I was just trying to check on Google how far it is from
Mezbir, Ethiopia to Tsorena, Eritrea. Google knew better one can’t walk across
the border, so it gave me this directions L
A little over 20 years and 2 months ago, I was up on a very
tall eucalyptus tree some 30km north of Adwa. Out of nowhere two fighter jets
flew directly above my head. It was probably the closest I have ever been to a
flying plane. They were so low to the ground and so fast, it appeared to me as
thought they were racing each other side by side. They were exactly on the same
level and exactly side by side, so fast almost no sound until they pass you. Little Daniel was amused for sure. It was
COOL. I didn’t think of it much at the time, so I did what I was there to do
(collect leaves for our house in preparation for a religious holiday the next
day) and when I got home that evening, we learned the fighter jets that flew
over my head were on their way to bomb Ayder elementary school in the middle of
Mekelle.
Some months after that, Ethiopia and Eritrea went into full
out war on many front of their border. The Ethiopian army’s presence in our
village was overwhelming. They would train there and get sent to the front line
(it seemed they were being rotate frequently perhaps every week or so). The Tsorena
frontline was not too far from where we were. We could hear the sound of heavy
artillery and see tracer fire lit up the mountains from a safe distance in our
homes. Sometimes we would wonder, what if, if the Eritrean forces get past the
Ethiopian defense line, would that mean we would have to move from our homes? Three
of my cousins used to live in Eritrea at the time. They were all deported empty
handed of course; but as you can guess everyone was happy they came back alive.
If my memory serves me right, some spent sometime imprison before they were
finally allowed to cross the border. How about my aunt and her family, who
lived in Egela, very close to the border, had they already moved? There was no
way to know? However, often I was not worried at all. With all the propaganda
coming out of both countries, you would think both countries were wining
tremendously.
The more I heard about what was going on, I started to feel
so violated my pride striped naked. Why did I feel that way? I am not sure, but
the one thing that was repeatedly aired over ‘Dimtsi Woyane” radio was, how
Eritrea with its 3 or so million people had the audacity to invaded the never
before colonized Ethiopia; a country with a population well over 60 million
inhabitants. With those numbers, I thought, the Eritreans must not be smart.
The population size outweighed everything else as far as I was concerned. I
didn’t know or understood each country’s military capability. Anyway, one of
these days I sat down under a little tree and wrote my first actual poem. It
was mainly focused on Ethiopian pride and how dare Esayas invade us. I remember
one of my insulting lines was, calling Esayas an old monk. Obviously in
retrospect, it doesn’t make sense why that should even be an insult. I gave my
poem to my amazing teacher Negasi, who encouraged me to go on and read it in
front of the entire elementary school in the morning when we would line up to
sing our anthem. There is some thing about being young and ignorant. I felt I
stood up right, as thought I went to the war zone and defended my country!
About two years into the war, I had just started 7th
grade and a large town meeting was called on. School was dismissed early so
that students could attend the meeting. I remember as soon as we were let out
of school to go to the meeting, many older students would stray out of the path
to the meeting, sometimes even run away and just disappear. Once we got to the
meeting place, we were reminded of the bravery of our people. This was a
meeting run by military personnel under a Ficus Vasta tree of course; the
organic way. They basically came to enlist young adults and teens for the Ethio
– Eritrea war.
This is last part to my previous post. The way it was done
makes me very sad till this day. Very persuasive soldiers make the case why; we
must go defend our sovereignty from the Eritrean aggression. They made it very
clear, no one was being coerced or obligated, but peer pressure, your manhood
and your patriotism or there lack off was in full display for everyone to see.
So after taking few short questions mainly from concerned parents, they play Eyasu
Berhe’s songs (I can’t explain what Eyasu Berhe means to the people of Tigray,
so I will just not even try) and everyone is clearly instructed, if you don’t
want to commit to enlist, you may not dance. If you do dance, that’s basically
signing up to go. All the sudden, within
minutes you find yourself in a crowd of highly emotional people jumping to the
middle dancing and shouting timeless slogans. You look to your left, you look
to your right, and well you can’t be the only coward amidst all bravery. So,
you jump in too. Once the song was over, we were pretty much led away to a
transient camp with soldiers in the front, in the middle and in the back. There
was no, go say goodbyes to your family and meet us in an hour kind of stuff,
obviously understandable of course.
I imagine it’s always a mixed feeling for everyone. On one
hand, you want to be a patriot, but you also don’t want to leave your family
and go to a war where coming back alive and able is up to a mere luck. The
Tigreans are intimately familiar with this more than any other people that I
can think of. So, I for one, I was the least eager to enlist. But, I felt
trapped. More than the peer pressure and sense of patriotism, one of my equals
who also happened to be family was very enthuse to enlist. The thought of going
home and telling his parents why their son didn’t come home with me after
school, that, I couldn’t bear. Deep in my being I felt, they would say,
‘Daniel, you are the smart one, how could you let him go?’ I felt that would be
the heaviest burden to shoulder.
Once we arrived at the transient camp in Dibdibo, they start
registering people’s names before asking them to get on the back of pick up
trucks. All up to that point, I had mainly one goal in my life, to enter Kalamino
Boarding High School. Free room and board for the few bright Tigrean students able
to obtain the highest test scores on their statewide 8th grade
examination thanks to TDA. Back then J
I was as an excellent of a student as they come. Always my in grade except
first semester of first grade. But that day at the transient place, there I was
wondering am I really going to a war? Once everyone in front of us had registered
and jumped up to the track, the soldier taking names looked at my cousin and I
and said, you guys are too young go home. You best believe, I breathed sigh of
relief! I said, lets go home. He refused. At this point, I felt he was not my
responsibility. I left his ass there and went home. When I got home, I told our
folks I mainly went that far to try to get him out of it [smh]. I can’t tell
you how much of that was the truth and how much of it was, trying to save
myself from getting chewed. Again, you get all kind of mixed feelings.
As life goes, I ended up coming to America that year. Later
on in College, I choose to write one of my short research papers on Badme (if
you have the time you can read it here). It turns
out, at least for me anyway, the older I got and the more I tried to read, things
like borders, facts, truth, and meanings could almost all be subjective. It
just depends the sources of the information you consume and the motives and
intentions behind them. I also started to feel a sense of a little embarrassment
when I find myself explaining the Ethiopian – Eritrea war or the intra-armed
conflicts in Ethiopia. I try to imagine if my non-Ethiopian/Eritrean friends
and classmates’ think of us as uncivilized people? Because, we do do very
“uncivilized” things often, yet again, we are also off the people who built the
Teple of Yeha, ruled over the Axumite Kingdom and carved the rock hewn churches
of Lalibela along with the countless human advancement that came with it.
And
So,
It is wonderful to see Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders
holding hands again.
J
#DanielEthiopia
