rekindled spirit

it is christmas day today in eritrea (also in russia and greece- or anywhere coptic/greek orthodox is practiced).  although for operational and business purposes the julian calendar is used, christmas is celebrated on january the 7th becuase the coptic or greek orthodox follow the gregorian calendar to mark holy days.

my family like the majority of eritrean christians is coptic orthodox and observes both christmas days. this perhaps is because eritrea is a former italian colony and the 25th was recognized as christmas and a holy day during the colonization (when my parents were children) and the fact that almost all of my life we lived where christmas was celebrated on the 25th of december.  we have a family dinner and exchange gifts on december 25th and celebrate january 7th by cooking lamb and gathering for a traditional eritrean feast.  

two christmases was confusing for me as a child. i never knew how to explain it to my friends until i was old enough to understand the difference between the gregorian and julian calendars. my mother always joked and told me that we celebrated on the 7th of january because it took them two extra weeks to come tell us in africa that jesus christ was born- it made me giggle everytime !

merry christmas once again!!!

yonas, me, and senait

almost a year ago my cousins senait and yonas flew down from london and honored us by becoming the godparents of the moon. the last time we were together, we lived in saudi arabia which was where this photo was taken shortly before they immigrated to england. 

my prevailing childhood memory is that everyone i knew had a brother or a sister and i wanted one or the other.  for some time i believed that senait and yonas were my siblings, a tale i was told to soothe my ever longing desire  (i was an only child for ten years) and they even squeezed me in the middle of portraits to make me belive it. i believed it just like i did in santa.

we were a trio. we went everywhere holding hands, i insisted on being in the middle and made sure that i told everyone that we met they were my brother and sister.

i also tortured senait as a big sister should. when i did something bad, i blamed it on her, if she took too long to eat her sweet treat, i took it from her, and when she cried, i beat her up  to be put in my place by yonas, our little brother. that’s right, he could tackle and pin me down.

thank you for playing along as you were really a source of healing and normalcy and most of all for the the wonderful childhood memories senait (and yonas).

crossing the border

i had to drive 30 minutes to the swiss border and then another hour to zurich international airport where i caught a flight back to germany into munich international and transfered on to a flight to stockholm. sounds crazy but zurich is the nearest international airport to where we live.

welcome to our home 

i arrived at a terminal in stockholm that had huge posters on the wall of every single swedish celebrity that there is some with comments like “welcome to my home”. every actor, scientist (ake senning and rune elmquist, inventors of the earliest pacemaker), golfer annika sorrenstam, model elin grindemyr, and many more that i did not know. that terminal wall leading to customs was long and it was covered every inch of the way.  i of course dropped my bags and took my camera out the moment i saw the abba poster.

stockholm city

stockholm is a beautiful city.  i am in love, and it’s the best kind of love. you know, the kind when you least expect it? it is alive, diverse, historic, and very cosmopolitan, so sophisticated. it has to be one of the most beautiful capitals in the world. built on 14 islands, it is located at the border between the maralen lake and the baltic sea. i will post more photos soon.

aunt saba preparing our feast

i was then met by my cousins that i met for the very first time, merhawit and paulos and we were off to my aunt saba’s house where she prepared and was waiting with a delicious ertrean feast. 

we then had coffee and cake that my aunt saba (a hobby but master baker), baked especially for me. 

served in my honor, i was asked to cut it. a delicious torte with pudding filling and whipped cream icing.  so that was how my week in stockholm began. little did i know what else she

me with my cousins: jolie, merhawit, paulos, daniel, adiam, mike

and all my cousins had in store for me.  let me just say, i think i have stockholm syndrome.

paulos in stockholm

i am back! but before i go on and on about how perfect our family vacation was in austria, or how i’ve returned from sweden with stockholm syndrome, i want to introduce to you my cousin paulos and the reason that i made a special trip to stockholm. 

daniel’s 3rd birthday in asmara, eritrea, l to r all at age 3: paulos, daniel, and me (i think they had just told me that i could not have any more candy)

we were separated by a war that i never imagined would end in my lifetime. it was the first time paulos and i saw each other since we were three. it’s just how it is when you come from a former refugee immigrant family. me, paulos, and daniel (in that order) were born one month apart each and are the first grandchildren on my mother’s side of the family. we were always together and considered a pack or a gang. i remember running around my grandfather’s house getting ourselves into trouble. here we are now:

last week in stockholm, sweden, l to r: paulos, me, and daniel

earlier this summer, paulos immigrated to sweden and i went to more than welcome him to his brand new life and home. it was important to me to feel that i know him.

merhawit and i

the huge surprise was that our cousin merhawit flew in from canada as well. it was also the first time i met her and it became a sort of family reunion. we all of course had so much to share with each other. we talked nonstop and laughed just as much. it felt like we were never apart.

paulos and i

 one week was not enough to cover our lost time but it was a good time and incredibly healing for me. 

 

my father

my father and mother escaped from eritrea (at the time it was part of ethiopia and after years of civil unrest and tension a war had started that lasted close to 32 years). my father’s life was in danger because he is an eritrean that served in the ethiopian air force. when they escaped in the middle of night, it was a secret that only my mother’s oldest brother knew. they made arrangements for me to stay at my grandfather’s house because they had no idea where they were going. i was 3 years old. they crossed the border into sudan on camel and were lucky to make it through because thousands of people were killed attempting to leave the country daily. they were safely settled in khartoum for three months before my father risked is life again and returned to asmara to get me. he had his mother deliver me to him in the country side outside of asmara (where my mother’s family lived). today, he tells me that he was astonished at how easily i remembered him and was so happy i was to see him when he picked me up. he told me that was afraid i would forget him. this time we crossed the border in a little white van. it was 1975 and at the time it was rumored that the ethiopian government was conspiring to over throw numeri, president of sudan. so we were stopped and searched, and jailed at the border. they separated me from my father because i was female and he male. i stayed in the women’s cell while he in the men’s. i can still feel the pain and horror that i felt when they separated me from him. i remember a lovely eritrean lady named hewit (translates to life in tigrinya) befriended me and took care of me for two weeks. i got very ill. there was hardly any food to eat and i was very dehydrated. i was so sick that they finally took me to my father. he was outraged and he demanded that we see a doctor. we were accompanied by an officer to the hospital where i have my first memory of a tongue depressor being stuck in my mouth making me gag. after i was treated, this was just for a few hours, the officer that had accompanied us with no authority, decided to let us go free. i don’t remember how we got to my mother, but i remember i was sitting on my father’s shoulders when we got to the door. my mother, who had been mourning our deaths, because we were two weeks over due, thinking we had been killed by the ethiopian army dropped to the ground and started crying when she opened the door. i had no idea that our lives were in danger and that we were lucky to have survived. as a child, this experience stayed in my memory. i would talk about it and mention it growing up and my parents just couldn’t believe how much of it i remembered. they often would say oh elsa, you overheard us talking about it, didn’t you? about five years ago, my father and I spontaneously told the story together to other family members for the first time. as he spoke and recalled details, people, and conversations, i for the very first time heard the fear, anger, and sadness in voice. it was also the first time that this story made me cry. i also learned that he decided to risk his life and return to get me because my mother cried for me everyday. i think about them everday. now even more than ever that we are so far apart. and on days like father’s day, I feel overwhelming love for my father as I do everyday. i think about how he saved my life, took it in his hands and changed it forever.

happy father’s day baba! i love you more than i can say!