set in Mek’ele, Ethiopia
It has been a few days since the Mawlid festivities were cancelled from the threats of drone strikes, just like that woman’s gathering was cancelled a few days before that and for the same reason. Mother is a Christian not a Muslim. Why should it still be bothering her that the celebration of the birthday of the prophet Mohammed was cancelled, especially given that Mother’s sister Mehret has invited her today to her home to have their own little girly get-together?
What happened was the past. It’s not the present. And given how much things change daily in the Tigray Mother should live in the moment. Mother should be more or less over the threats of the last week.
But the smoke from the incense swirls underneath the depiction of Christ in her home, and she sees the tired looking eyes of the Jesus that she prays to each and every day.
How can she find peace when all the Tigray knows is violence?
It seems that ever since the 2020s all Mek’ele has known is insurrection. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front doesn’t want to allow the federal government of Ethiopia to have governance in the Tigray. So many people have been dying for no reason and for years. Women are getting raped, mauled in their private parts so that they cannot reproduce. The wars have been causing famines and it is the civilians who are starving, not the militia.
Mother is from a rich family. Mother is from privilege. She and her husband can afford to stay at home all day particularly when the sounds of the gun shelling start.
But despite all the bloodshed nothing has changed. The Liberation Front may have negotiated small things here or there but the federal government is still ruling and over the years people were just getting poorer and the international governments wasted billions of US dollars to rebuild the city of Mek’ele.
Mother looks again into those tired eyes of Jesus.
« I don’t understand it. »
Mother says this out loud, despite no one else being in the room. She means it. She didn’t expect that the relatively last peaceful months meant the fighting was over, but that doesn’t mean that she believes that the drone strikes ought to resume. What does Tigray liberation mean if it doesn’t benefit the common person? Does it matter who controls the local government when everyone in the region is suffering? At what point does an identity matter if one’s basic human needs are not being met?
« This is not normal » Mother says. She is not speaking towards Jesus, she is not speaking towards the window. Yet it is the truth, and it needs to be said. She is scared to leave her house each and every day. Even at times when it is supposed to be peaceful, violence randomly breaks out. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government feel like fighting whenever they think it makes them look good to fight. Even when she’s on a weyala to the market or en route to her sister’s home she fears suddenly some random militia man will come and start attacking the civilians inside of it, or she will see smoke rising from the buildings in the distance due to some drone strike or bombing.
So she ends up turning down most invitations to leave her home, and cocoons herself in her safe space, except to meet the people she really loves.
« I am not happy with this. » Mother says, no longer caring that no one is listening. She raises her voice. She shouts her thoughts out like a mad woman. « No one should be happy with this. I am like a caged animal. I have never been assaulted. I have never been threatened with violence. I should feel lucky. But I am not feeling lucky. I feel cursed to be born in this part of the world. And I love being Tigrayan. I love our prayers. I love our food. I love our culture. Why is the decisions of these stupid men making me hate what is otherwise our beautiful way? »
Mother turns to the depiction of Christ. She kneels so quickly that her shroud flies off of her face. She’s not looking reverent as she clasps her hands together. She’s’ actually looking aggressive. This is not her daily prayer. This is not even an attempt at a demand.
She is talking to this depiction of Christ because God is the only person that listens to her, and she finally wants her words to have some semblance of a direction.
« We have such a blessed heritage. Why is it that you don’t let us enjoy any of it? Why must we always be suffering? »
The eyes of the painting of Jesus remain steady in its gaze forward, modest in his pointing of its index finger.
Red veins crack under Mother’s eyes, as if she is suffering from a lack of sleep, or allergies.
« Tell me. God, tell me. »
Yet there is no change in the direction of the eyes of the painting, as if all that will happen will continue to happen, and all that is anticipated will come to pass, no matter how much or not Mother would want her destiny or the destiny of the Tigrayans to change.
