Thoughts of an Ethiopian, Essay Example

Thoughts of an Ethiopian who survived Green Hunger

I had a dream last night; two of my friends died, but it was not just a dream. It happened, two years ago. It happened when the weather played a mean trick on us. It was a cruel thing to do to a people who had already suffered much. I am Ethiopian. I live in Ethiopia, a poor country with little to offer. We live on little more than injera and wat, and the occasional tej when there is a celebration. But it was not a celebration that I dreamt about, it was mourning, although the setting was not different from that of a celebration, and that made the mourning worse.

I knew Kalik and Makun since we were children. We went to school together, we learned to read and write together. We were poor, but we were fortunate to have been given the chance to participate in education. In school, we learned about many lessons, but only one of those lessons was on my mind with me in my dream. It was the same thing that was on my mind two years ago, when I held Kalik’s hand as the light in his eyes slowly faded to nothing. The lesson was a figure of speech, the lesson was irony. We learned that irony was when something was right and wrong at the same time. Makun found ironies funny. Kalik gave a funny example of irony, a beggar getting hit by a train while dancing on the tracks after picking up a hundred dollar bill that had been lying on it. Kalik laughed before he died, looking at the lush green grass of the hills, knowing that he cannot eat grass, not like the caterpillars; knowing that he would die hungry while the land sprouted plenty.

References

Ethiopia. (2010). Retrieved November 18, 2010 from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia#Economy

It’s Green Hunger. (2000). Retrieved November 18, 2010 from: http://chora.virtualave.net/green-hunger.htm

Sanders, E. (2008). Ethiopia struggles with ‘green’ hunger. Retrieved November 18, 2010 from: http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2008/08/10/ethiopia_struggles_with_green_hunger/

WHO. (2000). Ethiopians in the grip of “green hunger.” Retrieved November 18, 2010 from: https://apps.who.int/inf-fs/en/feature194.html