The Variety Combination
Twenty-one years later, I feel as if I have finally made it home. Home to the motherland where I was born. Home to the people and the stories I yearned to hear about while growing up as a little girl in Minnesota. Home to the roots of my identity. I’ve always had a positive perspective on the beauty of my country. I spent a lot of my life defending and vocalizing my Ethiopian identity
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Many of us grow up in households that ingrain this idea of the stable life – getting a job, then marriage, and finally, a family. The End. It wasn’t until my trip to Ethiopia in November of last year, that I realized I needed something different to happen in my life. As I boarded the plane to return to the States, I had a strange feeling that I would be returning very soon. It freaked me out. My only other experiences with the country had either been for the burial of my mother or the illness of her mother.
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It’s a Thursday. I wake up to the sounds of neighborhood roosters (my new alarm clock), gather my things, and proceed to my morning stroll through our top view neighborhood to catch a ride to work. All the while, ignoring stares at my fire red rain boots and smiling to myself because I couldn’t believe I was really back in Ethiopia.
In a span of thirty minutes my smile disappeared, I had accidentally stepped in a big puddle of chika (mud), and gotten into a “friendly” argument with my taxi driver. He couldn’t understand why I left America for Ethiopia – apparently saying I wanted to serve my country was not a fitting answer. Then, I slipped on the front steps of my office building with everyone around me reaching out and yelling “ayezosh!”
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Bole, Addis Ababa
There was one resolution that I held for 2015. I didn’t know how I would make it happen, when it would happen, or how long I would stay, but I knew I had to go to Ethiopia. After more than a decade of being away, I just knew I had to go back. Life was calling me home. With the start of a new year, I opened my heart to welcome new possibilities in my life and to embrace what came my way with no resistance.
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