Read Me a Story and Ethiopian Common Language

The Mercato in Addis where Moskowitz did much of her work in Ethiopia. Photo past Alvise Forcellini/Flickr

In April 2007, at the invitation of a charity called the Create Trust, I travelled to Addis Ababa to run some creative workshops with the Ethiopian customs using writing, drama, and storytelling. I was at that place for three weeks, working in a variety of settings: a school for street children; a drib-in centre for young girls caught upwards in the sexual practice trade; and a community center for poor and disadvantaged women with the support of organizations such as the Forum for Street Children (FSCE), CHADET (Child Assist Ethiopia), Hapsco (Hiwot HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care, and Support Organisation), and GOAL Great britain.

Prior to this trip I had never met anyone Ethiopian or visited East Africa. I did non know how to speak or read Amharic, and I was a long mode from being able to appreciate the multiplicity of languages (amongst a population of eighty million, more than eighty different languages are spoken), religions, and cultural traditions that make up Ethiopian society. I was extremely grateful to accept assist from Terhas and Helen, two immature Ethiopian women, both studying at Addis Ababa University, who were able to aid me communicate with the people I was working with. Storytelling also helped.

The telling of stories, peculiarly traditional ones, has a way of reaching beyond linguistic communication and cultural barriers more effectively than whatever other kind of written or spoken advice. Before going, I trawled libraries and the Internet for translations of Ethiopian stories and folktales, which I tried to learn by center. I also visited the author Elizabeth Laird, who shared her extensive knowledge of the history and culture of the country, told me stories, and talked to me about her Ethiopian experiences—the field of study of many of her books for children and young people.

Amid the scattering of Amharic words I acquired while I was there, I learned the word for "story," which seemed to magically draw all those within earshot. Even the whisper of Teret, teret (A story, a story) would result in a chorus of Ye lam beret! (which literally means "a cow's pen," implying that the listeners would similar as many stories equally might fill up it) and an attentive audience around me. I would tell the stories in English, but because they were known stories, Helen and Terhas needed but to say a few key words in Amharic and then any other clarifications necessary would exist dealt with in the host of different Ethiopian languages from all those assembled.

Although Ethiopia was hands the nearly "other" place I had ever been to in terms of sights, sounds, tastes, and smells, at that place was also something securely familiar about the people and their stories, which seemed to comprise a directness and humor I felt at dwelling with. Revisiting the story of the Queen of Sheba and her meeting with King Solomon, it was not a surprise for me to be reminded that the earliest footholds of Judaism lie embedded in the Ethiopian culture.

Much of the work I was doing in Addis Ababa was centered around the Mercato, a colorful expanse where many of the poorest in the population congregate. The Mercato, meaning "New Market," covers several square miles and is the largest open-air marketplace in Africa, surrounded on all sides by grit, beggars, and noise. My ii translator friends were anxious that I run into something else of the country other than this crazy, crowded center. They bundled a bus trip to Debre Zeit, a resort town known for its 7 crater lakes, in a split up woreda (region) of Ethiopia southeast of Addis.

We spent a wonderful day there transported by Gari (horse-fatigued cars) from the town center to the lakes, where we spent the afternoon spotting birds—at least equally many different species as there are native languages in the country. On the fashion back to Addis that evening, squashed into the crowded bus, I saturday next to Helen. She was reading what looked like a pocket-sized pamphlet, and I asked her what it was. She said it was a book of poetry by a immature writer who was gaining celebrity status for his stories, poetry, satirical comedy, and social commentary. He had graduated a few years before from Addis Ababa University, and Helen and Terhas both knew him, slightly. The writer was Bewketu Seyoum. The booklet she was reading from was Bewketu'due south first collection, Nwari Alba Gojowoch (Empty nests). I asked Helen if she would read some of the poems out loud to me in Amharic.

I had an inkling that if I could detect some style to get inside the meaning of the poems and capture something of the audio and feel and humor of them, I might also begin to appreciate something deeper and more subtle near the country and its people.

On some of the pages were intriguing little blackness-and-white illustrations, Seyoum's ain. Virtually were of trees, but they were trees that looked like figures. One looked like a man hanging with a noose round his cervix, some other like an elegant woman with branches for arms, and another like a round baby.

I liked the sound of the poems—they were sermonic and songlike at the same time—and asked her if she could give me a rough translation. Helen told me the poem she was reading was a dearest verse form of sorts. The speaker in the poem begs to be permitted to give to the i they honey, though it might leave them feeling diminished and looking ridiculous. They want to donate their acme, their hair, the blood from their veins, their hands, breast, eye, thoughts, and desires and inquire simply to be allowed to keep their ain eyes in order to continue to see the other (which in a fashion will exist like looking at themselves). Helen tried to paraphrase a couple more than for me but was frustrated, she said, not to exist able to convey them in such a manner that would really make me empathize how funny the poems were, how serious their message, or their beauty.

"Let me have a get," I said. "Let me run into if I tin try to do an English version that works." It was frustrating for me, likewise, not to be able to fully appreciate what was making the poems in this book and then popular with young Ethiopians (Helen told me that the book had sold out of its first run and was already being reprinted) and so controversial. I had an inkling that if I could detect some way to get inside the meaning of the poems and capture something of the sound and experience and humor of them, I might also brainstorm to appreciate something deeper and more than subtle nearly the country and its people.

Helen chose one for me to work on, "The Definition of Truth." I fabricated notes on what she told me almost the poem, the story it was telling, and how each line worked and looked. We transliterated as many of the words every bit possible into Roman characters, and when we got off the omnibus in Addis, we found a print store that would make a photocopy of the Amharic version from the book for me to work from.

Producing an English language version of Bewketu's poem took me much longer than I anticipated. The 24-hour interval after the trip to Debre Zeit was a Sunday, and I had no workshops to run. I began piece of work on the poem in the morning and was still tinkering at midnight. I carried information technology with me through the side by side mean solar day and the i after that, honing the translation whilst listening to the Amharic being spoken around me in the workshops, trying to get some of the Ethiopian inflection and flavor into the English words and likewise to retain the essence and allow the verse form tell its own story clearly and honestly.

Like the message in that beginning poem of Bewketu'south Helen had read to me, if one (the poem or the poet, say) donates their height, pilus, the blood from their veins, their hands, breast, heart, thoughts, and desires to another (the translator) simply retains their ability to meet, the result could be like looking at themselves.

Years ago, in the early 1980s, I took office in a poetry functioning tour accompanied by a signer for the deafened. The first time I read my poetry aslope the signer I stopped midflow, I was and so transfixed to see the way my words were being interpreted by the signer's actions. That'south beautiful, I thought, watching what the signer was doing. I wrote that! I wanted to imagine that if Bewketu Seyoum were ever to run into or hear my English language version he might say, "That's cute. I wrote that!"

No one had asked me to practise this, non the writer of the poem nor any of his Ethiopian readers, and nevertheless I felt compelled. Being in Federal democratic republic of ethiopia for those few short weeks was extraordinary. Every day someone or something virtually the country impacted me in a profound way, and I knew that no amount of picture-taking or postcard- writing would really convey to anyone who hadn't been here the essential qualities of this place, its otherness, its heartbeat, its stories, and its people. Just translation might. Similar the message in that first poem of Bewketu'south Helen had read to me, if 1 (the poem or the poet, say) donates their height, hair, the claret from their veins, their hands, chest, centre, thoughts, and desires to another (the translator) but retains their ability to run into, the consequence could be similar looking at themselves.

I finished 2 translations of Bewketu'due south work, the verse form mentioned in a higher place, "Let Me Requite You," and "The Definition of Truth," and gave the 2 poems and my e-mail address to Helen and Terhas to send to him. In the meantime, I left Addis, and the otherness of my Ethiopian experience began to fade slowly as I returned to my monolingual existence in London.

That was in early May. On June 25, I got an email from Bewketu Seyoum.

Dearest Cheryl, he wrote, I take read your translation of my poems and it was wonderful. . . . Though my books are applauded here in Ethiopia I am non sure as to whether they have any meaning to European readers . . . only if you are interested I desire to work with y'all on the translation of both my poems and stories. What do you think? Let me know.

Thank you.

Bewketu

Since 2007 Bewketu and I take corresponded regularly, and he has sent me many poems and stories to work on. Our way of working has not been that dissimilar than it was with Helen that day on the bus coming back from Debre Zeit. Bewketu sends me the Amharic version and/or the transliterated version in Roman characters so I can "hear" what it is supposed to audio like. He also sends me his rough translation in English and a glossary of any words very specific to Ethiopia. My versions volition then go batted dorsum and forth between us until we are happy that the work flows beautifully in English whilst retaining all the Ethiopian subtleties and dash.

Concluding bound, Bewketu wrote an article for an Addis newspaper accounted "blasphemy" by the Ethiopian Orthodoxy, which resulted in his being physically attacked by a church deacon. The article refers to the story of the winged saint, Teklehaimanot, equally an example of the way certain staid religious behavior stultify political thinking and progress in Ethiopian club. The assail caused much controversy and left Seyoum hospitalized for his injuries. Shocked at hearing the news, I produced an English language translation of that article, "A Saint with No Legs," which was published in the Ethiopian Reporter in July 2011 and tin be read on the paper's website.

In July of this year, every bit office of the Cultural Olympiad 2012 London Festival, a huge gathering of world poets took identify under the imprint of Poetry Parnassus. In that location were 204 poets invited from the 204 participating nations, and Bewketu was the poet chosen to stand for Ethiopia. As a Uk-based poet, I was involved running some workshops and was too appointed equally a "buddy" to some of the poets from incoming nations, including Ethiopia.

Previously our communication had happened at a reasonably relaxed step, often with gaps of weeks or months between email exchanges. In the weeks leading upwardly to the festival, Bewketu sent me several new poems and stories to look at, and once he arrived in the U.k., Bewketu continued with fervor and urgency to write fresh material that contained his trademark wit and wry observation and reflected the new experiences he was having.

Like many other participating poets, Verse Parnassus presented Bewketu with an opportunity to leave his homeland for the starting time time and was besides a chance to try out new material in front of a non-Ethiopian audition. At various venues during the festival and around the country, Bewketu read his piece of work in the original Amharic alongside a reader of the English translations, some by me and some by another British poet who has also been translating Bewketu'due south work, Chris Beckett.

Meeting Bewketu, working in real fourth dimension, face-to-face with him to produce English versions of new poems as fast as he was writing them in Amharic was an exhilarating and challenging experience—a dissimilar kind of collaboration that was foreign ground for both of u.s.. Ironically but non surprisingly, perhaps what proved hardest to translate in that procedure was that which was nigh familiar. After much time, and a few beers, discussing the last word of the last line of this poem written for operation at the "Out of Africa" event on the last night of the Verse Parnassus Festival, Bewketu and I agreed that sometimes it is practically impossible to express oneself completely in any other linguistic communication than one'south own. We had to settle with this.

Where the Heart Is

Bewketu Seyoum

London is not a city
information technology is an anthill powered past electricity
London is not a city
information technology is a strange planet peopled by strange beings
who accept their nutrient with an fe hand
and three pronged fingers
who acquit their heads in a briefcase
London is not a city
it is a wonderland Lewis Carroll could not have invented
where alpine statues copulate
and father other statues
where fifty-fifty birds ride elevators
to the tops of trees
London is not a urban center
it is a wild den of Calypso
you find everything hither
merely yous miss domicile.

Cheryl Moskowitz is a United states-built-in, United kingdom-based poet, novelist, and playwright and was a lecturer at Sussex University where she taught creative writing and personal evolution at the graduate level from 1996 to 2010. Her publications include a novel, Wyoming Trail (Granta, 1998), and the poetry collection The Girl Is Grinning (Circumvolve Fourth dimension Press, 2012)(Available on Amazon.com). She was a prizewinner in the 2010 Bridport and Troubadour Poetry Competitions and the 2011 Hippocrates Prize for Poesy and Medicine.

Editorial notation:Bewketu'south story "It'due south Still," click here.

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Source: https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/journey-translation