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Hello. My name is David. I live in West Seattle.
Sometimes I try to be bored or distracted, but it never works.
Take two Fridays ago, for example. I was just chillin’ in the crib, keeping an eye-watch on the old parking strip, when a lady I know invited me to some kind of “Meet the Eritreans” party at the White Center Community Cultural Center (formerly St. James Lutheran Church.) There was gonna be free food there, according to the flyer she sent me.
What did I have to lose? I thought.
–Not much. An hour. Two hours, tops.
What did I have to gain? I thought.
–Free food.
Well, that decided it.
Plus: I’ve always wondered who the Eritreans are. Haven’t you?
Anyway, when I got to St. James, some Eritrean people were already there, setting out the free(!) food and chatting about their country and the strange times it’s been through over the centuries.
For example, did you know that Eritrea was once part of a huge trading empire called Axum*, which included parts of present-day Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia, and even Yemen.
—I didn’t.
And did you know that Eritrea had coffee way before Seattle? And that they had the French braid before there even was a France?
–I had a vague suspicion about that last bit already, but whereas before, I never would have brought that information up at a party, now I can wield it with assurance.
I also learned that Eritrea is the youngest country in Africa, having just gained its independence in 1991. Over the centuries, Eritrea was dominated by several bully-boy countries (both European and African) but was eventually promised its freedom by the UN after World War II.
Unfortunately, in 1962 the UN betrayed Eritrea (with the complicity of the US) and forcibly annexed the country to Ethiopia. (Sound familiar? See: “Viet Nam”)
In any event, centuries of domination and betrayal did not result in the Eritreans becoming bored or distracted, and they finally won their independence from Ethiopia after a 30-year struggle. Unfortunately, Eritrea still suffers from a home-grown dictatorship, and that’s one of the reasons there are so many Eritreans living outside of Eritrea. But that’s another story . . .
Here are a couple of pictures I took:
This is Mengstab Tsegay and Eden Woldu, two leaders in the local Eritrean community. (Both married, neither one to the other.)
Mengstab and Eden put together an excellent PowerPoint slideshow and presented it to the audience. They also brought along a bounty of healthy and delicious Eritrean food . . . although, in all fairness, I must say that Eden prepared more food than Mengstab. You know how that goes.
These are three young Eritrean men whom I chatted up after the presentation. (I would tell you their names, but in keeping with my editorial policy, I don’t publish the names of people whose names I can’t remember.) These guys are also married (also not to each other), and right now, they’re all about finding good jobs.
So anyway, here’s the deal. Before going to this event, my life was essentially Eritrean-free. Do you know what I mean? Sure, I had seen Eritreans around the town, but the number of them I had actually spoken to or knew anything about was exactly zero. And what I knew about the country of Eritrea at that time could have fit into a few hundred pixels.
Now, by contrast, I know 5 Eritreans (and feel I could meet 5 more without 2 much difficulty) and the amount of stuff I actually know about them and their country can barely fit into this blog post.
So what do you think about that? Pretty cool, huh?
And it was all for free.
And it all happened within just a few blocks of my home.
What could be cooler than that?
I’ll tell you what could be cooler. It could be cooler if I told you all in advance about the next one of these events that’s coming up.
(Teaser: It’s going to be in March.)
So I think I’ll just do that. Only I’ll do it in a separate posting, just to keep the rest of you all from becoming bored and distracted.
In the meantime, you’d all better just hope that I don’t become distracted by something unfortunate happening in my parking strip.
And I think you all know what I’m talking about there . . .
Peace out,
DP
Source: Wikipedia
(Under Wiki Commons Media License)
*Gesundheit!
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