Words For My Pictures

Addis Ababa Ethiopia African Youth Athletic Championship  This a picture of a man selling raffles at Addis Ababa Stadium which I took the liberty to name The Raffle Man. Wearing the Ethiopian national team shirt The Raffle Man is selling raffle tickets to the crowd who came to watch the African Youth Athletic Championship like he always does before major soccer matches held at the stadium. Regular stadium attendees know him well and buy from him tickets to win the prize of the day. Every time a big match is scheduled at the stadium The Raffle Man comes early and advertises the day's special prize to be won by a lucky ticket holder then he proceeds to sell raffle tickets from one corner of the stadium to another corner until the match is about to end. This is the time that The Raffle Man makes the draw and announce the winner. He had to again shout and call the winning number until he finds the lucky winner which he immediately hands the prize ...

Every year when Victory of Adowa is celebrated in Addis on  2nd of March, a small contingent of  " Veterans" come to celebrate wearing different former arm uniforms.  They wear uniforms ranging from Emperor Haile Selassie's imperial bodyguard to Grand uniform of the Revolutionary Army of Ethiopia and often a mix of different uniforms from different eras.  As their uniforms, their medals are also diverse. Service medals from the emperors time to the Ethio Somali war of the 1970's service medal are common. The old men in uniform, chant in the traditional war chant and parade in their mixed uniforms adding color and interest to the occasion which by itself is not a dramatic event as the victory that it commemorates. All who fought The battle of Adowa which happened 123 years ago are dead. Ethiopian Warriors led by Emperor Menelik won the battle by crashing the Italian colon...

My mother used to get my picture taken on my birthday or when my birthday is approaching. Most of the time she takes me to a photo studio or get someone who has a camera to take my picture. If she can not make it she would ask my brother, my father or anyone available to take me there.  I remember ones my cousin who was living with us at that time had to take me with her for the annual ritual.  There are gaps and many lost pictures but the pictures that I still have are enough to show how much I have changed. From the baby pictures to the toddler picture, from the toddler pictures to pre-teen photos and it goes on. But the older I got the fewer birthday portraits I had. Ones my mother is gone it didn't cross my mind to keep having birthday portraits.  Now after many years laps I have taken a self-portrait when my birthday approached this year. It was not even meant to be the birthday portrait but the time that I took ...

Monks and Monasteries Play an important role in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church since the beginning of Christianity in Ethiopia. Ethiopia is one of the first countries to accept Christianity. Christianity became a state religion at the time of Emperor Ezana in the 4th Century and it continued to be the state religion until the last of the Solomonic Danistey's Emperor was deposed in 1974. Throughout these centuries monks had and still have a unique role in the tradition of  Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.  Monestries can be found in different part of the countries from cliff caves to lake islands. Often monasteries are founded in very remote and inaccessible part of the country to keep the monks away from civilization and from worldly temptations. A Monks is revered as an example of pious individuals who gave up the material world for the love of God. Monks are seen as Prophets too because society sees them...

This picture was taken in Dire Dawa market in 2015. The young girl you see in the picture is posing elegantly to the camera with a shy but confident smile. The boys around her are acting curious or clowning as boys always do. The boys lack the elegance or the sophistication that the young girl has even though the boys are much older than her.  The girl is wearing a simple dress with a headscarf as adults do while the boy behind her is wearing a replica of an English premier league team jersey. I am sure the jersey is much more expensive than the girl's dress but the girl is more neatly dressed than the boy behind her. Throughout the world, boys are given the privilege to be just boys but young girls like the girl in the picture are denied of their childhood since society expects them to work by the time they start to walk. I am sure this girl was not in the market to just play and be with her friends. She is their selling things or accompanied her moth...

Dear Kettlebells You are getting heavier and heavier. The more I lift the heavier you get but I will keep lifting you up until the last second. Even if I can no longer lift you I will never drop you on the floor doing so will break my spirit. I will hold on to you as if my life depends on it. It might be painful but I will keep on lifting you or would hold you in the rack. I do this not because I love you in fact at this moment I hate you! It is because by holding on to you build my strength in mind and body. I learn not to give up for a meager pain which feels like it is internity.  I am in the zone now I am taking one lift at a time. Now I am not thinking about anything but how to lift you up above my head or hold you to my bosom.  At this moment noting matters that much anymore because I have concentrated my mind in you only, the past or the future doesn't matter anymore. I am in the moment. I will throw you away hard on the...

I didn't like dead flowers but they fascinated me at the same time. The reason I hated them is it reminded me of the last hours of my mothers' life. My mother was gasping her last breaths lying unconscious in the Intensive Care Unites of Black Lion  Hospital. Close to her hospital bed on the dresser, there is a bouquet of dead flowers in a vase which someone brought earlier in the week as a good gesture( of course they didn't bring the dead flowers but the flowers died and no one bothered to replace them or through them away).  I sat next to her watching her and watching the dead flowers which were in a way were there as a symbol of life's end. End of my mother's life. Hours later my mother passed away. I wish she had died without suffering but that was not the case she died in pain and it had been more painfully for people who know her and who were close to her. From that time on dead flowers to me is death but what is the mean...