Essence of DOPE
Posts tagged Ethiopian
Serendipity Rejoined
1123 days
by teddyfikre
in Uncategorized
She walked in a slow staccato rhythm and I walked with a rushed allegro beats. She tried to calm me down and beseeched to just enjoy the steps.
by Teddy Fikre written: Tuesday, January 17th, 2012
There, I found her again in the middle of DC right next to corner bakery. It seems that Serendipity had decided to rejoin my side for one more day at least. I am not sure what induced her to return; further more confused what made her leave in the first place. But I was not about to inundate her with questions, better to count my blessings and understand that Serendipity is always ephemeral. So when she decides to visit again, always just say a quiet prayer and don’t be selfish by trying to suffocate her with guilt. Just breath her in, enjoy her essence, so that when she departs at least you are left a piece of her pheromones in your nostrils and a touch of her hands in your breast.
Thus, at approximately 2:15, Serendipity returned my call. I asked her what she was doing, she said she just finished lunch and was on her way back to work. I sighed; she felt a pang of culpability rushing through her cranium for making me wait so. Thus, she invited me to join her for a walk back to her office and I kindly accepted her extended gesture of friendship. Time to put down the pen and pad and walk over to see this light skinned mocha chocolate waiting for me in chocolate city. I pranced in the air; I danced in between molecules at the thought of seeing Serendipity waiting for me in warm lit corners.
There, all the sudden she appeared. Her hair strewn by the wind but her beauty unfazed by the blue winds of winter. She glanced at me, I wave at her, she waved back at me. Thus, between a wave and a wink, Serendipity had rejoined with me. A hug, a warm hello we exchanged between foreign strangers. She said she did not have enough time but that she would invest time to walk with me for two blocks. I took her up on this offer and divested my sins in between concrete blocks. For 10 minutes we walked and talked, 10 minutes seemed like an eternity as I got lost in her eyes. The heavens shone a klieg light for each step she took, and I in her shadows somehow found God’s graces.
She walked in a slow staccato rhythm and I walked with a rushed allegro beats. I could hear her stilettos click clacking away as she glided on the street and I could do nothing more than listen to her feet. She tried to calm me down and beseeched to just enjoy the steps. I tried to slow down my breath and to relieve me of my anxiety of walking next to this brown skinned beauty. Eventually, my heart calmed down, my blood pressure receded like the Oceans of Africa and in time I found myself walking the same rhythm as HER. She talked about work and life, and I listened with bated breath. Teddiye—you see—is not one to listen; I spend too much time talking in order to fill voids of voices in my heart. But for this one moment, for 10 minutes, I found those voids filled by gentle voice of an angelic spirit. As we walked from 18th St to I St and back to 18th, I traveled the world with this genie.
Maybe Serendipity saved my life, when I was about to cross the street without looking, she extended her hand and held mine, and at that exact moment, she held in her hands the essence of me. She saved me from oncoming traffic and in the processes redeemed a helpless sinner like me. From that moment on, I refused to let go of that hand, clasped hand in hand with a stranger we discovered for a minute what peace in the city really means. The walk was over soon enough, shortly after she had just held my hand, Serendipity withdrew her hand and was walking back in her office. And there I stood, breathless and speechless, hoping that Serendipity would visit me again soon.
“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”~Ingrid Bergman
[Ode to Serendipity yene Geda]
Author
Teddy Fikre
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Intervention
0124 days
by teddyfikre
in Uncategorized
Today, I was offered love and care by those who love me and through their intervention find a path towards my own redemption.
by Teddy Fikre written: Monday, January 16th, 2012
I sat through a four intervention today after my sister read the Depression Fikre article I wrote yesterday. She read my words and saw in them a suicide note; after crying the whole night thinking that I was about to off myself, she decided to call for an emergency intervention. While I was drinking Hennessy shot after shot and dancing with perfect strangers at Babylon, she spent the whole night thinking I was about to have a reunion in heaven with my father. She called my phone endlessly while I was in my car at Babylon’s parking lot sleeping off the intoxication.
I did not know what she was up to, somehow I made it home from my intoxicated state and slept immediately on the sofa at Chez Teddy. Martha must have called at least 30 times trying to get a hold of me. Unable to reach me, she sent over my brother Million to see if I was still breathing. Thus a knock at 11:00 AM, I pretended that I did not hear it. Then a key insertion, shit, that nigga Million has the key to my apartment. He saw me then for my full glory, Chez Teddy looking like Mogadishu littered with countless bottles of beer, wine, and liquor. Hell, too late now to hide in my shame, I opened up my retina and looked straight at him. I saw in his iris a look of equal regret and worry—he was glad I was alive but almost cried a tear at my living death. I decided to get up from my state of inertia and make him laugh with a self-deprecating joke. The joke alas was me—badum bum!
It was at that moment that Million beseeched me to call Martha and reassure her that I was alive. Thus I dial her cell phone and on the other side of the line I could hear an exhaling sigh of joy and fear. I knew something was in the work—a coup d’état was formed against me by my on family. She begged me to come over for lunch and put down my pen and pad for at least one day. I gave in, I smoked a cigarette with Million on my balcony, took a shower, then headed over to Martha’s house and Million followed me with 3 bags of trash from my abode. This is what my life has been reduced to, inducing tears from strangers and endless worries from my own family. There are 10,000 homeless men and women like me in the Streets of DC, the difference is that I have family in my corner who refuse to give up on Teddiye.
Thus, today, I barely got on Facebook, I barely tweeted a twit on twitter, and no articles were published on browncondor.com. First I headed over to Starbucks with laptop in hand while sipping buna I bought from 7-11. Imagine, me a perfect mooch sipping coffee from 7-11 while using Starbucks free Internet. Poetic justice I thought, I always pop my collars against hurricanes (again with the literal crutch) named corporations. Having done my revolutionary deed for the day, I decided to head over to Martha’s perfect home. There I find her opening the door and clutching at me to hug me and be reassured that I was actually breathing. She made me Salmon burger and I had a great lunch while eating it with vegan chips. Ah my sister Martha, she is a revolutionary in her own way—it runs in the family I guess.
But this DOPE meal came with a cost, soon enough I found myself facing an organized intervention. First it started with just Martha, soon enough Leno joined in, and just when I had enough, there comes Million and Abezash to form an executioner’s circle—they shot me endlessly with bullets of truth and sanctified me righteously. I could not escape the conclusion of this collusion crew, they laid it plainly. Teddiye—one after the next stated plainly—you are literally on the way to committing suicide and writing about it on Facebook and twitter. Now I can debate with the best of them; give me a topic about anything and I will debate you until you see my way. But this was not a debate I was about to win today, it was an indictment of my own insanity. I was trapped in a corner of love and there in Alexandria my sister and brother and their loving husband and wife opened up a window and lit my dark lit corner I had grown so comfortable with.
This is day one, tomorrow I shall decide to make that change and to take their loving water and heal myself from my own wounds. I can choose to be defined by others or I can define my own life according to my own definition. I can choose to love myself and disregard the hatred of others or I can choose to create fictions of oppression from fictitious characters in my head. These are the choices that we all make—we are all bound to this Sophi’s choice—we can follow in the shadows of others or we can boldly shed ourselves from the gravity of dark stars and shine with radiance. Today, I was offered love and care by those who love me and through their intervention find a path towards my own redemption. I have a choice to make, I was given the tools to determine a new way forward; now I just have to take it and make it my own. All this, reborn by a DOPE intervention.
“However, lifestyle intervention requires discipline with a tangible end result that is within reach. It requires personal resolve, a lifelong commitment.” ~Tim Holden
[click to see my moment in time, my intervention against me]
My Executioners and Intervention Peddlers
Martha & Leno Aberra
Million & Abezash Fikre
Author
Teddy Fikre
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[click pic to follow us on twitter or follow us @browncondor]
We would love to hear your comments/feedback. Also, share this on Facebook, tweet it on twitter, or print it and give it to your grandmother. If you would like to follow us on Twitter, you can do so @browncondor
To get in touch with us, send email to info@browncondor.com
Depression Fikre
11125 days
by teddyfikre
in Uncategorized
If you too are wedded to this bitch named Depression, lift your chin up and know that from this dark today will emerge in time a brighter tomorrow.
by: Teddy Fikre written: Sunday, January 15th, 2012
Time to chronicle my life in between sips of this DOPE cappuccino I’m enjoying at Sakofa while listening to the blissful sounds of Kuku Sebsebe. Nah, today you won’t find me extolling the virtues of Ethiopia neither will I delve into yet another Taboo subject in the Habesha community. Today, while recovering from a night of partying and endless shots of Hennessy, I shall put pen to pad and write instead a sober article. This is a story of my life, about my escapes from the clutches of my wife Depression. This friend visits me one in a while, she is the opposite of Serendipity. Serendipity inspires me to smile and write, Depression robs me of my charm and my wit. To wit, this is a story that countless Ethiopians share, but too few have the courage to express. So let me express it for those who are robbed of their expressions and left shivering in dark lit corners.
My friend depression has with me for as long as I remember, she has been ingrained in my genes passed down from generation to generation. I often state that nobility is earned but our last name is the only thing inherited. But upon further examination, I have found this fact to be baseless. Because there is another thing we inherit even if we don’t want her—this inheritance is a negest named Depression. This queen has been passed down to me from my mother and her mother before that, she is part of me I just can’t shake. Depression is my gabi, she drapes me in melancholy and keeps me company while I sleep on my couch watching television. She is a persistent lady, she has found more ways to seduce me and with her I have given birth to countless bastard dark fantasies.
I am not sure why she insists of haunting me so. She has robbed me of countless friends and kept me confined in solitary prisons. I have tried many ways to rid her of my blood, I have drank a plethora of liquor, popped Zoloft and Lexeporo, and even tried to break up with her by taking Xanax. Shit, I tried to smoke her away with weed, I tried to erase her with wine and beer. But alas, this bitch won’t leave my side—I am stuck to her like crazy glue and she has me gobbed with like toxic ooze. I have tried and tried unsuccessfully to release her from me by sleeping with endless Ethiopian women, but the only thing I found in their panties was Depression waving from their uterus. Lord knows how many times I have had dark thoughts of death, but somehow I managed to live through it all in spite of my own undoing. Depression only grew stronger when I saw my mother trying to commit suicide on multiple occasions and fortified more when my father passed away from lung cancer.
It’s not always like this tough; once in a while, that bitch leaves me and I find myself smiling and sharing warm conversations with friendly strangers. When Serendipity finds me and chases away my blues, I hold on to her like a lost soul in the middle of a lonely sea. You see, Depression is the reason I am misunderstood. People take my bluster as a sign of arrogance and my confidence for ignorance. But if they only knew, deep inside is a child wanting to be loved by the very people who abhor me so. I seek validation from strangers and create mythic fictions of hatred only to seek vengeance for this made up story of oppression. Depression has me shadow boxing myself only to continually knock myself out with jabs and round house upper cut to my own chin.
But this is not a sad story; far from it, it is a celebration of my resilience. Depression is the reason I pop my collars in hurricanes (again that literal crutch). I have to, if I did not defy her unending seduction, I would surely have perished by now from her odious potion. I am not sure when it started really, when Depression became my best friend. I would say probably in Ethiopia, where all my classmates hated me because my father bought me and my sisters shoes from Italy. They thought we had it made—that we were living high on the hog—when really my parents were living paycheck to paycheck but insisted on giving us everything that they lacked as children. Thus, they gave us everything, and in return that earned me and my sisters the scorn of a village of children in Bole. I got beat up more than I care to remember, kicked in the shins by kids who had lesser boots than me. This trend continued when we arrived in America, where 10 year old black kids would kick me further in the bones for saying “zee” instead of “the”. Thus began my first memory of Depression, induced by a thousand kicks to my soul at the hands of hateful kids.
These unending kicks soon had me finding solace in empty bathrooms. Lunch time at Woodbridge High School became the worst time of the day for Teddiye. I would hide in barren rooms in order to escape the torment of my tormentors. It sucked being the only Ethiopian growing up in Woodbridge, but really, who am I fooling, I would surely have been equally tormented in Bole as I was in Prince William County. In due time, I learned to adapt, I learned to look at that bitch dead in her dark kool eyes and learn the language to battle her back. I became a fierce jegna , I took on the spirit of my great great great grandfather Atse Tewodrose and started walking barefoot on her soul. Eventually, I took on an arrogant demeanor in order to hide my pain and to protect me from would be enemies. I created an alter ego so that my ego could suck at the nipples of Depression and emerged from her womb a conceited citizen.
But I find at times, when I am the happiest moods, she somehow revisits me and wounds my ego with her piercing fingernails. She stabs my heart with her arrow of enmity and leaves me bleeding in dark lit corners from her depressing blade. But I have decided to no longer hide this condition from the world. I know one thing, that which you hide the most is the prison that will eventually lock up your soul. So I profess it now loudly and clear, I am engaged to this bitch named Depression. Ironic isn’t it, her name is Depression Fikre—Depression My Love. I would laugh had I not just cried a tear of Hennessy by this depressing thought.
Alas, I am not the first nor the last to be wedded to this bitch named Depression. I know in countless dark lit rooms she haunts too many of my Ethiopian brothers and sisters. If you too are wedded to this bitch named Depression, lift your chin up and know that from this dark today will emerge in time a brighter tomorrow. While you might have inherited her, you do not have to be defined by her. I beseech you to pop your collars in her hurricane and refuse to submit to her charm. This is a collective Ayzoch to my Ethiopians in Ethiopia and in the Diaspora, trust me, the same thing that makes you cry today is the thing that will make you smile tomorrow. In due time, your tear wells will be refilled with tears and your heart will be filled with smiles from strangers. It is my hope that this story put a smile on your face and that you see that I am no longer Depressed Fikre. Selam.
“A lot of people don’t realize that depression is an illness. I don’t wish it on anyone, but if they would know how it feels, I swear they would think twice before they just shrug it.”~Johnathan Davis
[dedication to Depression Fikre, click to watch video]
Author
Teddy Fikre
[click to view profile]
[click to follow us on twitter or follow us @browncondor]
We would love to hear your comments/feedback. Also, share this on Facebook, tweet it on twitter, or print it and give it to your grandmother. If you would like to follow us on Twitter, you can do so @browncondor
To get in touch with us, send email to info@browncondor.com
Habesha Ketero
1127 days
by teddyfikre
in Uncategorized
It is great to be timeless and refuse to be brought into a world of unending hustle; however we must adapt and adopt a new culture, one that is not on Bole Time.
by Teddy Fikre written: Friday, January 13th, 2012
How ironic, I was supposed to have completed this article three hours ago and emailed it to the publisher of browncondor (that would be me) before 1:00 PM. Alas, I was struck with that dreaded Habesha gene named Ketero. This disease Ketero is so dreaded that it is listed as more lethal than Ebola on the CDC website. Seriously, the inability to be on time within the Habesha community is so widespread and rampant, that even the late people end up arriving early to most Habesha events. So this article, inspired by Kassahun Kebede on a Facebook page I administer, is one that will delve into the Ethiopian collective psyche and discuss in the open our inability to be timely.
Now, like I stated above, I am the biggest sinner when it comes to this transgression. No bull kaka, I will probably be late to my own funeral. This Ketero disease has prevented me from enjoying countless milestones in my own life. I missed my own graduation, I slept through the death of my father, I showed up late to the birthdays of all of my nieces and nephews, I have missed Christmas dinners time ad infinitum. Now considering that my sisters and brother are equally infected by this dreaded malady, you would think on occasion I would occasionally be on time. But no, even my sisters and brothers know—when it comes to Teddiye—best apply a two hour rule and then plan on me showing up an hour after that.
This pernicious thing I have observed countless times in my life while it ravages the minds of other Ethiopians. I have seen weddings start 4 hours late in order to accommodate Ethiopians infected with Ketero. I have seen the bride refuse to come out to celebrate until she sees that all her family and friends have arrived 2 hours late. In fact, I have come up for a name for this tendency for Ethiopians to always be late; I call it Bole Time, DOPER than Greenwich Time for sure. Funny how we have 13 months on our calendar; you see, not even our calendar can tell time correctly. Droning on about Bole Time is akin to the Dutch boy trying to plug a leak in the dam with his fingertips. Bole Time is a fact of life, we are too immersed in this timeless—literally—tendency of ours to ever rid our body of this syndrome. I am pretty sure that the reason Lucy died in the mountains is because she woke up two hours late and her crew left her behind.
But what is it about Bole Time that is such a part and parcel of our thinking. I mean, we all know it is rude as hell to keep someone waiting for two hours at a Starbucks while we sit our asses down on the couch to watch the last bit of Seinfeld. Yet we do it anyway, we continuously pop our collars in hurricanes (sigh this saying has become my literal crutch) and insist on being late. Yet, when someone does the same deed to us, our heads pop like an overheated jebena and we find ourselves wanting to spit buna grinds in their eyes for keeping waiting so. Thus, victim and victimizer are both trapped between the hands of the clock; we continuously let Bole Time keep us from respecting ourselves and our friends.
I think it is precisely because we are afraid of being the first to show up and then be kept waiting for hours on end for our friends to arrive that we insist on being the last one to show up. Moreover, we don’t have respect for the time of others when we finally get to that event. I can’t tell you how many times a one hour business meeting between Ethiopians has devolved into a four hour talk-a-thon of talking nonsense. Our churches—Bole Time! Our Politicians—Bole Time! Our schools—Bole Time! I can’t think of one aspect of our culture that is not infected to the core with that germ called Bole Time. Ketero—in this sense—is more like a gemed (I hope I said that right), it is a rope that ties our hands and feet and binds us to timeless inertia.
I know one thing, when I go to any Habesha event, I know for a fact that my day has already been burned. I don’t say this with enmity though; I love our community for that. I love Bole Time when I am eating injera with friends, trust me, only the warm smiles and conversation over kitfo could ever keep me still for four hours and overcome my ADD. I love endless talk while on Bole Time while sipping buna at the Somali Embassy (yeah the Starbucks in Bailey’s Cross Roads). But I digress, back to the time and topic at hand, I am not aiming all my arsenic at our community for being late, I love the way we refuse to submit to the hands of time and do things our own way. While the rest of the world continues to run and hustle trying to recoup lost time, we Ethiopians sit back and enjoy the time we have and breathe in Bole Time to the fullest.
But as we continue to run on Bole Time—as we continue to submit to that enchanted mistress named Ketero—just remember that occasionally our inability to tell time will cost us plenty. After all, we live in a new world; most of us are not in Addis anymore. And even the ones living in Addis are tied through the ether by the time of the Western World. It is great to be timeless and refuse to be brought into a world of unending hustle; however we must also adapt and adopt a new culture, one that is not on Bole Time. We have to be multilingual and multi-spatial with it—we have to live in two parallel worlds—one on Bole Time the other on Greenwich Time. We have to at once be timeless while on the other hand be timely. If not, let me introduce you to Universal Rule number 4—those who are late will always be left behind. Just ask my girl Lucy, you can find her late ass hanging around at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis.
“It is my feeling that Time ripens all things; with Time all things are revealed; Time is the father of truth.” ~Francois Rabelais
[click to watch video of Stayin Alive if you have TIME]
Muse #1
Kassahun Kebede
[click to view profile]
Muse #2
Bef Ayenew
[click to view website]
Author
Teddy Fikre
[click to view profile]
[click to follow us on twitter or follow us @browncondor]
We would love to hear your comments/feedback. Also, share this on Facebook, tweet it on twitter, or print it and give it to your grandmother. If you would like to follow us on Twitter, you can do so @browncondor
To get in touch with us, send email to info@browncondor.com
Is the Word Habesha an Insult?
20654 days
by teddyfikre
in Uncategorized
I am not passing judgment on your use of the word, I just choose to embrace another word to identify my nationality.
by Teddy Fikre. Posted: Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Let me take you through a recent journey I had. As I was purchasing some coffee at a local bakery, I see who I assume to be an Ethiopian lady at the counter. Living in the DC area, this is not really a revelation, if I go a day without seeing an Ethiopian or an Eritrean would be a shock to the system these days. As I approached the counter to purchase my coffee, almost instinctively, I said “Selam” to her. Maybe it is because I lived in America for such a long time or the fact that I probably said Selam in my distinctive Americanized Amharic, whatever the queue, she looked up with almost a look of surprise and said “Habesha neh?”
At that exact moment, I paused. I wanted to answer in the affirmative, but I was once again caught off-guard with her word selection. Really, I should not be, the word Habesha is ubiquitous these days—almost everyone uses it right? However, reflexively, I resist that word as if I was a child forced to eat spinach. I wanted to say “No I am not Habesha, I am Ethiopian”, but of course the more diplomatic side of me answered “Yes, I’m Ethiopian”. I never denied her question about being Habesha, but in my own way, I revolted from that word and answered her question to let her know that I am in fact Ethiopian.
I don’t know why the word Habesha repulses me so much. I have done my research to figure out the origins of the word and I have been led to inconclusive ends. Some say it is a name that is indigenous to our culture, while I have read in other places that it was a derogatory word given to us by Arabs much the same way that white folks use a special N word to label black folks. Moreover, I also find it to be a word that is meant to blur the meaning of being Ethiopian. I understand that people use the word Habesha as a means of unity—Habesha can mean either Ethiopian or Eritrean. However, I do not want to forgo my Ethiopian heritage for the sake of uniformity. Why can’t we be called Ethiopians or Eritreans, be proud of our respective countries, without having to use another word to unite us? Why can’t we be united while we recognize our differences instead of using Habesha to blur the differences?
There is an underlying hypocrisy in my rejection of the word Habesha. If the fundamental reason I don’t like the word is because it is a moniker given to us by outsiders, one could easily point out that the word Ethiopia is also a name given to us by the Greeks, a word which means “Burnt Skin”. Anytime someone points my contradiction out, all I can do is tell them that it is a personal preference that I call myself Ethiopian instead of Habesha. In the same light, I will not begrudge anyone that prefers to call themselves Habesha instead of saying Ethiopian. We all have our own choices in life, but just remember, if you ask me “Habesha neh?” in the future, when I reply back to let you know who I am without affirming your direct question, I am not passing judgment on your use of the word, I just choose to embrace another word to identify my nationality. I am Ethiopian.