7 Habits of a Highly-Ethiopian Child
By Aster Mengesha Gubay
Mid sip of buna, I chuckled then froze. I couldn’t believe what was happening right before my very eyes. 5 girls huddled around around a round table, small remnants of injera left, and buna/shi in all their hands – the girls looked at me like I was crazy. They had no idea that in that very moment I had just realized something that would help us understand our parents more than ever before.
“Guys.”
“What?”
“I just realized something…”
“Okay… what?”
“We are a becoming our parents. We are literally our fathers and mothers…”
“This blog post is dedicated to our Ethiopian parents, to their many tendencies and habits that have now become our own. ”
This blog post is dedicated to our Ethiopian parents, to their many tendencies and habits that have now become our own. Here are 7 developed habits that confirm we are becoming our Ethiopian parents.
We are our mothers in that…
- shi, buna, and food are immediately offered to any and everyone who visits our home without hesitation.
- We take offense to people trying to leave the house without eating even when don’t have much to offer them.
- Our conversations naturally begin by asking someone how they are at least 4x before an actual conversation can begin.
- Our weekly “debrief sessions” resemble our mothers gossip/catch-up sessions.
- When we are in separate rooms of the house, we all yell each other’s names in the house with our mothers projection and enunciation of names.
We are our fathers in that…
- We discuss the current state of Ethiopia and our conversations are always accompanied with the occasional deep sigh and a couple of “bessmams” and/or “waynay hagere…”
- We speak over each other with so much passion, passion that I’ve only seen in our fathers when they talk about Ethiopia.
“These habits may not seem like a big deal to some but they are very much a part of our identity. ”
These habits may not seem like a big deal to some but they are very much a part of our identity. These habits, passed down indirectly or directly, set our parents apart from other parents. These habits and this very discussion helped us understand why our parents are the way they are and that clarification in that very moment helped use realize how much of us is them and how much of us is Ethiopia.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Ethiopian Diaspora Fellowship the organization and the leadership.