Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Carole TenBrink: Ethiopia, excerpts




            in Addis Ababa

As my foot steps down
On the tarmac
Donkey smell, hyena musk
Whiff of the lion of Judah
It’s Addis Ababa.

*

One of the early days
Walking alone in Addis.
A frail body
Slumps down the wall.
Through protruding teeth
One last breath passes
Others go by the human lump.
Someone covers the face.
Market day continues.

*

I put my money down for Tej beer.
‘Don’t’                       the waiter chastises
‘turn his majesty’s face down.’
Affront echoes back to King Solomon
And the Queen of Sheba.

*

            in Tigre

Tizghe’s three year old body
Is something I love.
High forehead, a shapely skull
Rounded with braids.
The garlic amulet around her neck
Given with Wogesha,
Witch doctor’s murmurs.
Tizghe’s mother often puts her
In my arms, asking ‘ebakish, awo….’
Take her, take her.  I ache
Looking in those dark shiny eyes,
Sign of a clever spirit.

*


Tzghe’s mother invites me over
To visit Adigrat village women.
Amid formal greetings ‘Tin ey stelhen’
I’m admiring white washed cement walls
Where embroidered picture gleam.
Tadese, our village boy-wonder
Translates for me as they ask

*

‘Ebakish… let down your long
blond hair’.  Each woman comes near
strokes from my crown
slowly, all the way down my back.
I feel like a ritual icon.
Tadese sees my unease & smiles.
‘They think you are part woman
Part sacred horse
With a long wild mane’.

*

            towards home

Last days in Addis Ababa
At the Mercato market
I grow brazen
Engage the stall keeper in fierce bargaining.
I’m after a woven basket
For local value.  He barters up, gesturing
I barter down, smiling, until
We part friends, knowing
We can deal
With one another.

*

Back in New York, at a super market
Chickens packaged up
Row on row
Aisles upon miles of goods.
My eyes roll
Remembering that one
Live, scrawny chicken
I ever saw in Adigrat.
Hearing again, Abbai, blue Nile’s
Thunderous deluge in my ears
holding Tekeste’s hand
As we rushed down the rock of Lalibela,
Earth of my awakening.
My stomach turns….
I put the money, George Washington’s
face down and run.



Carole TenBrink is a Montreal-based performance poet and storyteller.



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