“It is fully kremt,” Dr. Richard Pankhurst wrote to me in a letter. In the midst of the rainy season in Ethiopia, this well-known scholar sent me a handwritten letter. I lived in D.C. with the majority of my family, but my heart was in Addis Ababa.
I met Richard at the annual SEED Award ceremony. The Society for Ethiopians Established in the Diaspora (SEED) presented him and others with recognition for lifetime achievement. SEED is like the Oscars of the Ethiopian community. I was a quiet admirer of this British-Ethiopian historian. I was amazed by his idealism. He had penned several books. Some of them appeared on public library shelves in the United States. I wanted to increase his readership, but who was listening to my barrage of information?
My efforts were like drops of rain in a torrential downpour - isolated and yet blended in. To fall on the tongue and the cheeks of individuals who lifted up their meek heads to the sky - that was my only way of being remembered. I was just passing by.
Finally, I visited East Africa to say hello to the old world. I stepped inside the home of Alula Pankhurst, Richard’s son, and walked away with a few children’s books in Amharic and English. I was grateful. The Pankhursts were a notable family. The love Alula had for his wife, who spoke many languages, was not lost on me. She was a North Star, a beacon of strength and erudition.
I always admired impressive women who were known for their intelligence, not just their smile, but their wisdom. I longed to understand the reason why people have creases at the corners of their eyes - wrinkles in time. I longed to understand the culture I came from: the who, what, when, where, and why? Today, I ask, whose? Whose Ethiopia was it any way? Who could claim a hold of a land so majestic and nostalgic? Whose narrative, whose apologetics?
It was fully kremt last I heard from Dr. Richard Pankhurst, who passed away before I could return once again. Ethiopia has had many rainy days. Lord, shelter us from the downpour. Make us at home again. There was something ethereal about Ethiopian gold. Would it serve as pavement in heaven? Or would it hang low as a necklace? Would it distinguish the married? Would it be currency or a language?
My work has always been self-published; Richard’s scholarship was published by traditional publishers. There were few of him and many of me. He was elite. I was replete with innocent observations, but I did not represent a nation. I spoke for myself. I even sang high notes, but who was listening to the subaltern rise? When would I learn my native language? I was oblivious, but I shared my truth and optimism. In an ancient empire, I celebrated my youth.
I told Richard that I was a cheeky Ethiopian, but I am not bulletproof. The nation of my birth is bleeding. I bleed, too.
With a heavy heart,
Yeru
