A note from seven years ago
For a year or so she illuminated my life. You know, by way of teaching what civilization is, what resources the English language has, how the America way of life goes, what life is on the whole and what have you! Did I go out of town for a hike before I met her? Not really! Did I swim? Not really! Did I frequent nightclubs or Azmari bets? Not at all! Did I dance? No! No! No! Did I? I know my limited self! I know what limits me too.
Don’t take it to be like being a girlfriend or a lover. That is not the case. The first time I saw her was at the university. The day I met her I really appreciated the reason why she came here. I was moved! She was a volunteer. Almost everything I tried ever since, failed on or succeeded in seems because I met her. The morning I met her at the staff lounge, I promised to be a good brother to her. And I hope she proved a sister. A sister three years older than me. Not only to her, was the same true with the other American volunteer who was as old as her. They enjoyed what a brother could offer. Erica was an Asian American, and her other friend an African American.
I know how beauty after beauty came along. It could be a dozen of them. But I was not ready for love. How one of my older colleague got mad at me! He explored life more than I did. At least he has a daughter who is my age. He said I had wronged girls and love. "You will regret how mean you are to these girls!" he warned me.You know he is of the generation before us and takes every encounter with girls to be of love. I didn’t mean it though.
This piece of writing is meant to serve me as a reminder of what I should contribute in remembrance of our friendship. As I owe much to it, I know I should dedicate a few pages to that purpose. Just a few moments before I went to class this morning, I started to write something and wait for the right time to complete it. Now in this chilly evening at Debre Birhan I am scribbling to add a few lines to that start.
Something struck my mind this morning. It was when I was exercising. It was the American exercises she gave me that I was doing. They are from the insanity videos. A number of exercises! I wish I did them over the years. I would really be in shape. “How every out of shape guy tells me to rest during this hike!” she once said. I was not the one though.
One evening I was with her in a hut at a hotel. She sat with her Ethiopian boyfriend who used to come from Addis. He had a weird habit of kissing her whenever they were with me. I call it weird and she shared my feeling too. That night also she got mad at him. “Don’t kiss me in Mezemir’s presence. He will be nervous!” Surprisingly, there was another American girl next to me who kept saying, “Mezemir, don’t keep quiet!” When the Banker boy gave my friend a relief from the kiss, she said something that still lingers in my mind to the other American girl, “Mezemir is always in a pensive mood!” I was really mesmerized to hear her genuine view of my permanent state. Since I was nervous and always in the phobic state, her statement was really descriptive. If I kissed the American girl next to me, it would be a kissing spree! We are reserved in our nature. I would not go down as such. How that young Addis Abeban’s affair with the girl ended is really miserable. She dumped him. As I sat by a roadside cafeteria, I saw him going back and forth from her house to another volunteer’s house at the teachers’ college. That volunteer came with him during the third trip and helped him beg her, but to no avail. She told me that he loved America more than her that she dumped him.
There are a number of observations she made about love in Ethiopia or myself in particular. “I want to see Mezemir fall in love,” would she say looking at my eyes for a response. I didn’t give a shit though. “I really don’t know how Ethiopians don’t care about love,” she would say every day she thinks about the issue. “You start an affair with Mezemir and extend your contract for two years!” she advised the African American girl. “I know you that love her!” she striked! That was true. How do they know what we feel? Could it be how the CIA trains them to know what we think at any given moment. The love I felt towards that African American girl was not there for the other girl who begged for a couch at my place for a night. Confession!
“I know you can be a good husband for an American girl,” she once said to me. I am not sure about that. That could be either because Ethiopian girls are getting increasingly beautiful or I don’t have a good taste for American girls as I might have for my compatriots. My feeling is divided though!
Why do I tell you all this!
And finally, recently, after seven solid years, what Erica, my sister, promised to offer me is coming along. It made me think about all the days we spent.
To be continued and edited.
ምንም አስተያየቶች የሉም:
አስተያየት ይለጥፉ