03/01/2025
In the Beltway, where the diaspora hums with the rhythms of displacement and survival, you can find fine Ethiopian cuisine, injera flown overnight from Addis, and honey-sweet tej to delight your palate. You’ll encounter a good Ethiopian woman, one to call your wife or your mistress, books that stir the soul, chat that quickens the mind—and everything to transport you back to the old country. Everything, that is, except peace. For in this mosaic of nostalgia and belonging, the air is thick with politics—the most toxic of politics. I don’t think there’s a people on this damned earth who can make politics out of the mundane: the food, the drink, the chat.
At one gathering, an old woman at a grilling party told me she was eating injera made from teff grains grown in Tigray. I was too disappointed to hold back and told her, “You never know; the teff grains might be from Gojjam.” Another time, a young Tigrayan nationalist proclaimed that Gi’at—what Amharic speakers call Genfo—is authentically Tigrayan, and that the best of it could be found right here in D.C. I smiled politely, but my mind wandered to my grandfather’s stories, how the best Gi’at he ever had was made by his mother—a Galla woman.
Tigray, like Oromia, holds treasures of pureness—gold pulled from its soil. Yet even this gold, this unblemished promise, is mined and smuggled by warlords who sowed ethnonationalism in the hearts of the youth while taking the people hostage. Even here, where everything familiar should unite us, the flavors and stories come laced with the bitterness of division, the weight of what was stolen, and the scars of what was lost.
My maternal great-grandmother on my mother’s side, Zenebech Misrach, hailed from Tembien, Tigray. Another maternal great-grandmother, Mushra (Adeday) Shamie, came from the Galla of Raya. She spoke Galligna as her mother tongue and carried the pride of her heritage wherever she went. She married my great-grandfather, Qegnazmach Yimam Kassaye, a man from the highlands of Raya. When people asked Mushra where she was from, she would reply with quiet confidence, “Hawash Gamma”—“South of the Awash River” in Oromia. From their union sprang a lineage steeped in diverse traditions and rich stories. My mother gained an uncle from this heritage, a man who would later take up arms alongside the TPLF in the struggle against the Derg.
I remember my uncle, Halefom Abadi Worgegna, who passed away young when I was just a child. His final days were spent in the care of his sister—my mom—at our home, a faint yet tender memory. But my recollections of my grandfather, Molla Yimam—the man of men of Raya—are vivid. A decent man, a people’s man, upright and resolute, he wouldn’t let anyone cross his values. He carried himself with the kind of quiet dignity that commanded respect, embodying an integrity that feels increasingly rare. Yet, as principled as he was, he was also a man of his time.
My grandfather had more than five wives at once, at least three of them living in the same neighborhood: Mulu Hailu, Medanit Tsegaye, and Jano Gebreyesus. As a child, I would roam freely among their homes, visiting my uncles and aunties, unaware then of the complexity and weight of those relationships. It was fun!
My grandmother, Amlesu, on the other hand, was an enigma—a woman ahead of her time. She married two heroes, each revered in their communities, only to divorce them both and live the rest of her life on her own terms. It’s a puzzle that lingers in my mind, a testament to her strength and independence. If I have a feminist in my lineage, it must be through this remarkable woman, my grandmother, whom I struggled to understand growing up. She was the strongest woman I have ever known, and I was probably the most difficult of her grandchildren. She carved her own narrative amidst legends, her boldness shining through the weight of the history of Raya.
