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Finding Solace in a New Setting at EPRDF-SF
Adal Isaw
adalisaw@yahoo.com
May 6, 2008
On a blinding dark night in Eritrea, we all took turn to kneel down and compete with water drinking camels from a stinking miniature pond of water. I remember vividly pressing my jaws like an alligator who just took a bite of his prey and tightening the gap between my upper and lower lips, and siphoning the odorous water down my throat half-heartedly to squash my thirst. I also remember standing up straight even faster than I bent my knees so that my comrade just behind me takes turn to drink the "water" out of the stinking miniature pond. That comrade was nick named Barude, and to this day, I have no clue as to what his real name is.
I knew a bit that he was from Wello, Ethiopia. And you bet you, he buttresses the myth, the fact, and the obvious about Wello for he was so handsome and lovely. Back
then, one could be dealt harshly for having the thought of loving another comrade, but nonetheless, I remember an eighth grade classmate of mine from Awassa melting in love when ever she let her eyes wander the beautiful face of Barude.
"He is so handsome, and yes indeed, black is beautiful," I recall, Fetlework whispering into my ears at the edge of Gash river while I and Barude were enjoying a wild tobacco that we rolled that mimicked a cigar from Cuba. Barude became her first love in one of the unlikely places on earth for passion of the peaceable kind.
We were there hiding from our killers and readying ourselves to kill as many enemies as we possibly can. That place raised every comrades’ passion to kill, and in the mist of it all, Barude and Fetlework found their passion to love each other. Fetlework survived the struggle, to only lose her life about a decade ago in
Addis after an operation, and Barude lost his life fighting in Belesa, Begemidir, to impact all the beautiful things that we are witnessing in our beloved country today.
Dancing on middle age, and going back as far as my memory lane can take me with tears in my eyes, I have made it a habit, a ritual if you will, to scan the part of my brain to remember my comrades in arms and wonder all the time if I am swimming in a post traumatic syndrome of some sort. But lately, I have found that, I have no trauma of any sort. My trauma-like syndrome was induced by my own failure to substitute the comrades that I have lost with another new comrades in a new setting.
Now, I have found my new comrades and my new home within EPRDF-SF, and my life has turned anew to give more life peaceably instead of taking one violently. Indeed, I have found my solace in a new setting at EPRDF-SF and so can you. This is not a sales pitch, but instead, a purchasing proposal to buy and use your love and skill to better the lives of our beloved peoples of
Ethiopia.
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