Is it leprosy? Since yesterday was my time off from work, I planned to visit a neighbor who gave birth two months ago. We are still sticking to our good culture: visiting friends and families in time of happiness and grief. When time and situations allow it, we have a custom of paying respects, if possible, by taking gifts with us. Having that in mind, I left my house to go to a nearby store to look trough the racks where they keep baby clothing. My direction was to eastbound and I had to wait at the bus stop until the bus arrives. Just across the street, two young ladies were waiting for another bus going to the opposite direction: westbound. One of the girls, in sweat pants, crossed the street and came towards the place where I was standing. Giggling, she asked me something about wait time of the bus. Don’t get me wrong here since I, myself, lack fluency in non-native languages. I was trying to figure out what she was saying and somehow I understood it. It didn’t, however, stop me from asking her questions in relation to her background. “Are you Ethiopian? Do you speak Amharic?” I apologize if I’m quick on the trigger. I am not trying to say that Ethiopia means Amhara/Amharic. I am just being innocent about it. For me Ethiopia is all about the 14 provinces and tribes and ethnic groups. For some reason, the girl didn’t like to answer those questions. Confused, I threw another one: “Were you born and raised here?” To my surprise, she told me she came to the country 5 years before. How soon to make a drastic identity change! Like American born Ethiopian little girls, she mumbled few words in Amharic “tin’ish, tin’ish, echil’alehu” I wish I could say it loud. “Don’t you speak any local languages?” my stubbornness didn’t annoy her though. Again giggling and in I-don’t-know-much reaction, she told me she spoke “Oromigna”. She said it in an American way. “Oh! My ride is here”. She ran towards the car laughing her American laughter. Bemused, I chuckled about the situation and tried to recollect few circumstances that I experienced couple of times. Some of us are out there pretending to be someone else and brag about stuff that we are not good at. Most of all, instead of being nice about things, we keep twisting words and give them distorted meanings. Nobody forces anybody to be a person from a specific nation or pick a specific nationality that they don’t like to be. It’s a matter of choice. But can’t we be pleasant about answering questions? For all I know I didn’t ask that girl something nauseating. It’s not leprosy being called Ethiopian. I really am sorry to say it but at few instances where I had to ask same question, they are always disgusted about it, disgusted being called “Ethiopian”. Let’s get it in to our head, being an Ethiopian is not being a leper (sorry for using a derogatory term). Why the disgust then? Why is it while we come from the same country and grow up in the neighborhood where we shared good/bad moments? If my memory serves me very well, my childhood was about togetherness and respect no matter how our ethnic background differed from one another. Endew tebalten/tenaniken yet enders yihon!? Nobody is superior to the other and nobody is inferior either – we all are human beings. Above all most of us came from same background. I can’t wait for that day where Peace, Love and Respect prevail up on us. Wednesday October 30, 2013
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 03:59:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015