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Sparkle

by Felekech Woldehana

318 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0479; ISBN 1-55369-666-2; US$26.50, C$30.20, EUR22.00, £15.50

SPARKLE is more than 'just' an autobiography of one woman's forced flight from civil war in Ethiopia. It is a testimony to the life of a remarkable woman whose faith and unfailing spirit have brought her through days of terror to a place where her dreams have come true.

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about the book      about the author      sample excerpt and Table of Contents      catalogue info

About the Book This is my story: the story of an Ethiopian woman in conflict first with the grim feudal customs into which I was born, then with the anarchy of the revolutionary period, from which I escaped in 1991 in a brutal forced flight into Kenya with my six children, the youngest of whom was a year and four months old. From there, I was sponsored by a church group in Halifax and taken to a paradise of peace and water: Canada. My story is one of horror and miraculous escapes. It is also a grim Ethiopian story: one told from a woman's point of view, in the awareness that of the problems with the society is its male chauvinist traditions. The book is also full of anecdotes and conversations: I reveal Ethiopia through the talk of others. One of the several climaxes of this story is the fact that I was rescued right off the street at one point by Emperor Haile Selassie personally, and taken to the imperial palace to be educated, an event which obviously changed my life. At a very young age as a child of a rural landowner in Ethiopia, I became disturbed at the fate that awaited me: I had been betrothed while still in the womb (on the assumption that I would be a girl) to an Orthodox deacon 20 years my senior. I decided that I wanted an education instead. I was also increasingly disturbed, even at six or seven, at the condition of women, especially that of my mother, in the society around me. At the age of 11 I faked an illness to get out of the impending marriage. A medicine man was brought in. His treatment made me unconscious for two weeks. I was not expected to live (many didn't survive this treatment). Even my first menstruation was deeply traumatic. As I bled and was terrified, my mother, out of ignorance, accused me of having had sex - before I knew what this was. She informed me that, if so, I was a soiled goods and my father was entitled to kill us both. A medicine woman, in another horrible experience, was brought in to confirm my virginity. Through luck, the marriage was postponed, during which time I managed to live with relatives in my big family and, with the kind help of strangers and my own determination, I managed to go to school for a while. Finally, the marriage date was set when I was 14. I was with relatives in another town. My father came to get me. I escaped from the train on the way back. My father then disowned me for having dishonoured the family, wrote that my brothers (all older) would kill me if they saw me, and ordered all my relatives to not take care of me. Just when I was about to be put out on the street, the Emperor was on an official visit to the town where I was. I believed he would take me. I tracked his motorcade amid thousands of people. He would give little gifts to children. Finally he called me over and offered me something. I said I didn't want that. He asked me what I wanted. I said "an education. I want you to take me." Miraculously, he did! I, a ragged street girl about to be without a home, was in the local palace that very night! I was taken to Addis Ababa, where I lived at the imperial palace in summer and attended the country's best school with the children of the aristocracy through high school. (There were several others - the Emperor picked up promising people occasionally). Among the highborn, my sense of what was wrong with the country deepened. Another chapter began, just before my final graduation, when I became pregnant by the son of an aristocrat who had promised to marry me but then rejected me when I became pregnant. A mere visit to a hospital to confirm the pregnancy turned into a nightmare that merely revealed how corrupt things were. The doctor pressured me into having an abortion - he did them on the side for money. I refused, wanting to keep my child - a decision that in itself would bring dangerous social rejection. I got kicked out of the palace for being pregnant. But I had my diploma. Just as I tried to find a job and establish myself, my former fiancé and his landowner-mother kidnapped me. I was held in captivity until I gave birth - another near-death experience. Finally they took me to a hospital after the midwife couldn't induce labour. In a dirty waiting room with 20 screaming women, blood and afterbirth on the floor, and a dictatorial nurse, a doctor finally came and rushed me in for a caesarean - another angel had saved me. With no choice, I had to return to my captors. While I was there the government of Emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown. Then my ex-fiancé and his mother took my baby to give it away and threw me out of the house. Outside, at their gate, I screamed for my baby. People gathered and police came. The new regime didn't protect landowners. My ex-fiancé and his mother were arrested and my baby returned. Saved again! After that I joined a student corps that the government sent out to the countryside to teach literacy to peasants and prepare them for the coming land reforms, which involved nationalising land. With my baby on my back I travelled many miles. Landowners - including my brothers - took to the hills to fight back. Before long we were fleeing to Addis Ababa ahead of the insurgents, during which I was in a car accident in which a couple of people were killed. My baby and I were unharmed. Back in the capital, students had already turned against the government, which was quickly becoming more authoritarian. They had demonstrated just before we arrived. Shortly, I was among many rounded up in a brutal way. My baby was taken away from me. We were driven away in military transports, to be killed - we thought. Girls and boys were kept in separate captivity. Hundreds of girls were locked into a house with the windows boarded over where we couldn't even all sit down at once, and without a bathroom. We were without food or water for days, and kept for two weeks. Some girls were taken away every night, and not seen again. Some died in the house. Finally, in what again seems miraculous, a soldier entered one night and asked if there was a girl there who had left a baby behind. That was me. I was rescued! Not only that, but in getting my baby back, I met a couple who took me in and used their influence to get me a government job! My fortunes had turned around once again. At 19 I was hired as a nanny at a group home for troubled girls. I had a talent for social work. By involving them in the decisions of the home, and through contacts, I got the girls back in school or in jobs. I made progress within government. Meanwhile, despite everything and my father's hatred of students (his land was seized), I brought my aged parents to live with me, and they did until they died. Meanwhile, anarchy still reigned. I saw people shot in front of me on the street by revolutionary guards for no reason at all. I also found a wonderful man who worked in government with me and we married and had two children. Then he was promoted - making him a target in the political unrest, which involved war on two fronts and tribal warfare internally. He was shot and killed in short order. After a long struggle to come out of that, and many more ups and downs, I remarried and had three more children. At one point, for no reason, was fired from my government job - a catastrophe. I appealed to the courts and, amazingly, got the job back after six months. A Canadian Catholic priest I knew in the meantime, another angel, Father Gagnon, supported me. Meanwhile, I arranged to switch jobs with someone and move to my old home area of Harare where I became head of a nursing home. Things went reasonably well for a while. Then anti-government insurgents attacked Harare as the socialist junta fell. We stayed in for days. When I finally ventured out in my car (with all my children aboard) I was stopped at a checkpoint and forced to drive towards the Kenyan border until we ran out of gas. A military truck took us to a concentration camp where the men were separated and apparently shot and the women had to cook for the soldiers. Then government troops counter-attacked. Everything fell apart again and I and several other women and their children took to the jungle an hour before the camp was bombed. After walking for days with little food or water we reached civilisation and were taken to a UN refugee camp in Kenya. There I organised schooling and basket-making within the camp, where we stayed for two years, until my dream, my ultimate rescue, was achieved: resettlement to Canada. My hope in writing this book is that it will do at least a little bit to improve the lot of Third World women. My other purpose is to thank Canadians and make them understand the greatness of their generosity.

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About the Author FELEKECH METAFERIA WOLDEHANA left Ethiopia, with her six children in a forced flight from civil war. Felekech and her children who ranged in age from a baby of 28 months to her eldest of 16 years fled their homeland with only the clothes they were wearing. They stayed in a refugee camp in Kenya for two years. Felekech and her family came to Canada in 1993 and now live in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Today she has a very busy life: raising her children working at a long term care facility and studying social science and arts at Dalhousie university. Mrs. Woldehana wrote this autobiography in hopes of enlightening the world to the struggles of women and children in Ethiopia.

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Sample Excerpt and Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SYNOPSIS

CHAPTER ONE
A stolen dictionary: A victory amid cruel deception

CHAPTER TWO
Eating dirt for the sake of education

CHAPTER THREE
Learning in dark shadows

CHAPTER FOUR
"Lord make my father and my brothers forget me. Amen."

CHAPTER FIVE
First menstruation as cultural terror

CHAPTER SIX
Escape at Error Gotta

CHAPTER SEVEN
A miracle for a lucky girl: "I am Haile Selassie."

CHAPTER EIGHT
Caste and education at the Emperor's School

CHAPTER NINE
Pregnant and Abandoned: The Rapist Doctor

CHAPTER TEN
Graduation and A not-So-secret pregnancy

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Giving birth in captivity while the regime crumbles

CHAPTER TWELVE
Bullets for your supper: The failed national campaign (Zemecha)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The house that swallowed young people

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A turn for the better-with a catch

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"Dogs sense the future": A doubly cruel funeral

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Near-death, and another new start

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A last peaceful interlude on a rocky road

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lenin's statue down: an urge to flee the country

CHAPTER NINETEEN
Flight at gunpoint with six kids: last tears for Ethiopia

CHAPTER TWENTY
Better luck in Kenya

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Making the best of refugee camp

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
One of the happiest days of my life: coming to Nova Scotia

OCTOBER 13, 1993

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Chapter Five
FIRST MENSTRUATION AS CULTURAL TERROR

Enkutatash is a New Year holiday in the Ethiopian calendar. Christians celebrate it with national drinks and foods. Lambs, chickens and oxen are slaughtered. They also bake a big bread called difo dabo.

In the New Year people wear new clothes or cleans clothes, and spread green grasses on the floor of the houses. Neighbors invite each other and eat together. Young girls choose tall grasses called ktemae and yellow flowers and go from door to door singing a song called eteabebaye, and give grass and flowers to the occupants, wishing them a happy New Year. The occupants give money, grain, or butter in return and a blessing for the girls. And then at the end of the day the girls shared whatever they got and go home.

My mother prepared everything for the holiday. On New Years Eve I went to the field with my relatives and friends of my age to pick green grasses and yellow flowers. We sang and sometimes danced our cultural dance until it got dark. The next morning early I took my green grass and flowers and went with my friends, singing and dancing from door to door. We went through all the houses in our village, and collected much stuff. Around noontime we shared what we collected and went to our houses. It is one of the best holidays in our culture. That was my last year to go around and sing like that with my friends. After that holiday I knew I would not come back. I passed that day happily...

... I was going to be twelve years old October 27. I had pain in my stomach. I feel nauseated and sometimes-whitish stuff, which looked like eggwhite, comes out of my vagina. I was terrified and ashamed and did not dare tell anybody. When older people talked about puberty and other delicate subjects they would send the children out. How was I supposed to learn about this fluid which was coming out of me? Even the schools didn't teach about these things unless you got into high school and took a biology class, and even there they wouldn't talk frankly. The teachers themselves would feel embarrassed. It would be considered as disrespect if you asked your parents. There was also no bathroom or toilet room for privacy. Our toilet in the countryside was the bush. So I thought of ways to cope with this problem. I decided to keep it to stay in bed and keep it myself, saying I was sick. I wondered what would happen to me.

One day I slept until ten o'clock got up and went to the kitchen. My mother was sitting beside the fire cooking sauce. I sat beside the fire opposite to her. She gave me food and milk, I ate my breakfast and drank my milk and she gave me a handful of cotton to take out the seeds. So as I sat and started to pick the seeds, I felt something was flowing out of me, some fluid running out. I breathed very hard. My face flushed and my heart beat fast. It felt as though my heart was going to jump out though my chest. My mother could not see what I was going though. Her whole attention was on her activity. After she made her sauce she asked me to bring the spices from the small store-room to sprinkle on the sauce. I didn't hear a word she said. I cried out and did not get up. She looked at me and said, "What happened to you? Are you not listening to me?" Still I couldn't get up. I felt like I was going to pass out.

She said "get up and bring the spices for me." This time my mouth could not move. I held my breath very tight, and my eyes were wide open. I did not answer. Our maidservant, who had seen the situation, went to get the spices instead. I felt relieved. Since my clothes were wet I decided not to get up, but how long could I stay in the same spot? Oh God! I wanted to die. I prayed for the ground to open and swallow me.

My mother finished her kitchen work and went outside. The maid went out also. As soon as they went out I got up and looked back on to the spot where I was sitting. My dress was soaked with blood. And the sheepskin, which I was sitting on, was spotted with blood. I thought it would be the white stuffs like it use to be, but now it was blood. I started crying. Tears poured all over my cheeks, over my chin and down on my neck and chest.

My mother heard me and said, "Why are you crying? Why are you crying I don't know what to do with you. Come here. She was very angry at that moment, but I could not get up and go to her. She said "I said come here. If I go there you know what you are going to get."

I cried louder. She got up and came and grabbed my arm and pulled me up from where I was sitting, and she saw my dress behind me soaked with blood. Her eyes and her mouth opened wide. She said "Aa-oh-oh, my God" and she sat me back. She got terrified like me, breathed a long breath and said, "Wait there until your father eats his lunch, takes his nap and goes to work. And then we will talk about your situation." I was a bit relieved that she knew I was bleeding, even though I didn't know what she would say and do about it.

My father went back to his work as usual. After he left she came back to the kitchen and locked the door behind her. She sat in front of me and said "okay, tell me the truth now. Who took your virginity. With whom did you have sex?"

Her face was as red as ripened tomato, her eyes were half out and her hands, all her body, were shivering like a person with malaria. I had never seen my mother in that state before. I was very scared. I just looked at her, and my tears started to fall and roll on my cheeks again. I said, "what is virginity Mama? And what is sex?" my mother became more angry.

She said, "you don't know what those things mean? You think it is funny? If you have lost your virginity your father is going to kill you and me. We are going to lose our lives." When she said this, her voice was very low but her whole body was shaking.

"Look mama I don't know what virginity means I said, "I don't think I have it. Nobody gave me it. What I have is only books. And why would father want to kill us?". Before I would say another word, she got up and started to hit me with dried cow tail and pinched my thigh. She said, "Tell me the truth."

She dragged me on the floor. She would not even give me time to say a word. I started shouting very loud "Help, she is killing me, I am dying, I am dying Help! Help!" She untied her belt and tied my two hands to the big wooden beam in the middle of the room that supports the roof of the kitchen. She brought a piece of rug and put in my mouth, so I would only breathe through my nose. I was bitten and bruised all over my body, my thighs were bleeding. She pinched me as much as she could. After a while she untied my hands, took the cloth out of my mouth, and threw me on the animal skin. She covered me with an old blanket. She opened the door and ran out, telling the maidservant to watch me until she came back.

After half an hour she came back with my two aunts, my father's sisters, Aunt Taye and Aunt Marege. Aunt Taye was a midwife, but had no medical training. Her knowledge was traditional. She circumcised boys and did genital mutilation of girls. She had five children. Her husband had died four years before and she made her living as a midwife. My mother was crying and she was rubbing her eyes repeatedly with the hem of her dress. No matter what she did to me, I didn't like to see my mother crying I would not change my love for her.

My aunts and mother sat beside me in the kitchen. My mother ordered the maidservant to make coffee and to serve food and drinks for my aunts.

But Aunt Taye said, "Let us do the checking first." She opened her small basket and took out some instruments and started to unwraped them. She kept all her surgical tools and materials in order on the ground on the piece of dirty clothe. She said, "I bled only on the night of my wedding, when my husband took my virginity." Aunt Marege added, "Yes me too. I will never forget that night. Everybody was dancing and singing, but I was crying and bleeding. I could not even walk properly for a month." It was strange that they had started talking about sex in front of me. I understood from what they were saying that they believed menstruation starts only after marriage, after the hymen is ripped. This would be their understanding because they had lost their virginity before menstruation. So they believed that I menstruated because I had had sex with someone.

But Aunt Taye said, "These days girls don't get married on time. They stay with their parents until they get older. And these days girls are allowed to drink tea and coffee, and eat hot spiced food. Their bodies develop very fast. So they menstruate very early. I have seen a lot of girls who menstruated before they had sex." Aunt Marege and Mama laughed at her and said, "You are just telling us false stories, to support your niece. I don't think a girl would bleed naturally." And they laughed louder.

Aunt Taye said, "Wait! Let me give you an example. The daughter of Baramberas, our neighbor, was ugly like her father. Their generation looks like monkeys, except they are walking upright. His daughter also looks like a frog, straightly, out of the mud. They couldn't get anybody to marry her until she was sixteen. She menstruated while she was living with her parents. When she menstruated first, her mother called me to check her if she had sex or not. I went in, checked her and found out that she menstruated naturally without doing sex."

As I was lying there, I forgot my anger and pain as I listened. I was amazed by their conversation. Aunt Taye told me to sit up. I sat up on a stool. Aunt Marege came behind me and held my two arms from the back against my chest. Mama held my right leg. Our maidservant held my left leg and opened my thighs wide exposing my private parts. I was shouting, swearing, cursing and calling them names. Aunt Taye brought some warm water and washed my vaginal area. And then she brought her measuring tool (called yeenzirtras, it is used to weave cotton for cloth) and explained, "When I push this tool if it goes into her vagina, that means that she had sex and she had lost her virginity. But when I push it if it becomes too difficult to insert that means she did not have sex and didn't lose her virginity. That means she menstruated naturally". While Aunt Taye spoke, Mama lifted her eyes up towards the roof and said, "God help me! Help me! Please don't disgrace me and don't disgrace our whole house." As my mother prayed my aunts and the maidservant laughed.

They said, "Do you think that God would come down and sew your daughter's hymen and bring back her virginity, if she already had sex?"

Mama said, "Ehehehe! There is nothing impossible to God." But they laughed more. I was terrified and tired of shouting. Aunt Taye took the tool and tried to insert it into my vagina. But she could not get it in.

She said, "This girl is a virgin her hymen is still there. She is menstruating naturally." They said, "Are you sure?" She said, "Yes, come on, come in the front and try yourself I will show you" My aunt held my leg and Mama came to the front took the tool and tried again. She knelt down and kissed the ground and said, "Thank you, God, thank you! She is still a girl" All of them said, "Thanks to God! Thanks to God!"

But Aunt Taye was not done yet with me. She said, to my mother "Look, look her clitoris and her libias, are growing. One day we have to do circumcisions on her to get rid of those things, before her wedding day." Aunt Marege asked,

"Haven't you done it when she was born?" Aunt Taye answered, "I didn't cut much when she was eight days old, because she was such a tiny creature at that time. But now everything was grown up. It needs to be cut."

When she mentioned circumcision I passed urine. I was terrified. I lost control of myself. I thought she was going to do it right at that moment. I felt nauseated and threw up. I was praying in my heart, saying, "O lord! Get me out of the hand of these evil women. Help me God! Help me! If you have ears to hear, just help me today. Let them never see me again. Just get me out of here today I know what I would do for the future."

My mother said, "okay, we will do it one day, before her wedding. That is enough for today." I think Aunt Taye was addicted to mutilating genitals. She insisted too much, and she acted as though she knew everything. But when my mother said that is enough for today, I felt relieved, and in my heart I said to myself, insulting my Aunt, "You butcher, you were going to cut up my body. Thanks to God, I escaped! I hope I never see you again."

They laid me back, where I had been lying and washed their hands. They opened the door and started eating, and drinking coffee, while I was lying on my blood and urine.

After they finished their coffee my aunts left. Mama brought a big wooden bowl and warm water, took off all my clothes and gave me a bath. She brought clean clothes, panties, and a cloth pad and put it on me. She took me to my bed. And she made some porridge and gave it to me. I hadn't had any food the whole day. I was hungry and tired. I drank a cup of porridge and slept. After the medicine man nearly killed me, that was the next nightmare in my life. But I kept on living.

My period took more than ten days to run its course. I stayed in bed the whole time except for going to the toilet. I never spoke to my mother or anybody during those days. Our maidservant, who served me food and drinks, would say, "That is okay, Don't cry. You will be normal after a few days. And I did. But the torture and humiliation, which my mother and my aunts inflicted on me, would not heal for years. I still fume when I remember it. They hurt me psychologically, because of their stupid custom. And have known so many girls who have been and still are hurt in the same way.

One night mother and father were talking in a low voice. They were talking about me. I woke up in the middle of their conversation, but I kept quiet. They kept talking. My father said, "She is going to get married in January, you better get ready now. You better start early for the feast."

"I don't care for the preparation, but I don't think she will accept the marriage," my mother replied.

"You mean she would refuse to marry?" Father said sternly. "I don't think she would be happy, and stay with her husband, if we force her to marry." "Which girl did you see being happy to marry? But the family forces them to marry. On their wedding day they cry and scream until they taste that thing, but after they get sex once they remain stuck on their husbands; aha ha ha." Mother replied angrily, "You think it is fun to sleep with a stranger and the only important thing is sex? You think it is nothing at the age of eleven or twelve, sleeping with a man who is more than double your age. It is hell."

"Anyhow our daughter is grown up," Father continued. "We have to get her to marry. I am going to take her to the mother of Meregeta until we get ready. She has improved her behavior since she started living with her, and we will bring her back one or two weeks before the wedding day."

Mama said, "I don't know. Do whatever you think." And then they kept quiet and I went back to sleep happy, when I heard that he was going to take me back to Auntie.

After a week my father took me back to auntie and he returned home the next day. And I went to school to get registered for grade eight. I got along with everybody in my school. My school supplies provider, Meretework, still supplied what I needed. My daily routine with Auntie was going well, my schooling was going well, but I started to be absent for three days a month from schooling.

One day while I was sitting in the class I felt a warm feeling in my groin. Now I knew what it was. I was not terrified like the first day, but I was afraid to get up and go out in front of all sixty-eight students. Our history teacher was very strict, and he would ask me why I was leaving the class. So I decided to stay until the end. When the history teacher finished his lecture the bell rang and he left. I stood up to go home before the science teacher came in. But there was a red spot on my dress already. I could not do anything about it. I just left the class and went out. I was embarrassed.

I walked fast to get away. But I heard someone following me. "Felekech wait!" I turned back. It was my classmate, Ahemed. He said, "you have a red spot on your dress at the back. I would like to give you my sweater. Tie it around your waist like this, it will cover your behind until you reach home." He took out his sweater and tied it around my waist. I got nervous. My hands and whole body was shaking.

He said, "Don't be afraid. Every girl gets this kind of accident every month. My sisters get it. I will introduce you to my sister Meliha. She will tell you everything." He followed me until I passed the main gate of the schoolyard, then he went back to class.

When I got home Auntie asked me why I came home so early. I told her I had cramps in my stomach. And I went to bed right away. After class my friend Kelemoa came to see me. She was laughing and making fun. But I resented her because when I had my problem, she wouldn't try to help me like Ahemed did. She was sitting in the class hiding her face with her hands when she saw the red spot on my dress, but thank God Ahemed came and helped me, and gave me emotional support.

When she came I asked her, "do you get this kind of problem too?"

She laughed and said, "Yes, what do you think we were telling our gym teacher to get permission to sit in the shade? It is because of this."

I stared at her and demanded, "Do you have to tell Alemu Dushu that you are bleeding? O my God!" She replied bursting into laughter, "Yes we have to." I said, "O my lord! I would never tell him" She replied, "you have no choice. Everybody knows that all the girls above age twelve get menstruation. Some girls might even get it at ten or eleven. I don't care and I don't feel embarrassed anymore. The boys make fun of us, but as long as the creator created us this way what should we do?"

"I can not tell this to anybody." I said. She said, "O foolish! Everybody knew when you left the class. You can not stay home every month like this." I said, "You are lying. Nobody knows, the only person who knew was Ahemed because he came after me and he took his sweater off and tied it on my waist for me to cover my dress." She replied, "Aha! Ahemed gave his sweater to cover your dress. We thought he went out to go to the toilet, but he followed you. That means he loves you, Ha ha ha ...he he he..." ... www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2002/11/04/f148.raw.html www.herald.ns.ca/stories/2003/02/22/fOpinion154.raw.html

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Catalogue Information

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