Last night I watched a man die.

Yesterday, I was having a shitty day that seemed to keep getting worse. I left work early because it was too frustrating to be in the office. Feeling a bit emotional, I resisted the urge to drink at three in the afternoon. After a good cry, I resolved to attend a circuits class to get out some pent up restless energy.

Totally unmotivated to go workout, I somehow managed to convince 2 friends to join me so I wouldn't back out. After the warm up, I'm feeling the endorphins running through my veins and I'm starting to feel better; happy with my decision to stay sober and have a productive outlet.

For those who’ve never done circuits training, but it can be a bit intense. It's not uncommon for people to stop and rest while others continue on. So no one took extra notice when an older man sat down in the corner for rest. He was laying down on a push cart with his arms splayed to the side. A few people periodically checked up on him and then hopped back in the training circuit.

A few more minutes passed and people stayed by his side longer than normal. A small crowd grew around him. His face turned a ghostly white. His hands locked up in a claw position.  He started convulsing. His breathing stopped...

The rest of us were remotely aware that something terrible was happening in the far dark corner, but we couldn't really see. He was wheeled out of the corner. Not handicap accessible, he couldn't be rolled out of the gym. In the doorway, someone started giving him CPR. Panic started to escalate as the seconds tick by and reality of the severity of the situation sunk in. He was still not breathing.

People frantically tried to locate emergency numbers to call an ambulance. A few people try to counter the naive Western assumption that an ambulance would come in a timely manner. A few of us gently urged to take him immediately to hospital instead of waiting. The idea was rejected for fear of stopping CPR would do more damage.

The air being forced into his lunges gurgled out, as if rejected by his body. Someone took off his sneakers to help circulation. 

After several calls, an ambulance was dispatched. His chest heaved from the chest compressions. Finally, consensus was reached that it was better to take him to the hospital in a private car rather than wait for an ambulance that has been known to take up to 3 hours to arrive. The group continued to move with haste, but whispers had already infiltrated their thoughts. It was too late. He was already dead.

They lifted the pushcart and carried him to a pickup truck, where they continued to do CPR. They sped off into the night.

As I stood staring at his forgotten sneakers strewn on the cold pavement, I could hear the shrill ambulance siren in the distance.

When people ask me what is the hardest thing about living in Ethiopia, my answer is not expected food-related answer. Instead, I find that the hardest thing about living in Ethiopia is being constantly faced with your own mortality.

It’s too hard to accept the fragility of our existence; our solace lies in the routine of our expectations. Only when something shakes us from this monotony, can we see how quickly misfortune can happen; how quickly we can lose everything. But humans are incredibly resilient.  Our coping mechanisms are quick to suppress the revelation, as it disrupts our comforting concept of reality. 

Threads Lay Bare

The day I have been dreading for the past four years has finally come. I waited too long. I knew this day was coming, and yet I did nothing to change its course.

My grandmother died last weekend. A woman that I feel indescribably connected to but only met once. She is the bearer of my sorted family secrets.  She is a woman who could melt me with a smile.  She represents life in a world of different circumstances. My existence is directly dependent on the decisions she made so many years ago. Decisions that I have never had the chance to understand.

Shrouded in a mysterious sequence of events, my mom was raised in the care of her uncle. Fortunately for her, he subsequently became successful, enabling my mother a world of opportunities that would have been unattainable otherwise. I understand her (and everyone’s, for that matter) admiration of him.  He was incredibly successful because of his visionary entrepreneurial spirit and diligent work ethic. Even now he serves as an inspiration for his grandchildren that never had the opportunity to meet him.  He was idolized by everyone, but especially by my mother. She was daddy’s girl. Without him, my mother would have never left Gondar. Without him, she would have never met my father in the United States. Without him, I would cease to exist. I am profoundly aware that I owe everything to him, in a very literal sense.

All the same, I feel like the silvery threads holding the legitimacy of my heritage together are fraying at the edges, bearing too much weight for such delicate strands. As I try to repair the damage, I carefully avoid the splitting ends, afraid that even the slightest tug may destroy the whole fabric.

I first met my biological grandmother in 2010, a year after my mother died. There was something beautifully touching and piercingly sad about the discovery of my lost grandmother hidden in a small town tucked away in the highlands of Ethiopia. Only aware of her existence a few years prior, I was surprised to see photos tracking the progression of my childhood lining her walls amongst those of her other grandchildren. Unable to understand her words, I understood her eyes. She was overcome with emotion. Never expecting to see us (my sister and myself) in person, she was grateful to meet her lost American grandchildren. Overwhelmed by the situation, I didn’t fully appreciate the magnitude of the visit, unaware that it would change the course of my life.

I felt as if something was coming together. Unaware of my impending identity search, I felt at ease in her presence. Smiling and unable to take her eyes off of me, she told me that I looked like my mother, a compliment that stripped at fresh wounds and nearly brought me to tears. Words that I would never forget.

Sipping on hot tea, my eyes poured over every inch of her small-overcrowded living room. I wanted to remember every detail: every picture, every smell, and every crack in the wall. In silence, I tried to intellectually and emotionally process her existence.  I wasn’t ready to leave her that afternoon. I just discovered a world that I never knew existed and hadn’t yet figured out where I fit in. Although I was reluctant to go, I didn’t know then that it would be my first, and only, opportunity to meet her.

While I am incredibly grateful for my family, I can’t help but feel like something is missing. I feel like I am missing a link that grounds me somewhere, that makes me belong somewhere. I am hovering by thin threads trying to find where gravity will ground me. And the questions keep coming: How was my mother given over to her uncle? What happened all of those years ago? How did my mother feel when she found out?

Upon our first meeting, I was inspired. I vowed to come back and see my grandmother. I would learn Amharic and get to know her, understand her story as a means to understanding mine. I needed to hear her perspective on how she was separated from my mother, an event that forever complicated and confused my identity and existence.  Meeting her solidified my need to go back to discover my roots.

In 2012, I moved to Ethiopia and began learning Amharic. Going back to Gondar was the goal, the payoff to all of the self-doubt, hard work, risks, and uncertainties. The closer I moved towards my goal the more I was terrified of finding out the truth. If she rejected my mother, then was she in effect rejecting me? Already insecure about my legitimacy as an Ethiopian, I postponed visiting Gondar. I waited. Excuses are plentiful when you want them. My Amharic isn’t advanced enough. I’m too busy. I’ll go after the rainy season. It’s too expensive. In my timidity, I waited, hoping for the perfect opportunity to fall in my lap.

But perfection doesn’t exist, and I waited too long. Now she is gone, buried in those same mountains with all of the stories that I never heard. Conversely, I think about all of the stories I will never tell her. Just as I will never know her, she will never know me. I waited too long, and all the while I feel those thin threads splitting around me.