Some of the host crew
Happy Enkutatash (that’s እንቁጣጣሽ in Ethiopic) to us all. Ethiopian New Year actually fell on September 11th, but we’re still celebrating in San Francisco.
A group of gorgeous young Ethiopian women (and a couple of handsome guys) who work in the dining room of the geezer house where I live put on an Ethiopian New Year’s festival today, complete with a vast assortment of delicious, spicy dishes I cannot pronounce, a coffee roasting demonstration* (see below,) an exhibition of traditional dance (intermittently joined by a few nontraditional American geezers) and one precious but disinterested two-year-old.
We also got a lesson in international understanding. So herewith, some facts you might not have known about our faraway neighbors:
Ethiopia, founded in 980 BC, is one of the oldest nations in the world, and the only country in Africa that was never colonized. Its citizens had to beat back the Italians twice, but remain independent to this day.
The official Ethiopian language is Amharic, but more than 80 languages are spoken. None of them are easy for English-speakers – although this writer is proud to have mastered the Amharic word for “good morning” (which I cannot spell.) This may be as far as I go. Ethiopia is also the only country in Africa with its own indigenous alphabet, but there are 33 main alphabets with each containing a row of seven different pronunciations . . . The Ethiopians I know speak English with beautiful accents.
Ethiopians are famous for being great runners. Some of us are old enough to remember when Abebe Bikila won Africa’s first Olympic Gold Medal in 1960, setting a world record when he ran the marathon – – barefoot.
While the majority of Ethiopians are Orthodox Christians, the country embraces practitioners of all three Abrahamic religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
*About the world’s most popular breakfast drink – Coffee was discovered in Ethiopia! Legend has it that a sheep herder in the 11th century noticed his sheep having a fondness for a particular bush, and decided to try a nibble. The coffee industry took off from there. Ethiopia is now the largest coffee producer in Africa.
And finally, Ethiopia and Eritrea are about to sign a peace agreement ending a bitter, long-running dispute. Could we learn something here?
Peace and joy and Happy New Year!
I wrote about all this once long ago, on the late lamented news aggregate site True/Slant, and the vitriol that landed upon my page in response made me very glad that my T/S readers didn’t know where I lived. I mean, it was if the NRA had put out a worldwide hit on me. I’m now counting on the belief that most of my current readers are kinder and gentler – since you can sure find out where I live if you don’t already know. And I’m satisfied that most of my angry T/S readers long ago quit following this blog. We’ll see.
When I was a child of about 12 someone broke into our home – well, nobody locked their doors in Ashland, VA in 1945 so he probably just opened the door and walked in – and made his way to the second-floor bedroom of my oldest sister Jane, who let out a mighty scream. The intruder left multiple hand prints on the newly painted walls as he swiftly descended the stairs (and left by another door.) But by the time the Richmond police arrived they pronounced the fingerprints too dim to be of use, so our nocturnal visitor was never identified. My family (4 girls + parents) that night morphed from 6 people in five beds to 6 people in two beds – Jane in between my mother and father; the other three of us in one double bed. (It took us several weeks to expand back into our individual beds.) The next day, our father bought a gun. It went to reside on a shelf in the closet of our parents’ bedroom. We all knew where it was; once or twice my sister Mimi and I stood on a lower shelf and looked at it. But instead of making us feel safer and protected, the thing created more fear. Despite all his stories about working on somebody’s ranch in Texas as a boy, my sisters and I (and our mother, I regret to report) feared our father’s probable ineptitude with a gun more than we feared another intruder. We had belatedly also begun to lock the doors. All five of us – mother + 4 daughters – also feared the fearsome instrument on the closet shelf more than we feared anyone who might be confronted by it. Overruled by us all, my father soon (I think it took less than a couple of weeks) took the gun back to wherever it came from.
You need to swagger manfully around with a pistol on your hip? Fine. Swagger somewhere else – like, on a shooting range. Just stay out of my Starbucks. All I want is to drink my latte in gun-free peace.
I am (as you may know) Fran Johns, a fairly simple name that has worked for me since 1992. I live in Apt 704, 2400 Miller Street in San Francisco, CA 20020. I began to get mail addressed to Stephanie Yamamoto, who lives in Apt. 704, Two Cascade Hills Blvd, San Francisco 20020. OK, the ZIP codes are the same too – but still. Johns v Yamamoto? Miller St v Two Cascade Hills Blvd? You can’t mix these up unintentionally.
We met for tea. The very charming Ms. Yamamoto is not my new best friend, but close. The packet from Hawaii which the U.S. Postal Service would have sent floating around ZIP code 20020 forever contained essentials needed for a trip to meet her mother (the Hawaiian addressee) overseas, where she does remarkable nonprofit good work – but that’s another story.
