I’m crossing my fingers

It’s amazing how none of my friends seem to remember it. But I remember it clearly. The first time I heard of an Ethiopian rapper was on 120 tv program. They were born in Sweden, a girl and a boy. Both young and sweet looking. The song they made seem to have been adopeted from Shaka Demu’s “murder she wrote”. The music video was done in a supermarket. The idea being he saw her stabbing someone fatally, and she denying. You gotta be there. Now, another Ethiopian is being given credit for her talent. Ethiopian born Wayna Wondwossen has been nominated for her musical talent for the 51st Grammy Award. According to, ethiopolitics, Waynna has been nominated in the Best Urban/Alternative Performance category for her “Loving you” feat..

Way to go girl!.

Tarik Tesera!!

The race for White House is Over! An African-descent American, with a Muslim middle name, took the crown.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, The First Family:

Another Haile, Another winner

According to France 24, Haile Gerima’s film ‘Teza’ won top prize at Carthage Film Festival. Not just the main awards, but the coveted Golden Tanit for its “modesty and genius.” Carthage Film Festival (Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage) is the oldest African film festival which celebrated it’s 22nd annual anniversary last Saturday, October 25, 2008. I hope Teza’s success would inspire other Ethiopian film directors that it’s possible to reach a much larger audience if you are faithful to what you do.

Details about Teza

Set in 1970s Ethiopia, Teza tells the story of a young Ethiopian as he returns from West Germany a postgraduate. The young Anberber comes back to a country at the height of the Cold War and under the Marxist regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Working in a health institution he witnesses a brutal murder and finds himself at odds with the revolutionary gangsters running the country. He is ordered by the regime to take up a post in East Germany and uses this opportunity to escape to the West until the Berlin Wall falls and Ethiopia’s military regime is overthrown.

Now aged 60, Anberber finally returns to his home village. Although he finds comfort from his ageing mother he feels alienated from those around him by his absence from home for so long and is disillusioned and haunted by his past. Teza is a sharply constructed political drama with solid story- telling values that include excellent performances, as well as a compelling soundtrack and the best choice and use of location.
Keith Shiri

Directed by: Haile Gerima
Written by: Haile Gerima
Cast: Aron Arefe, Abiye Tedla, Takelech Beyene
Country: Ethiopia-Germany-France
Year: 2008
Running time: 140min

Something new

First was Sodere. Then came Langano and Wondo Genet. Abule Bassuma & Bishangari made a third. Now, Sabana Beach Resort is the hottest spot on that side of the river. The beach resort surrounded by trees and looking down Langano river is as good as it’s name. Except for the 200 birr entrance fee, the fact that they don’t serve anything before or after hours (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and nobody around seems to know what the name “Sabana” stands for (spanish for Savannah, “a plain with a climate so that the grasses are the dominant vegetation, punctuated by a tree”) there is nothing you won’t love about the place. Give the Lasagna a try and you’d know what i mean .

Verdi’s Aida

Ethiopians have been involved since time immemorial in various fictional works by foreigners. Some of those stories teach people a lesson (like the one with Moses’ Ethiopian wife) and some don’t. Aida maybe one of the later. Written by Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi, according to wikipedia, “for the celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal” in 1871, one finds it hard to understand where the lesson lies. Except inter-racial relationships are fatal and people shouldn’t indulge in them .

Still, Aida is an Ethiopian Princess which is enough for any Ethiopian . So.. I invite you to read or listen to it this opera at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16505142 or to go here to read somebody else’s race-reading take on it.

Ethiopian Comedy

Maritan girl!

I do not feel like an alien. I was neither green, nor have pointed antennas with glittering eyes on them. Neither am I drooping with sticky blackish substance that leaves a mark to where I have been nor have an arched back that i labor under. I have two legs. Two hands. A pair of brown eyes, a nose, two uneven ears, a mouth (tongue, teeth-all 32 of them) and ofcourse a digestive system that pumps acid instead of whateveritisitssupposedtopump into my other system, whose name i forgot. Everything proper. Just like every other human being on the planet. Weird, isn’t it? That we are all alike, except for the color of our skin? That we have two hands, two eyes, a nose, two ears and a digestive system? Just like me?! However, that obviously isn’t enough for this paper that i was pondering over earlier, permanently stationed outside a grayish building on the top of which is written “Visa & Immigration Section”. I have been pondering, not out of hesitation but fearing the minute I signed (using my fingers, instead of paws, and a pen with a blue pink) under the black dotted line that says “Signature (of alien)” I would give up my right of being a perfect human being (with all human being-ish imperfections) and turn into something less human. I tried to imagine what it would be like to be an alien, but failed. It feels so lonely.

Then I tried to imagine what i would look like to “them”….