The town of Geneté, which literally means “my heaven”, has turned into some kind of delicacy, masterfully cooked by chefs in the kitchen of time. A kind of . . . roasted Afar goat ribs, with a dollop of Arabian honey and a sprinkle of Oromiffa salt, served with Tigrinya bread on Amharic plates, to be eaten with forks, like the Italians.
The name of the town has been changed several times; names that originated from numerous languages . . . Geneté, Yejju, Weldiya (this last one given by Oromos, who came from Finfinne and beyond, fathers and grandfathers of Obbo Wollo, who knew that it is a place where everything intersects).
Thus the town coyly smiles, hiding her mosaicked gum-tattoos of more than a dozen languages and myriad cultures. Her girth stretched from Gondar Ber to Debre Gelila, the highway that goes parallel to the Shilli river . . . her torso is a tributary of Tikur Wuha . . .
From Debre Gelila to Tinfaz . . . the narrow tarmac road built by the Italians marks her elbows darkened by tar instead of the moisturizing petroleum jelly . . . From Defarghé to Mugad . . . is her pair of legs that she spreads for every transient master she serves . . .
Mugad, the market village founded by Arabs, is her patched hip pocket . . . and in the centre, like her loins, is my fascinating neighbourhood Yeju-Genet, coined from two of the town’s old names.
If I were to be blindfolded with a dark veil and dropped at the centre of this village, I would identify my childhood friends by their footsteps and I would greet and chitchat with them . . . “How’s it going, Sereqe? Have you painted a new one yet?” . . .
I would recognize Hawlet, Haji Indris’s daughter, who never denied me food whenever she saw me yawning from hunger . . . and I’d say, “May God give you more, Hawletwa” . . .
When I come across residents of the village who choose to perceive me either as eccentric or mad, I would ramble on in the little Ge‘ez I remember from childhood studies to become a deacon . . . “seb’e ya’abi imna arawit weinsesat?”
And when I walk past them, their pity would make me laugh and I would say . . . “Oh, beautiful daughters of Geneté, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves.”
When people were in need of a coolie and they called out for one using the term that lingers from the time of the socialist regime—Proletariat!—I would humbly comply . . .
Blindfolded as I was, I would guide blind people who went off track and in return get their blessings . . . “May you be spared from days of affliction, may you be delivered from having to do penance, son,” they would say.
Without exaggeration, I would get home or to the Ulaga tree near Aida Bakery—my usual spot—without a hitch, my hands in my pockets and a carefree whistle of the tune to “Erikum Zemeda” on my lips.
*
This town bears my fondest memories, life vividly lived, and lessons well learned . . . my yesterdays, todays, and predictable tomorrows lay on its streets. When I say “home”, I do not mean my humble abode amongst state-owned houses. My door, with all the holes and crannies it bears, cannot serve me as a boundary. My home includes the highway. My home does not exclude the other homes. My home comprises the entire neighbourhood. My home is my town.
In this town, I remember us collecting wisdom like pebbles off alleyways, amongst houses fenced with bush, or wood, or concrete, or aluminium sheets, or those left unfenced. I recall learning trust and betrayal; belongingness and identity; us and them.
Driven by adolescent adrenaline, charged by bigotry, we formed factions and fought only to be beaten up by those whom we looked down on, as only the entourage of “heroic men” and at other times beat them up . . .
At the games of Buhé, we tied blades to the poppers of our whips and flogged our peers from Guba Lafto, and celebrated the victory . . . as if they were not our own people . . . We were oblivious to the fact that the blood covering their faces was our own . . . ignorant of the fact that it was like biting our tongue with our own teeth.
In this village, where we swore to each other that “if I lie, may I perish at the blossom of my youth,” words which shocked the elders . . . we must have sworn in falsehood for I see now our flowers have indeed dried and we’re left fruitless; and I guess all the blessings bestowed on us were perhaps insincere.
*
Once, my mother—may she rest in peace—started building a house near Kibi Qalo . . . the unfinished house is still there, and rascals shit amongst the slabs . . . she used to make us collect stones for the foundation.
Our first attempt at embezzlement started here by picking up the first stone . . . our progress from stealing public pebbles to snatching public pennies shows our speedy transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age.
So hey, handsome, didn’t our flowers fall prematurely?
After I dropped out of college and returned home, I went out to take a lungful of that hometown air I had missed so much. In the village square, I met my childhood friends intently drawing family trees and working out the ethnic background of people as if they worked for the cartography agency and it was their task to draw boundaries.
I ran away from them, trying in vain to cover my naked heart—a heart busy with the hope of wearing their love. They laughed at my naked heart. They told me that there is a much thicker blood than the one we snatched, fried, and ate when a sacrificial white lamb was slaughtered for the benevolent spirit at Ginbot Lideta when we were younger. I was told there is a stronger bond than the pair of sheep testicles we fried on the embers of an open fire and enjoyed eating, the prickly pears we delicately peeled and fed each other, the sap we sucked from the trees. I still shake my head in bewilderment.
Aren’t we on the brink of throwing ourselves into an abyss as a penance? Where is the blessing that spares us from the days of affliction?
*
I never knew who was Tigrayan and who was Eritrean until my dearest childhood friend Bezabih Habte’ab left the country with his father. But when Miss Hadas came back from Massawa, and when Merete’s aunt Miss Mezengi’e along with her impish son Iyosiyas were expelled from the country and fled to Asmara . . . and those who bribed officials and those who played little games of nepotism remained here . . . beneath the Ulaga tree . . . under its patchy shade, I learned of important things along with irrelevant ones that I didn’t want to know about . . . my memories like injera are sour and yet addictively good . . .
What is this thing that makes you forget that you are a human being . . . what kind of knife cuts off the bonds of brotherhood . . . it must be one sharpened by a devil—a political devil.
