|sεnduQ|
mind entropy of the ethiofricanArchive for culture
Childhood Crush
the boy, the city, the spiciness of the experience…
I was 10-12 I think…
Every summer I went to visit my grandmother and great-aunt away from the rainy, muggy kiremt into the sunny humidity of the East. My great-aunt was the precious kind of woman who exuded love to all the kids of the area and gathered them into her home, showering them with the little cares of a grandmother. She would cajole, scold, hug, kiss and nurture as if they were her own. She was many things at all times, the versatile abode that is Woman. Personified, she was the vesicle for culture, the treasure chest of folktales; a linguist, like many in her generation. She spoke Haderi, Arabic, Amharic, Oromiffa, Somali…saying exactly what was on her mind as the need presented itself!
Almost every night, us kids would gather outside by the grayish blue gates around my great aunt’s feet as the sand settles and the heavy nefasha air breezes past the leaves; the teeming starry sky twinkling above us. I was a big fan of these nights, nights of teret teret storytelling about ali babba, the always mischievous monkey and the smart girl, the selfish one…the stepmother (Hmm…maybe this is why I’m such a sucker for breezy warm days that caress as they prode out a contented smile; like a lazy Saturday afternoon by the Potomac waterfront…)
Anyhow, back to another time and place.
Every summer I would reel from excitement as i make my way to Dire to start a month long excursion filled with dankira with the kids and happy days with my adorably talkative aunties. freedom! These summer friends of mine had their own slang; the juiciest kind that combines all the languages of the area. “Kale Waria!!” “Abooooo tewaaa!” “Abshir new, Alhamdililah!” “Intalo, injiru bishaniti?” Qesht, Abo, Senduq, birka, shillingi, roqa, medebir, mamilla, CHebo…and thus I rack my memory: to find all these and more profane wordy varieties…
It was then that I became crush-struck. My younger cousin’s best friend was about 1 year older than I. The star footballer and the little arada of the area with his hitched walk and croaky voice; sure to be crowned mr. congeniality; deserving by far. It seems I was drawn to personality more than looks, even then…He had sharp accented features (big eyes, big nose, brownish soft hair) and he was light-skinned. Tall and skinny be he.
The old ladies were his fans, the other kids admirers of his mischief. Him and Cuz would tell me stories of classroom antics, football rivalries, adventures running errands around Dire and those vicious kids at the khat terra with whom they waged reckless battles. I’m not sure if I wanted to be them in their recklessness and my rebellious tomboy aspirations or hang with them for some girly reasons I couldn’t fathom! Nonetheless, such were the vagaries which plagued the mind of a little girl coming-of-age.
Jeezz, I was so ashamed of my heart doing a violent and loud ruckus! My tongue-tied little mouth releasing hitched breaths …jitters as he played football outside, came to buy Rossmans…crush-struck! lol, It was petrifying for the little girl that I was. It didn’t even occur to me that I could like him. I badly needed to keep my casual ease – sliding smoothly into funny stories, rants and raves about childhood naughtiness …and juicy neighborhood gossip, for good Dire measure…But No! his voice started breaking as I started breaking into sweat! what silliness!
Sure enough I never told him how I felt- maybe because I didn’t know what it was despite the plethora of teenage books and movies I devoured! At age 11, I expected he would laugh in my face. And as we grew older he would come visit and I would grasp at composure, fumbling… Mainly, I would hear about him from other people…he repeated a class, he was thinking of joining the national football team, he joined the team at the ‘C’ level, then went to vocational school for carpentry …finally he’s joined the federal police… and such a path destiny took…
My little memory vesicle still holds this swanky character with fondness…A fondness that encompasses a town full of people in flip-flops and short-sleeved shirts; long skirts and flirty scarves. Neighbors that come out in the fading warmth- in the cool, calming dusk under acacia trees…as they sit on steps across narrow roads and yell out conversations about so-an-so’s illegitimate child and the price of water… ah! the freedom and openness! Dirty laundry always adorns the dingy streets; if u care to stand for a quick second and listen!
This is a town with equal opportunity hoya hoye where girls ran around with boys, chanting and singing for coins; where people (read: bachelors) buy ‘muslim’ meat pasta with marinara sauce in thin plastic bags with handles. The pasta spot sells chick-pea porridge ‘fuul‘ at breakfast (a middle eastern meal? As staple as dunked bread in sweet spicy tea, as far as I could remember)
Here, the mid-afternoon starts with a calm when everyone clamors indoors to chew on khat and rewind after the noon nap… Mid-morning is marked with knocks by entrepreneurial contraband salesmen, beggars and milkmaids calling for attention. And what of the open blue-grey gates? These gates are always ajar. Open to sounds of children kicking around balls; little girls mixing sand to build play-houses…and passersby exchanging greetings along with drips of the social update for the day.
This small city ruckus is topped up with the sound of the mamilla-CHebo coming around asking auntie for lunch or work carrying stuff in between his cigarette swigs. Infamously, this year’s mamilla was an amazingly intelligent english teacher until the blinding sun-khat -and sand turned him looney!
senduQ in Maltese
Doing a google search, the quirkiest thing came up- Senduq is a word in Maltese which means ‘Chest’, a box for safe keeping. In Dire lingo it is used to describe the cupboards, storage boxes, coca cola racks …basically any storage container with a rectangular form.
Who could have thought that a google search vaguely connected to Dire Dawa’s multicultural lingo lands smack where the Italian and Arabic languages fuse to give Maltese? Malta is the 30th smallest country in the world located across the largest desert and the Mediterranean Sea away from Dire… an island which has a total population of 400,000 (about the size of Dire’s population) and interestingly, not everyone IN Malta speaks Maltese!
Well, well…ok maybe I’m making it sound an itty bit more like an Indiana Jones investigation than it actually is. It appears that Maltese is one of the many semetic languages which may have variations of the word ’senduq’. I don’t speak all these languages so I wouldn’t know…
Amharic · Arabic · Chaha · Harari · Hebrew · Inor · Maltese · Neo-Aramaic · Neo-Mandaic · Silt’e · Soddo · South Arabian · Syriac · Tigre · Tigrinya
wiki says: “Maltese is generally accepted to be descended from Siculo-Arabic, the Arabic dialects that developed in Sicily and the rest of Southern Italy, with substantial borrowing from Sicilian Italian and Italian. It is the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet in its standard form.”
an interesting blurb also courtesy of google: ‘Senduq Kuluri Ahmar’ is what they call the ’storybox’ series which is used for Maltese primary school reading assignments.
So its a bit curious, isn’t it? Makes you wonder the origin of semetic languages like Maltese (Semetic languages being in the Afroasiatic language group)…and how languages mix…where Malta got in the mix in a city within the horn where the Argobbas, Amharas, Tigre, Oromos, Somali, Greeks, Armenians, Indians and Italians once lived in a cosmopolitan hot spot on the rail trade line to Djibouti…
Origins…extensive, well-grounded linguistic research places the Afroasiatic homeland in the southeastern Sahara or adjacent Horn of Africa read more..
it’s interesting, which language did the term come from? Continue reading for my conjectures and projections 
: Maybe the root for Maltese and all other semetic languages originated in southern Sudan, or western Ethiopia? and how did this word stick in Dire Dawa, Harar and not anywhere else in Ethiopia? Given that its used by a majority of the population, surely it has a semetic root or in a more interesting turn of events… Dire being established in 1906 along with the Railroad, maybe the word is a more recent acquisition and the soldiers from Malta used it during the 5 year Italian occupation in WWII to refer to boxes?
ping me if u know!
Dance Free!
Dancing is pure freedom! It is…completely releasing all inhibitions in an act that seizes the moment. In a moment …you set free all nagging thoughts and nuances to sway, step, slide, twist …to pulsate! A pulse navigating out of the speakers to fuse in sync with your beat, your inner rhythm.
I love to dance… Could probably literally dance the night away, most days!
…So I thought I’ll drop 3 things on dancing into the senduQ:
~Minyeshu
Minyeshu is an Ethiopian traditional music vocalist residing in the Netherlands. I stumbled upon her when I found a flickr picture of hers looking like the lady on the senduQ header.
She just released an album ‘Dire Dawa’ this past April and has a previous album ‘Meba’ released 2002.
I love the ^ fashion, and stage energy… She exudes joy when on stage, in dancing; a free-spiritedness that doesn’t need an entourage. Simply put: Tishekeshikewalech on stage. I like how her fashion seems deliberate. The yellow dress does not come across as stereotypical, but does a great fusion of many styles from different cultures while keeping the flare of a traditional touch.
More than the music, which to me isn’t incredibly, incredibly original. Though her music uses notable full-on acoustics and makes a great and enjoyable attempt at fusion (of sounds from within and beyond Ethiopia) just like her attire…I like that she expresses a different take on the diversity that is Ethiopia …and that she pays homage to the best treasure jewel in the harur valley – Dire.
Joy of African Music and Minyeshu’s Website (I like ‘Dire Dawa’ from the music snips on her site.)
~ I am reading ‘Tuesday’s with Morrie‘, a story about a vibrant old man who is dying and the life lessons he teaches his old student in the last course he taught – through his own death. The opening of the story was so endearing:
“He had always been a dancer, my old professor. The music didn’t matter. rock and roll, big band, the blues. He loved them all. He would close his eyes and with a blissful smile begin to move to his own sense of rhythm. It wasn’t always pretty. But then, he didn’t worry about a partner. Morrie danced by himself.
He used to go to this church in Harvard Square every Wednesday night for something called “Dance Free” They had flashing lights and booming speakers and Morrie would wander in among the mostly student crowd wearing a white T-shirt and black sweatpants and a towel around his neck, and whatever music was playing, that’s the music to which he danced. He’d do the lindy to Jimmy Hendrix. He twisted and twirled, he waved his arms like a conductor on amphetamines, until sweat was dripping down the middle of his back. No one knew he was a prominent doctor of sociology, with years of experience as a college professor and several well-respected books. They just thought he was some old nut.
Once, he brought a tango tape and got them to play it over the speakers. Then he commandeered the floor, shooting back and forth like some hot Latin lover. When he finished, everyone applauded. He could have stayed in that moment forever.”
~ I came across two new fun oldies videos. love the costumes…
non-nonchalance:conundrum shift
And then there are incredible stories that knock u right out of your daily conundrum!
Have you ever heard the bizzaro idea about creativity being the most potent weapon individuals have against war?? I thought it was a bit too ‘happily ridiculous’ at first…until closer consideration… Ever heard people say “necessity is the mother of innovation.”? Well, Wednesday’s news made me say: “hell ya!”
The quirky reflection that came to my mind reading the news goes…
“”It is in creativity, in the fashioning of self and world, that people find their most potent weapon against war.”
…1st, let me meander to a tiny bit of intro….I first stumbled upon this bizarre concept in Carolyn Nordstrom’s “A different kind of war story” on her experience in the devastating 16-year-long civil war of Mozambique. As an anthropologist, she reflects on the messy nitty-gritties of war, civil society intricacies and the trajectories of individual lives…yadi yada…
nyways, she says “……ultimately, war victims have taught me, violence is about the destruction of culture and identity in a bid to control/crush political will.” She saw human condition at its ‘lowest’, when people were helpless, vicious, greedy, desperate and deeply disturbed. According to her “It is often in what we relegate to the margins of life process and theory [violence and the unspeakable] that speaks most fundamentally about core aspects of human existence.”
i think it’s real; in times of war people have very few choices. when they are caught in the most devastating corner of all, they either create ways to survive, maintain their humanities and fight back…or get sucked in to becoming helpless puppets which push the gears of a viscous ‘war industry’.
According to the book, some resistance tools toward survival & peace include communities, creative expression and non-violence…
Here’s the true story that hit the headlines. I’m applauding these brave souls who stepped up for the community, regardless of the side they are on! in breaking rules to find solutions, they were indeed innovating a path away from the mainstream…
“Ethiopian troops in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, have distributed food aid bought with their own salaries. About 400 bags of sorghum were handed out to about 500 people in southern Baynile district. An Ethiopian soldier said his colleagues had organised the collection to help their neighbours in need.
Ethiopian troops, who support Somalia’s interim government, are not popular and the food was accepted with surprise, the BBC’s Mohamed Moalimuu reports. The UN says more than a third of all Somalis rely on outside assistance and the urban poor are finding it difficult to get enough to eat.
p.s. how does it freakin make sense not to have the word ‘chalance’ when there is ‘nonchalance’!?
above belly.underneath heart
getachew mekuria and susheela raman. “the love trap” an adaptation of Mahmoud Amhed’s “bemin sebeb litlash”
trancing a light curly zigzag
lazily. teasingly. tingling
…lips, finger tips…
half-dreaming colors and warmth
floetry, underneath the heart,
above the belly.
feelings that look like…
gradient orange sunset rays piercing through blazing red fire
surrounded by pulsing rhythms and…
sifting fragile petals of yellow on translucent maroon sashes…
like skipping butterflies as they prance between the deep pit of the belly where feelings reside, and the base of the heart where they overflow.
the depth of the feelings mirror shadows falling creating accents…
provoking a vulnerable smile at the cosy humble fire they stroke…
at the heady euphoria of an embrace
a sweeter crush,
a more delish lushness,
a softer…scrumptious flutter,
a more tasty brush.
feels, textures, tints and tones…
tempting finger tip senses, lip buds, eyes.
skimming along the edge of shoulders exposed to air.
sending a delicious tingle down…
tickles of bunna nostalgia
my eyes glaze as pupils dilate basking in the otherness of my past….
the things i remember are not expected etches within my memory, they are random recollections of flickering visuals, smells, tickles and sounds…
the clatter of coffee beans nosily scattering on a metal roasting plate. incense flitter flattering the breeze, caressing curves of air wafting upward and sideways; releasing smells of home, comfort and cosiness. smells that mingle with prickly acid tastes of long grass strands spread across the floor, the musky, spiciness of incense and, soil, freshly moist feeding the grass outside the door, by the veranda.
incense rising around us frames my auntie’s face already framed by the peach-beige shawl. my mom has owned, my auntie worn this shawl during all her over-night visits to our house ever since I could remember. The luscious red rose petals appear to dance across the shawl amongst tiny brown geometric patterns adorning the length of her legs which are stretched out on the mat. she sits near the coffee mini-table with 9 tiny white cups appearing to gaze adoringly at a glorious black clay coffee-kettle.
When my auntie speaks, her mouth edges to one side; the scars across her neck create protruding fringes hidden till she arches her head up; a head with thick silky short locks usually big-curled or in curling bigodins.
i remember a conversation in this setting about a girl who lived across the driveway. She went to america to school, she was something of a legend in our neighborhood circle. A neighbor told the stories of the girl’s trials to my auntie who was sharing it with the rest of us. I could sense that we all felt butterflies of anticipation about my departure. With nerves at tickling ends, each of us wondered…could my experience be like hers?
zxantila vibes: under umbrella
around 30 minutes past the hour she strut-walks out, a little bounce to her steps and a content little smirk playing across her cafe-latte face. it is drizzling. the black-as-charcoal shiny ground mirrors white, yellow and orange car lights with blurry imprecision. ‘how pretty’, she thinks.
its work day over her head bobs in complete abandon to beats of tunes causing a pleasant ruckus where a zillion buzzy thoughts were whizzing few instants earlier. Her smirk widening, she makes her way through a tall metropolitan jungle of concrete, glass and cleanliness formidable and contrasting the urban metropolis of a sub-Saharan country she hails from.
rejecting the willpower to contain herself, she increases the spring in her steps and adds a bigger bounce to her walk toward the bus stop. intermittently squeaking, mumbling and bellowing out pieces of the lyric of a song in her second language she strides on, adamant about her full enjoyment of the music and the soft soothing spray of watery droplets from above.
reaching the stop she stands, facing the direction from which a bus will inevitably swoosh down. inevitably- buses like water slide down slopes… Her eyes distractedly dance along the charcoal-black slope only partially seeing. she is swept away in the sounds and words, the volume cranked up high, the music soars with her senses failing to arrest only one: her vision. several many moments pass.
tapping along, hip-twitching along, humming and mumbling along…and then she starts a little wiggle -fully oblivious of her surroundings. for a couple more minutes…jamming…jamming. bouncing. vibing with the music….
she sighs. stopping. smiling.
Then…she notices there were no fresh water droplets on her coat….
how could that…….(!!!)
abruptly, she turns around and her heart JUMPS- threatening to leap right up her throat!
“Oh my God!” ….exhale…
There is another human being right behind her!
…a human inordinately close, discomfortingly…breathing down her neck!! … she saw papery white skin crinkling up into a grimace. decidedly- almost contentedly, the old lady was holding up an umbrella above them both! The lady was wearing layers and layers of what looked like a red tent and a flowery sash with a big floppy maroon hat covering half her face. The other hand was holding a large white handbag with disproportionately huge crafty pink flowers blotched onto it…this was She. This was the old lady she had seen at this stop before. The lady’s voice had withered and trembled when it had tried to be projected, what the lady had said escapes her memory.
exhale…”Oh sorry!! I didn’t see you there!!”
silence.
the wrinkly eyelids twitch as the old lady acknowledges that she had heard; the faint grimace still tugging the corners of her thin lips…
more silence.
“uh….thank ….you……. (?)” with a question mark. she steps forward away from the old lady, toward the slope.
Maybe it was her quirky imagination but it seemed the old lady made a tiny step closer with the umbrella, seemingly to proclaim: ‘no more water droplets are claiming territory on your coat if I have anything to do with! I say no! not on my watch!’
‘hmmm?….so they share umbrellas in this country too? .smile. ‘interesting…’
‘is funny…’ almost unconsciously and abruptly she takes another instinct-inspired step forward.
‘ha! the irony! guess who’s more conscious of personal space…?’
“…mhhmmhm…” she starts to hum again fighting to reclaim her obliviousness until the bus comes…
chili pepperzz in the land of superlatives
I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!
the red hot sizzle of chili is soo good for u, it is medicative!!! no wonder my auntie used to tell me to eat chili when i got a cold.
Not only am i’m an addict of hot sizzle chili, i’m also a lover of all foods *spicy*…so when BBC bust it out that scientists “can harness the heat in chili peppers and adapt it to combat inflammation in arthritis.”
i was all like ‘woaaaaahhh hot tamale’! or rather ‘abet Qaria’!
i’m the little girl who used to concoct pastes of berbere & butter, berbere & water to be eaten with injera for breakfast, lunch or afternoon snack. i would spread dollops of it on injera being heated on a mitad clay plate which seeps the moisure from spongy pores transforming injera to crunch-ilicious Qategna… *|mouth watering|*… i was one to mix lemon squeeze with berebere that goes on top of rice with salsa, i would chop up green chili to make some ‘pasta saltata’, add more hot hot mitmita to kitfo …i’m still that little girl…
…with one difference! Now, when someone obliquely & proudly (!??) proclaims the unmatched heat & spiciness of Ethiopian cuisines, my eyebrow pricks up into an arc…
i’ve come across chili in varieties… Ghanaian Sheto sauce with fish, shrimp in the marinade is extremely potent, while the Thai method of splashing pickled, ground or oiled chili mixed with seeds is nothing short of flaming tearjerker if overdone ever so slightly! other… indians, turks, mexicans… use chili across their cuisines in various forms…while some, exhibit exceptional cultural idiosyncrasies like some crazy naija people who carry emergency packets of ‘peppe’ everywhere! or the Filipinos & Koreans eating chilli leaves? *|yet another priceless eyebrow raising moment!|*
stereotypically… ethiopians believe their tongues withhold the very feistiest of many a pepper & their cuisine uses it! …which should not be much of a surprise given they readily embrace many a superlative about ethiopia/ians… ethiopians the most beautiful people of the world, with the most fertile and green landscapes on earth, the fiercest warriors that defied all colonial rule, the fastest of people, living in the ‘origin of civilization and humankind’, the home of selected people by God to protect the arc of the covenant… yadi ya…content ubernationalism makes gorgeous-est and spice-desensitized-tongued Ethiopians ssssssssssssssmooookiiiinnnn’ …
….chili pepperzz FYI
“The Naga Jolokia (Bhut Jolokia, Ghost Chili, Ghost Pepper, Naga Morich) is a chili pepper that grows in northeastern India (Assam, Nagaland, and Manipur) and Bangladesh. It was confirmed by Guinness World Records to be the hottest chili in the world…”
chili peppers are implicated with many health benefits! …and disbenefits… *|blink|*
Caricatures
San
Baggy,
Feathery light shash fabric,
Small tiny detailed
Patterns- flowers and birds, trees
A smidge
Lacy, complicated, intricate
Capped, layered
Brown v above inverted white triangle
Beady eyes, accented eyes, freckled
Unfitting: converse and reckon
Accent, emphasize- accessory
Badonkadong
Composed sheen,
Dotted complex..ion
Wavy sidelines,
Straight, vex out, flatten out
Scrutinizing eye.ing
Eying.
Rhythmic. Step. .Step
Critic….
Judge.
iQaQa: tales of playing life in thingthing
there was a refined science and an art to evaluating the right proportions of water and soil…red or black, or ashawa sand…to make the purrrfect pot, food, house, miniature person … a little world of iQaQa!
I remember playing this game in two settings:
ahnd. the main gates were fuchsia pink, with peeling paint along the top edges. we lived across the sandy driveway from each other. Three of the SaId family children: the eldest boy, the eldest girl, the youngest and I, grandma’s girl. Chronologically, I fit between the two girls.
the consistency was fiiiine! fine sand which rises in sheets from underneath the ’save the children’ land cruiser usually parked next to the veranda where the gatekeeper situates his-self under the shade and cockily challenges all willing to a mean game of draughts.
the scorching heat of the sun and humidity prick the air leaving wavy optical illusions and refractions tangled with the dusty sand puffing upwards all day. but we always hid, we would go behind the old Italian building housing the venerated top floor office. we would go where the adults did not come, by the garden and store rooms. we frolicked well-lit grounds quaintly accented with insect infested dark corners while ever-flowing tap water trickled into these bountiful lands …casting pipes of soft gooey sand along the edges of the plants. If only grandma knew how we messed with those peoples’ gardens!
‘there are so many big trees!!’ Don’t you ask me what big meant! Ask me ‘when is Big’? and I might try to recall how tall I was at 7 years old….or not! … I wasn’t short! I did like wearing puffy colorful skirts tho!…
trees were the kind unique to that area of the world. ones with “monkey money” (yeTota frank) with entourages of small plants with “trumpet flower” (TirumBa AbeBa) & “bird’s seed Qolo” (yeWef Qolo)…my favorite, the ‘bogambil’, made for a mean hoooot pink stew concocted in a mud pot which had been very crispy-crunchy well done under the hot horn of African sun.
lema. there was a lot of short and stout greenery 515kms away, many about my height. and large chipped rocks lining the ground. it was rainy and muddy, gloomy clouds suspended over the wet season blues… moisture, nagging muggyness. the corrugated narrow metal doors were open, for what reason I don’t know. there was my cousin, the neighbors’ kids and I. the youngest one, a chubby little pumbkin with twinkily eyes was my favorite. such a cutttiie! they lived across the rocks…it seemed.
we messed with water. messy could make Coca cola, (aheeem! ambition and imagination allowed us to fathom even the most infamous/intricate billion dollar cola assembly line, kemir!!) … and soups and sauces, salaTa…and many more dishes and beverages… there were different shapes and sizes of tin cans, the yellow ethfruit salsa can and rectangular green olive oil can, the small one with the cartoon yeast dude on it!… and we went water-fetching behind the house… through the narrow path into spooksville, a space I later grew too big to fit in.
I enjoyed snipping all sorts of leaves and flower petals, mashing up different colors and concoctions. soiling my soft palms, tinging them with acidy tart smells/tastes. We served on different plates, qorkies (bottle caps…whatever are they called in english!?)… and with different utensils; invisible ones work especially well when we make the sound-effects “Aam-Aaaaam-Aam” and “fpfffffuuuuut!”
I remember the fascination with which every day passed, the immense amount of concentration and energy with which we jumped! jumped! Jumped! songs and chants, daily chores, timhirtibet-timhirtibet, mushira-mushira, …we were playing life! oh! joy-joy, funny how somethings, like playing life, are universal!
