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Aug 31 , 2019

RENT WOES

Sitting in the living room of one of my friend's, we were perplexed. “35,000 Br for a run-down old house? I will never pay that!” my friend exclaimed, holding her new baby girl. The cost of living...

Aug 24 , 2019

ETHIOPIAN DREAMERS

On a grim rainy Addis evening, I sat talking to a friend of my brother's; he said, “this is my last trip to Ethiopia, I am done.” This surprising declaration comes from a young man that has been i...

Aug 17 , 2019

DATA MATTERS

My mother entrusted me with one of our family's prized possessions when I turned 10, a film photo camera. It was a clunky, solid, awkward piece of technology, and I was allowed the privilege of using...

Aug 3 , 2019

Raising Ethiopian Food to Haute Cuisine

Sometime in the late 1970s and 80s, a certain enterprising Eritrean diaspora in Los Angeles opens a sprawling restaurant in the western section of the city that instantly develops a large client base...

Jul 27 , 2019

Planting Trees by the Number

Over the last few decades, Ethiopia had launched several tree planting schemes including one led by an august sounding institution, the Ethiopian Millennium Secretariat, that envisioned planting nearl...

Jul 20 , 2019

Hollow Promises to Entice the Ethiopian Diaspora

The attempt by the government to draw the Ethiopian diaspora into investing in Ethiopia puzzles many, particularly those who some fifty years ago scattered into exile across Europe and America. How sh...

Jul 13 , 2019

A Veritable Shanty Town

Whose idea is it to blanket the city streets with filth-ridden, threadbare and shabby plastic tarps; rusted corrugated metals; and twisted Eucalyptus lumber that houses street vendors, food stalls, co...

Jul 6 , 2019

The Swinging Era of Ethiopian Music

Sometime in the early 1990s, a lavish wedding is thrown at a posh Northern California hotel by a Middle Eastern tycoon who spares no expense to wed a young Ethiopian diaspora couple. There is the usua...

Jun 29 , 2019

Pause, But a Little!

On November 3, 1935, Benito Mussolini has already launched his fascist invasion of Ethiopia, and his troops have occupied the ancient city of Axum. In Addis Abeba, Emperor Haile Selassie is hosting a...

Jun 22 , 2019

But Wait! Africa, India Do It, Too

Ethiopia is exotic, mysterious, elusive, wondrous and shrouded with so many inexplicable marvels that it never tires the senses to witness the comings and goings of life that one encounters daily. It...

Jun 15 , 2019

The Ethiopian Gold Rush: Artisian Mining

Two young men in Debre Berhan, apparently brothers and recent converts from farming into quarry mining, are discussing over beer the prices of quarried stone and aggregates and are arranging deliverie...

Aba Zafu

Aba Zafu, the court jester of Emperor Haile Selassie, entertains the nobility and high court officials at the Genete Leul Palace, which the Emperor later donates to establish the Haile Selassie Univer...

Jun 1 , 2019

Inaccessible Justice

The judge sits behind his desk in a cluttered room and spreads open a file that is tethered by a worn and frayed file cover, gingerly beginning to examine the documents inside. Two litigants file in a...

May 25 , 2019

LOST IN THE TUMULT : Decorum, Propriety and Ceremonies

A rudimentary website search for the “the most expensive dinner” in Ethiopia hosted by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) last Sunday presented a quandary. There were no images, reports or event att...

May 18 , 2019

Rudeness, A Rare Addition to Poor Service

Near Tele Bar, near National Theatre, in Addis Abeba, a customer in a suite enters condescendingly into a barbershop and is directed to a chair by a thin-lipped and moustached barber who flicks, twitc...

May 11 , 2019

Military Pageantry Needs Drills, Practice

A slew of official public processions, albeit almost all of them for former Ethiopian leaders, passed through our city streets in the last few months. Ethiopians are not accustomed to witnessing mili...


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