my suitcase photos of my family,
A man searching for his own reflection
Each one contains a long-lost face, but older;
brother, sisters, cousins and smaller,
younger versions of them, unknown.
in my language – their faces, a gift:
Marena-Wotete
Oh! One more thing I might add… to answer “Timo” I was the child who was given to an English family for adoption…. There was not celebrities, but My New English Family where my Heroes for taking care of me and my poor family.
Who are you to judge for giving chances to those poor babies being adapted by anyone. Are you willing to help your own country men?? Are you willing to adopt orphan babies or give money to a charity?
M&W
the song is podcasted… what do you think of it….
Nolawi, Lebe emeneqa musika new. I swear it makes me want to be in Ethiopia tomorrow.
The song, I tell you the song, I’m re-living my whole trip, thanks Nolawi. My trip to Ethiopia was the most life altering experience I have ever had. Sometimes when you live abroad you tend to get distracted and not give much appreciation to what really means the most.
Meron, Believe me if I had it my way, I wouldn’t have come back as soon as I did. I would have loved to stay there for like 6 months or more. I know the fear you’re feeling and it’s not weird at all. When I told my father that I was stressed about my trip he told me, “just be sure to check in your stress at the gate before you exit the Bole airport” I laughed so hard and I think it’s letting go of our busy life style that makes us uneasy.
Rasmitat, Didn’t you feel like you were having an out of body experience? I did and I was a little antsy, after my 3rd day, I begged my family to take me out. I walked the streets, took a cab, and did all the things that everyone else did and I just loved it.
ShalomShalom, Oh my goodness don’t get me started with the food. I was very daring and even tried kurte, man I loved it, the meat was like butter. The only problem is now I hate the beef here. You’re right once you come back you’re already planning the next trip.
Timo, I was also touched by the kids on the streets but you know after talking with some of them I’ve learned they are much more at peace with this world then we are, here in these United States. I mean I’m not downplaying the poverty but the only thing we could do is help out to the best of our abitlity. As far celebrities adopting African babies google Lemn Sissay, a poet/playwright/author he was adopted, not by a celebrity, and he says, “To western parents that want to adopt a child, I would say to people that money is not everything.” He stresses on the importance of preserving culture and self identity.
Marina_Wotete, You’re amazing! Poetry is food for the soul, especially when you can relate to it.
Nolawi: A Perfect song!!!!!
Marena, thank you for that… my god… i hadnt read it till now…. my god… I am so happy that we are able to get input from the likes of you!…
I think so about the song as well!
wow, going back after soo long??
the sad part about this(with other people) is most of the people that left ethiopia during DERG and bad political days still think the situation is the same and thousands of people are getting shot on ethiopia streets like before. but they are just wrong!! it makes me sad how they keep making ethiopian government and other oppositions like Medhin & UEDF(who r working peacefully)and the situation in ethiopia bad. i hate when they exaggeration and propaganda. this diasporas really make me sick to my stomach.funny some people in nyc made a name for these as DPs, diaspora parasites..lol..it is kind of mean but very appropriate since the DPs are ruining the first multiparty election ethiopia had in its history. anyway i just thought about this when you said you just went back to ethio after so many many years.
peace.
Yes I dreamt that moment for fourteen of the last fifteen years in all its glory and in living color. I wanted an unadulterated, an unfiltered reintroduction to AgerBet so I conveniently neglected to inform anyone of my relatives of my arrival. I was on a Lufthansa flight with a handful of Ethiopians. Unfortunately I was sited next to some pedophile looking Caucasian evangelical from Georgia heading to Ethiopia. The bastard kept spelling out his worlds like I was deaf or something. That surely was a disturbing experience alone, but it was worsened by a reoccurring thought of him snatching the innocence of some vulnerable young Ethiopian boy smitten by the supposed words of Jesus. It was pure hell. But fortunately I was able to ignore that pervert without effort because my anticipation was furious and my mind was occasionally seized by the thoughts of my dream ending in a fiery crash. But we landed. I stepped out wearing my beat up jacket looking “nothing like someone from America.”
I don’t know if it was jet lag or excitement, but the fancy airport I heard so much about didn’t seem all that. The immigration officers were nice but my first reintroduction to the famous Ethiopian hospitality came in the form of a very rude bank teller who had no clue how to threat customers. But later I found out that is a reoccurring theme. Ok the airport does have nice marble floors but the damn roof was leaking right by baggage claim. Then at the exit while I was in a line waiting to get my luggage scanned, a loud group of skimpy EA stewardesses came and rudely stuck their shit in bypassing the long line and pushed us out the way and walked passed like they are superstars. I was like wow…
I came out the passage and in front of me was a sea of Ethiopians, so many Ethiopians none that I could recognize. It seemed like I was the only one with no family there. I regretted for not telling my fam to pick me up. But I got a grip of myself and went to find a cab. As soon as I stepped out… man! It was only 11pm but I was griped by the inky darkness outside. I was a bit nervous but I had to act cool so I wouldn’t get hustled. The cabby assumed that I came from south Africa and of course I did not correct him. Anyways we were driving on the streets of Addis in a seriously beat up Lada, which later I came to think in contrast, was not all that bad. I was desperately trying to identify shit that I could remember through the darkness and rain. But now thinking back it was all a blur. Shit! actually my plan of staying in a hotel the first few days so I can check out the town solo was ruined. The rain, darkness and the run down look of the city just depressed the fuck out of me. The cabby told me the particular hotel I wanted to stay at was booked so I had no choice but to call my granny.
Thanx to jet lag and the freakish cold I barely slept a wink. Then like 5 am local time I heard the first Doro. I was like oooh so nostalgic and happy. That was my first Doro kukulu in a long time. Eventually I had to give up trying to sleep because the motherfucking doros wouldn’t stop. Even worse In the next half hour all the doros in the neighborhood joined in along with the Kedase from a far away church and I guess there was also a mousq near by so the wild cacophony made sleeping an impossible task. So I woke up groggy and cursing the doro out in the yard.
Ok there was breakfast out on the table. Oh the poor serategna… she walks around with her head down. There is never an eye contact. I really felt uncomfortable getting served but I didn’t want to interfere with the status quo as captain Pickard follows the prime directive when traveling to far of lands. Oh the serategnoch and the zebegnoch they are one forgotten lot. That is one hell of a humiliating and utterly depressing existence. But that is a whole other topic.
I was eager to get out and visit my other side of my family. They are the ones I grew up with in a compound consisting of 80 something ppl of very diverse background but mostly very poor with none of them were expecting me.
Heading there I stepped out to catch the minibus with the help of my grandmother’s zebegna but immediately I was struck how dilapidated and worn-out the area looked. There so many ppl outside some walking some just hanging out. Like there was something major happening in the hood or like it was a gebeya or something but later I discover that is the way it is through out Addis. Now everywhere is like what I remember Merkato to be. It is crazy. There are ppl everywhere almost overrunning the street or alleyway in every conceivable direction. Anyways I pushed myself into the over crowded mini-bus. Heading towards Arat-Kilo I just couldn’t get over by the amount of ppl that are on the street. The road was so fucked up it was unbelievable. Did somebody say fresh air? What fresh air? Damn the pollution was crazy! But I kept repeating to myself that…shit, I am home and these are my ppl. On the way I started to recognize shit. You see despite the over population and the density of how everything is built together, the main landmarks such as the churches, bridges and monuments are very much recognizable.
Anyways, I got to my destination in one piece and walked into the compound feeling quite nervous. The place looked a bit different and quite deserted. I run into a lady that I did not recognize but I spat out a few names and the lady told me that most of them are out but led me to the gwaro through a gurangure and took me to one of the little rooms where one of the ppl I asked for was laying down on her bed apparently seriously ill. That was Worke, one of the girls I grew up with. We played run around living our childhood like there is no tomorrow. I told her who I am and as I looked into her eyes, I could almost sense the terror that went through her mind as she recognized me and not wanting me to see her so vulnerable. She wanted to get out of her bed to give me a hug but she didn’t have the energy to do so. I had to beg her to stay down.
My short chat with her made me realize damn sanitized life in America saved me from so much pain and suffering. A number of ppl have moved away but not only are the dozen or so older ppl are dead of natural causes but 8 to 10 ppl I knew growing up have died very slow painful deaths. I knew they were dead but I never realized the extent of the suffering. But I was even more overwhelmed by the suffering of the survivors. All the ppl they have to masTamem, all the ppl they had to bury and the orphans they had to care for. I was like fuuuuck! This shit is depressing. Here I am sitting in front of one of my childhood friend who is literally dying talking about dead relatives. I expected to hear depressing stories and desperation of all sort. I even went with a lowered expectation and was well informed by relatives and friends who recently were there. But I never expected to feel that depressed.
Anyways enough with this shit today and if u want more I will holla at u with more depressing shit. The disgusting disparity between the rich and poor, the eshet-eshet bet, the bar/brothels, a whole coffee house, cub-hopping experience with bole kids, Chechnya, draft betoch, alBergo, the comedy about $1600 birr to watch Ja rule, the monstrous mega houses, the monstrous churches, the spreading of fundamentalism, the seriously fucked up roads, the seriously fucked up traffic patters, the serious air pollution problem and many many more. And finally living in Addis is like living in a motherfukin police state. But I promise to end it in a positive note.
hahaha .. Nyala!
you would have found a positive note at Yeshi Buna. Even my dream about that place is positive…
i agree 101% of doro kukulus and loud noises from mosques at 5am. add to the list… yemender wiSHoch. but ye mayelemed yelem yilemedalooo
and i, 102%, agree about most corners of Addis feeling like Merkato. One doesn’t need to go to Merkato, because everywhere is a Merkato…
Look forward to reading about Chechnia and the 1600 birr comedy for Ja Rule.
Nyala,
Thank you for honestly describing what you found out.
celebratelife … great post.
nyala … brilliant! you got us hooked, now give us more please
Nyala….Great Piece! could feel the honesty in every word!Laughed my a** off..Would love to hear the $1600 Jahrule comedy.
celebrate,
I know about what you mean about the nervous-ness….I’m thinking of going back to Addis myself and the anticipation is killing me. I think it’s fear that your illusions about Ethiopia based on the great love you got might come crashing at reality… at least that’s how I’m rationalizing it.
Nyalasmoke, I was cracking up and read it twice, I love it. I visualized your experience and it was an amazing ride. You are courageous to do it alone and without advance notice to anyone.
Nyalasmoke, I really enjoyed reading your piece. Can’t wait to read more from you. You sure were a lot more daring than I was. I did not attempt to go in one of the taxi’s (if you can call it that?) But to be fair and all, it is one of the poorest countries in the world with greedy leaders.
people this is not entertainment, this is seriou shit going on in the place we all grew up in. Try to do something about the problem instead of laughing about how poor the people back home are.
BB, what’s up with the hostility? Are we missing home or is home missing us? It’s serious shit? What a way to describe a home you so luv. Wow you’ve inspired me to get off my ass and do something like you – nothing. Thanks Beedy B
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