By Samrawit Tamyalew
Oh, Ethiopia. I was so excited to come to this land and have a taste of the cornucopia of delectable, organic, cultural food. Being in Ethiopia presented a perfect opportunity to regularly consume foods I normally would not eat, explore the Ethiopian cultural identity through meals, and have opportunities to sit with locals to learn about their experiences. Alas, it was not meant to be.
Read More›By Meki Shewangizaw
A week before graduation I had a panic attack when I came to the conclusion that the major I picked was not what I wanted. It wasn’t really a surprise. Throughout the four years, I knew in the back of my mind that I didn’t enjoy what I was studying. I tried to comfort myself by saying I would just figure it out along the way — a lazy mindset that I too often relied on.
Read More›By Becky Tsadik
Beyoncé ruined my name. Or rather her “Becky with the good hair” line in 2016’s “Sorry” added insult to the injury of Plies’ degrading 2010 song “Becky.” The infamous “Oh. My. God. Becky.” intro from Sir Mix a Lot’s 1992 anthem “Baby Got Back” has been giggly lilted at me ad naseum since grade school—each person believes themselves the first clever one to have done so. Through college, I was teased for being a black girl with a “white” name, but I stuck with Becky because my birth name Rebekah never quite fit. 
“There are good Beckys and Rebeccas: the Rebecca (also Rebekah) of the Bible was a good, resourceful brave woman, who nevertheless gave troubled birth to Esau and Jacob, whose conflicts went on to shape the conflicts between nations and races. Oops.” (Thanks, Beyonce: Being a ‘Becky’ Just Got So Much Harder.” Tim Teeman, The Daily Beast).
Read More›By Feven Abiy
Due to a series of random events and last minute decisions, I had the opportunity to travel out of Addis Ababa twice in one week. Both trips required a drive southward on the expressway to cities in Oromia, the largest administrative region in Ethiopia. The first was to Adama, or Nazret, where Edom and I attended the 30th Annual Ethiopian Public Health Association Conference. We left early on a Monday morning with another coworker and traveled about an hour and a half before reaching the conference center. This year’s theme was “The Impact of Climate Change on Public Health: Ethiopia’s Challenge in the 21st Century”. The two-day conference was filled with panel discussions, poster exhibits, and breakout sessions all focused on answering the question of what Ethiopia can do to mitigate the public health challenges of climate change. It was an exciting conversation to be a part of.
Read More›Amharic Olympics
Typical line of contract taxis in Piassa
It was a breezy afternoon drive on our way back to the city from Gullele. I accompanied our taxi driver, and his fatherly aura, in the front seat, and was deep in conversation with fellows Feven and Meki in the back.
In a matter of minutes, our driver’s smile spread from ear to ear and he began praising us for speaking in English. He assumed we were students at Nazareth, a private school that excels in languages, but we explained we had come from the US to work in Ethiopia for the next six months through a diaspora fellowship, which invited an equally positive reaction. He told us about his two children who attend government school, but are encouraged to speak and read in English in their free time. He was proud of us for returning to the motherland, and deeply supported the dual Amharic-English linguistic identity we’ve nurtured for so long as Ethiopian-Americans.
Not all other taxi drivers and passersby have had the same reaction. As a diaspora, your Amharic is either too good or not good enough, and no one shies away from making their opinions known. Random strangers’ critiques of my Amharic have taken the most creative forms. Instead of feeling insulted, I can’t help but laugh along with the poetic diss they’ve just served. A few of my favorites include:
By Meki Shewangizaw
I have a fear of getting in a car accident. Not a two-car collision, but a fear of getting hit by a car while walking. I don’t know where it came from, or when it manifested, but whenever I cross the street–there’s a short-lived sense of panic until I make it safely to the other side.
Now imagine me crossing the street in Addis Ababa.
In this city, crosswalks are few and the drivers who obey them are even fewer. Family and friends can sense my level of discomfort without me having to vocalize it. From people like Sami, a member of my EDF cohort (who often tells me to get on the other side of her so that she can be facing traffic), to my cousins who laugh while explaining that cars don’t stop for people here.
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The amount of women in the nontraditional workforce and entrepreneurship roles in Ethiopia continue to inspire me to work harder and chase my dreams. Being an Ethiopian woman and growing up in the States my whole life has taught me a lot of valuable lessons. I grew up trying to juggle the challenges of fitting into the cultural and traditional “norm”, per se, as an Ethiopian woman,
Road through the Unexpected
If you ask anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you I’m a person who loves to plan and have things in order. I thrive on the concept of predictability and typically rely on those around me to provide a small dosage of spontaneity in my life. Without preparation, I’ll go through a process of questions that build up in my head, negative thoughts, and finally finish up with what may look like, to many, as a mini-panic attack. The thing is, the idea of the unknown has always stressed me out, and yet since being accepted into the Ethiopian Diaspora Fellowship, this has been the one constant thing I’ve encountered.
Here’s what my journey has looked like so far…
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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…”
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I am hopeful.
At the time of writing, I was sitting in the bar area of the Ramada Hotel, located in the popular Bole area of the city – the latest of many swanky new hotels in the ever-expanding capital of Addis Ababa. A lot has changed since I first visited Ethiopia 11 years ago – when dial-up internet was a luxury, beautiful palm trees were abundant, and most of Ethiopia’s roads were “koroconch,” (gravel-like, unpaved roads) that I strangely missed upon returning to the flat plains of the Midwest.
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