?Speechless

Worldless emotions – 5/22

My first piece – I do not know how many of these I’ll make. It was to be another unplanned birth of unintentional creation. Those I don’t labor on for too long and rarely think of after completion. But this one – this one grounded me for a few hours after.

They say languages get born, grow, and die. They cross-pollinate and flourish as much as they dominate and asphyxiate one another. So? We hurdle onto a world of memes and emojis – rapidly weaning off letters, spellings, and, in union, sophistication. Worldless emotions – open for interpretation in meaning and depth. It is perhaps, the linguistic equivalent of climate change. Is this the dilapidation of literary diversity…the beginning of an evolutionary transition? For now, we think in words, define life in words, and transfer cultural memes in words. Are we hurtling towards a quasi-Orwellian dystopia?

Becoming

We all have our heroes. We grow up with an image of greatness in our minds, someone who has made it. As children we had a lot to be inspired by, every movie, every sports tournament, every character in modern history was a source of unhindered hope and inspiration. We were all black belt ninjas in the days of Bruce Lee and Van Damme. Everyone was a Haile Gebresilasse and Seleshi; a Derartu and Berhane during the Olympics – cork medals were our Olympic gold medal equivalents. (ዋናው ማመን ነው 🙂 We ran our hearts out, imitated crowd roars with our arms stretched out in embrace and experienced near-absolute freedom. 

Boundless imagination and inspiration do not come easy as we grow older. In the process of ‘adulting’, our sources of imagination narrow, and we specialize in interest and orientation. We become more critical of our inspirations. The limited drive we have left, we chop up with doubt and acquired fear. Hundreds of years of post-industrial revolution, social, political, and economic edifice have set out a few thousand career ladders for the youth to climb up in life. These are the channels of schooling and accepted carrier conduits we have collectively mastered and approved. Good as it may be – specialization – in a world desperate to create single-purpose beings, it deprives humanity of organicity, altering us into individual products of our collective minds.

Relish the freedom of uncertainty or enjoy a grossly predestined direction?

The Living

A conversation with a farmer in the Abun-Yosef or Delanta would give you more candor and purpose, more wisdom and humility than a thousand city interactions.

I love talking to rural Ethiopia. Untainted in Culture and self-clarity they walk head up – their true identity forefront, waving like a medieval war banner. The façade we see in the much-adulterated cities is non-existent here. They’ve been both fortunate and unfortunate to have been exposed to the despairs and delights of nature and live out the natural history of a human life. Their existence is devoid of most modern shortcuts and shields with which we dodge the waves of hardship life hurdles at us all. They’re tested by fire, faced challenges us city dwellers would consider insurmountable – but in the end they come out wiser and firmer in belief and cause.

With this project I try to portray, THE LIVING, the fathers, mothers, daughters and sons I’ve met on my journeys. I’ve spent hours interacting with them, broke bread with them and met their loved ones. I’ve been awed and deeply moved by the rawness of their existence. These portraits are dedicated to all who are living the raw life, to the ones wrestling the beast, to the living.

Ghosts of the Street

 Beings in the intersection. The intersection between existence and utter oblivion. Life is tough in Ethiopia, especially if you have already lived out your better days. With the country’s elderly population barely reaching 3% its easy to be forgotten on the bustling streets of its capital Addis.

 It has been three months since I have moved back. And I have noted a greater number of elderly citizens on the streets from what I remember two years ago. Numbed by their own hardships, city dwellers look through them like they’re ghosts; children taunt them like their play toys. They lifelessly roam the city begging for their daily rations.

 It is truly disheartening to watch these great survivors, teemed with history and wisdom, fade off. One thing is for sure, most have lived lives worth a thousand books. It makes me question what their names were back when they fully existed, what their personalities were like and what they did for a living. I wonder if they had families, wives, husbands, children. I wonder if they get any comfort from memories of better times or if the pain through the years has anesthetized them. I wonder if they have any expectations of the world that has ruthlessly discarded them from its functions.

Wake Up ETHIOPIA | HopEthiopia

The Struggle for freedom founded on the ill and divisive teachings of the very own oppressor it wants off, will stay an unrealized dream. Until, it learns to develop its own truth and concurrence. Wake Up ETHIOPIA | HopEthiopia | YoungEthiopia

Focus

“The hard part about following your purpose is the distraction everyone pulls you toward.” Kimbal Musk

The 21st Century, the world has never been abundant with distractions. Ideas, the good and the bad, the constructive and the deleterious, are shared nearly as instantly as they are conceived.

Granted, this age of free-flowing knowledge has provided us with ample opportunities to take in as well as to offer. We have been provided with a unique window to let out, to share the fruits of our minds, rotten as they may be.

But surely, as magnificent as the human mind is, it is difficult and mind-numbingly frustrating to digest the range of foreign thoughts we come across on a daily basis. Especially, when you have not quite yet analyzed yesterday’s shelling.

It is in this age that Focus is of utmost precedence to weed out the distractors and realize our ambitions.

Solus

“Yesterday’s committee, sticks, but a broken drum, midnight in the city, flutes in a vacuum, shut lips, sleeping faces, every stopped machine, the dumb and littered places where crowds have been: … All silences rejoice,weep (loudly or low), Speak- but with the voice of whom, I do not know. Absence, say of Susan’s, absence of Egeria’s arms and respective bosoms, lips and ah, posteriors, slowly from a presence; whose ? and I ask, of what so absurd an essence, That something, which is not, nevertheless should populate empty night more solidly than that with which we copulate, why should it seem so squalid ?”

Aldous Huxely,  Brave New World

Think Harder

History – the step before the next. History is a weapon, a tricky asset, a liability if you fall for its guile. As valuable as it has been to mend future steps and plans. It has been source for the downfall and endless stagger of many.

Regrettably, the latter has been the predominant state in far too many African nations. Unending Civil wars had stayed the theme of Africa in the 90’s and the early days of the millennium. As a child of the early 90’s, my elementary memories unconsciously link nations like Burundi and Rwanda to civil war and genocide. Even though both countries are currently relatively stable, millions have perished and both their past and future – to a certain degree – have been tainted.

But it doesn’t end there, civil wars end up pregnant, with the next war due anytime.

Ethiopia, a country which has had its fair share of civil wars in the past, stands on the brink of one. A Country of eclectic culture, and even profounder history, has had its colorful diversity and ever intricate past manipulated in to a force of partition and alienation.

Just, when one thought all notes from old mistakes, have been read, revised and learnt. We find ourselves back in square one. Bottomless voracity and myopic ambitions have used wicked implementations of systematic misinformation and downright blatant oppression to stunt all round progress. We’ve effectively managed to undo the work of a century in a quarter. Through historical distortions young minds have been malignly molded into staunch fault finders angrily ruminating in hind sight fallacies. Too busy scrutinizing deeds of last century with the microscopes of today, to effect any meaningful change.

Deconditioning and educating the youth of today, into conscious thinkers and reasonable actors should be our sole objective in keeping our country, and more over our continent in one piece/peace.

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P.S. To calm your thoughts, I realize the angles entertained in here are narrow. I promise to do further investigation and reading on these thoughts/topic for future articles.

Gena bé Lalibela

A Humble Pilgrim

Christmas, it’s a naturalized global holiday. Devoid of social, economic, political and occasionally even religious status, billions celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

A thousand Prayers

Ethiopia, as an ancient Orthodox Christian country celebrates in spectacular fashion. This is  more so apparent in Lalibela — Arguably the holiest town in Ethiopia. Home to  the UNESCO world heritage Rock Hewn churches, its holds a grand religious festival every Christmas with pilgrims from every corner of the country.

Why is it so special in Lalibela ? The answer is simple its a double birthday party here.

Children climb up trees to catch a glimpse of the sacred dance.

Here, Christmas does not only entail the birth of Jesus Christ but also the day St. Lalibela was born. People from every corner of the country travel for days, most on foot, in order to give thanks and take part in the grand celebration. Pilgrims make home in the open fields around the churches for weeks, sustaining themselves on affordable seasonal markets that open as locals scramble to take advantage of the new market opportunity.

This year it’s has been estimated 150,000 folks, more than double the town standing population, made the trip

Beza Kulu

I am lucky to have witnessed the magnificence of the Christmas festival this year. Its only when you see/feel the sanctified grace, and uplift of the religious songs and dance that you realize, the reason thousands go through great trouble to take part in this grand pilgrim every year.

I if you’re reading this, I highly recommend you take part in this pilgrim at least once in your lifetime. I guarantee the experience will be uniquely spiritual and enlightening.

The Golden Years

Joy

Virtues of childhood

Smile till forever

Children are the future, now.

It’s stunning how we have neglected the future – put it in storage, not to be retrieved. This happens to be an unfortunate case in the town of Lalibela, Ethiopia.

Lalibela is one of the fortunate remote areas of Ethiopia. Blessed with the magnificent Rock-Hewn churches built in the 12th & 13th centuries, it’s a touristic pilgrim, and people from various walks of life roam through daily.

While this has enabled locals to see a glimpse of the world and financially flourish. It has come at a grave cost — moderation, and education. Once a center of biblical and philosophical teaching, it is currently teamed with ill-disciplined teenagers living off the quick cash they solicit from tourists.

Adolescents rebelling and making stupid decisions may not be a shock. However, the happenings here catch the eye, as the ‘responsible’ adults carry the same, parasitic mentality. Showing how a generation of “screw it’s” has/is being nurtured in a third-world country where even the diligent don’t make it.

These pictures were taken one afternoon in Lalibela Primary School’s playground, while children were in their Physical Exercise class. Harboring their innocence, and waiting to be shaped into responsible independent adults.