Paradox, Flash Fiction

Mezemir G.

 

Gete is three-quarters Habesha and a quarter Greek. And who knows for sure what Habesha blood those three-quarters include? Nobody knows the ethnic composition of the others sitting in the hall either. But it is said that most of the time Tigrians, the ruling ethnicity, and a few other sympathizers of the regime frequent such meetings. Anyways, the secret team at the embassy makes sure they have the ethnic profiles of the embassy’s visitors. For the government embassy is a place to trap the diaspora as the river is to trap antelopes for crocodiles. The embassy tries to get their favor for the normal services they get. Gete is sitting in the meeting hall of the Ethiopian Embassy in Berlin. A middle-aged working woman as she is, her days are occupied with lots of activities. Be it as it may, she unusually decided to take part in this affair of Ethiopia, the county she emigrated from as child when the Communist Junta took over.  

She was not sure what to do, say or think. She is there to find out what is going on with the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. The progress of the dam’s construction seems to go well as the presenter is saying but she smelt a rat. There is news that is coming from both America-and-Europe-based diaspora news outlets that the placement of the dam is not as it should have been. The Tigray-led government is said to anex the dam into greater Tigray. The highly corrupted Metals and Engineering Corporation (METEC) is said to have misused the money that is meant for the construction. There are numerous purported problems with the way the Ethiopian government of EPRDF is handling the dam and leading the country. The dam’s project is too politicized, yet it has also attracted the attention of Ethiopia’s longtime enemies and international powers.

Amid all these, she doesn’t know what to think. Whether she has to oppose or support is not clear to her. She knows how the system is using the divide and rule policy to control Ethiopia. If she supports the project, she may donate too. She took the microphone. Everyone is expecting what this newcomer is about to say. Would she be in for a surprise?  

She gave feedback. Leaving all the ethnic politics and corruption behind she has hope that Ethiopia shall unite. As the granddaughter of a Greek engineer who was killed by the Italians when they invaded Ethiopia in 1936, she feels she is responsible. The engineer was employed by the Ethiopian government and he lived at Dedesa studying the possibilities of building a dam on the Nile when the Italians took over. He died with his secrets. A piece of his secrets only seems to work through his bloodline. The same people who killed him, the Italians, are in Ethiopia building dams and electric power generating plants including the GERD. “A country of paradoxes!” she scribbled in her notebook a moment before she pledged 1,000 Euros and left out not giving in for the announcement of a cocktail.