My aunt recently adopted a six-year-old boy, Workneh, from Ethiopia. His energy and spirit has brought light and joy to my family. He came to the United States knowing absolutely no English, and with no knowledge of American culture, but he was eager to learn. Subsequently, my aunt hired Yenee Sible, an Ethiopian immigrant, someone to care for him and speak in Amharic. For Workneh, she is more than that; she is a subtle reminder of home.
I had met Yenee months earlier, but had never thought to ask her about her life in Ethiopia and her journey to the United States... I’m glad I did. Yenee is a charming woman with a modest appearance but a bright, beautiful smile. Her outfit consisted of a plain grey dress with a cardigan covering her arms and shoulders.
“Ethiopian women, especially those in Addis, do not show skin. It is considered…” she paused “immodest.”
However, not all of her attire was unembellished. She donned a colorful headdress of red and gold fabric; large golden earrings; multicolored bangles; and a crucifix around her neck, a precious gift from her mother.
Whether it was making injera in the kitchen (Ethiopian sourdough bread), attending secondary school with her sister, Kassa, or playing soccer with the town’s children, as a girl, Yenee would have never dreamed of living most of her adult life in New York City. And she has.
Yenee is the eldest of two children and was born on September 15, 1970, to a working class family in the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Her family owned a woodworking business, co owned by her father and her uncle, who were both carpenters. Yenee lived in a small, two-bedroom house with her mother, father, sister, and her “set ayat”, her father’s mother. The house was modest, but “sufficient”, with an outhouse and a small garden in the back that grew barley.
Yenee describes her experiences in elementary school. She attended a small orthodox Christian school that housed about twenty students. In class, they learned arithmetic, and read passages from the bible.
“You had to keep your hands under the table” she said with a smile, “If you didn’t the nuns would make sure you walked out with your knuckles hurting.”
She continued-
“I was lucky to go to school. It is a rare thing back there.”
Unfortunately, Yenee is right. Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries on earth and is plagued with poverty, crime, and disease, specifically HIV and AIDS. According to statistic recorded by UNICEF, the literacy rate in Ethiopia is just under 36%.
When she was not in school, Yenee was with her younger sister and the other girls in town. They danced and sang together, and even convinced the boys in town to include them in the soccer games they held on the street. It was a uncommon occurrence that the kids had an soccer ball, and Yenee remembers kicking around a ball made from leather, string, and “whatever else we could find,” she said reminiscently.
But Ethiopia was about to change, and Yenee’s life would follow suit. On September 14, 1974, the Ethiopian civil war began. Essentially, it was a conflict between the rebel communist militia and the age-old monarchy within the country. Led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, the junta was able to overthrow the government and obtain full political control of Ethiopia for close to fifteen years. Under Mengistu’s regime, hundreds of thousands of people died from red terror, forced deportations, and hunger. The whole nation was in shambles, in the northern frontier, the Eritreans had waged war in a desperate attempt to succeed from Ethiopian. In the countries eastern borders, there were conflicts with the rebel Somali forces who wanted to annex the eastern half the Ethiopian state. In 1984 and 1985, a series of famines broke out due to the record low rainfalls in the eastern and southern agricultural highlands.
The time had come to move, Ethiopia was no longer safe for two young girls. And so, Yenee, Kassa, and there mother ventured first to Israel. Her father, uncle, and grandmother stayed behind, and her father gave the rest of his savings to his wife and daughters to aid their journey. The family lived in Netanya for a number of months, living in a one-room apartment outside the city.
“We never planned to stay in Israel for long” said Yenee “A Christian has no place there.”
Tens of thousands of Ethiopians fled to Israel during the revolution. The majority of these migrants settled in Netanya, Ashdod, and Rehovot. However, most of these Ethiopians are considered Beta Israelis, a term for Ethiopian Jews. Yenee and her family practiced Eastern Orthodox Christianity, so were never fully included in the Ethiopian minority community in Israel.
All three women worked together, Yenee and her mother received cleaning jobs at a local hotel while Kassa stayed home and kept the apartment in order. But Israel was merely an intermission; the family had their sights set on America. Obtaining the proper visas to travel to the United States was very difficult, but after years of trying they were able to acquire the proper government approval. Thus, commenced their journey.
Yenees mother had a distant relative living in Queens at the time. The women lived in the basement of his apartment for three months, enough time to get on their feet.
“Its funny” she said “that apartment in Queens was the worst of all. No light, no space. It was horrible,” she paused “horrible.”
At the time, in was 1992 and Yenee was twenty-two years old. She spoke barely any English, and was minimally educated. In the beginning, she worked in the kitchen at a restaurant in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens. Meanwhile, her mother and sister had received caretaking jobs paying about four dollars an hour. Yenee and her sister enrolled in accelerated English classes and began to save money for a different apartment.
Over fifteen years have passed and since then, and a lot has changed. Five years ago, Yenee was informed that her grandmother had died, and two years later, her father passed as well. Kassa has moved to Philadelphia for employment opportunities. Yenee shares an apartment with her mother in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. She is a nanny to three children, my cousin included, a works six days a week.
“I would love to go back.” She said “But the papers are too complicated.”
Workneh sat on my lap mid conversation and said something to Yenee in Amharic.
“This one has sass.” She said “He has a bright future here. In Ethiopia, the children have very little, not like America. He looks happy.”
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