With brothers top & bottom left with mum sitting close to me & Friends on the right.
I left Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1976,
flying with Ethiopian Airlines, aka “The New Spirit of Africa”, with three
of my workmates with an
anticipation to experience the foreign life that we have learned
and heard so much about, first arriving in Athens, Greece as our first destination. Although, I thoroughly enjoyed the glossy lifestyles and the experiences of being away from homeland for the first time, I felt disenchanted and sensed melancholy as a result of homesick despite the fact that I was with my great home buddies and enjoying out and about discovering Athens by day and night.
At one of our friend’s weddings, standing 2nd
from left.
I’ve enjoyed the tourist city immensely and met so
many Ethiopians who came before us living there. While living in Athens, I
regularly attended the newly formed Ethiopian community meetings with my
friends and also helped establish a soccer club called Nyala (an
Ethiopian icon, goat-like animal found in the Siemen Mountain Ranges of the
country) Ethiopian Soccer Club. During and after my time, the community
continued to flourish with plenty of young Ethiopian students going to school
either through scholarships or privately and migrant residents that were living
in Athens.
Well, it was in 1978 that I left my love at first sight city that opened
my eyes to all things different than I used to and leaving behind, again,
friends and everything that I loved and arrived in New York. The next morning, I was taken to the airport to
catch a flight to Los Angeles and then to Bakersfield, California, where my
sponsor lived. When I arrived, I was greeted by my sponsor Mrs. Siechert. She took me to
her place out on the city side where she lived with her husband, two sons and
daughter. They’re a member of the Mennonite’s church. I lived with them for few
months until I finally moved out to my own rented flat after I found myself a
car wash job by day and a dishwasher at a restaurant by night. It was between this unsettling time that my Australian
girlfriend, Margaret Miller, who I met in Athens, in 1977, while she was
travelling around, we’ve stayed together for few months, but she went back home
in good terms to see each other, again, came to visit me in Bakersfield, Ca, in 1979 and after few months
we got married in jubilation. However, we both couldn’t find jobs in Bakersfield;
we decided to move to a bigger and better city like Los Angeles San Francisco.
We decided to visit the two cities by visiting them and we decided to drive
down to LA, first. While visiting the Hollywood glamour city, its zoo and more,
the air was very unhealthy and couldn’t breathe properly and we wanted to drive
out of there soon and again, drive all the way to San Francisco. We got to SF
and we’ve rented a hotel in Polk St up until early 1980s and we moved out to a
better and bigger place, in Pierce St, SF, in preparation for our first baby.
I thought life was hard on my own with no jobs
and yet to finish school, I found myself in a deeper karma, having two kids and
going to school with no close family that can help sometimes. This is why I
decided to move to Australia with my family.
Although there were very few Ethiopians in the SF Bay
Area where I lived, we occasionally met when the famine news was first broke
out in our country to organize consultations for the public in order to appeal
for help with any donations deemed necessary to help back home.
Leaving USA
After living in the USA, getting married to
my Australian girlfriend, making great transformation and having my own family, I moved to Australia. Read more story at: https://timeforchangesociety.blogspot.com/2017/07/believe-it-or-not.html
Here we go again! Life goes on! Right? I’m on the
move, again! As they say there is light at the end of the tunnel & having been
travelled through it thick and thin, long and hard by transforming at every
hurdle, after living over six years in the US, leaving my old and new friends,
again, having just been graduated, just when I started to get over my
homesickness, yet starting to get used to the country I was thrilled to see,
where I thought I was destined to settle being married and having two daughters,
made my last nomadic trip in a civilized world, this time with my family, what
would be my last journey through long & difficult tunnel, eventually, to
see a sturdier and illuminating light at the end in a
faraway country better known as ‘Downunder’, arrived in Melbourne, June 15, 1984
and finally rejoicing with my family who have arrived three months earlier.Without going into detail, I said sturdier because of the reality of
disparity in the Australian way of life, specially, how the indigenous people
and African migrants were treated in the mainstream living standards; illuminating because those hurdles were
the motivating force in my conviction to persevere and triumph over those shared
difficulties without renunciation.
My Family in AUSTRALIA
At times, I began to doubt if there is real light
after the end of the tunnel and this was just a motto to boost the downtrodden. As discernment was moved to its point of implicitness in Australia,
encouraged by the motto and keeping my audacity of hope, by putting aside my
immodesty, years of education and work experiences I have accumulated over the
years; Alas! I started working on various industrial low paying jobs starting
all over again to support my family.
To make the long story short, having been through
those hard tunnels, after working in the industrial and corporate sectors, at
present, I am very proud to be among my fellow African business vendors by
owning a printing business and I couldn’t ask for a better place than living
close to my three grown up daughters all having their own families.
Few months after I arrived in Australia, having the
thoughts of one lone new African, I found out that I wasn’t the only one
discovering the taste of Melbourne lifestyle. I started searching if there
were African migrants, especially, Ethiopians, living in Melbourne. After a
thorough search through phone books, contacting migrant resource centers and
immigration departments, I was told there were huge numbers of Ethiopian
refugees residing at the Enterprise Migrant Hostel in Springvale area.
The Enterprise Migrant Hostel in Springvale was an
institution which provides accommodation and comprehensive settlement services
for migrants and others.
Ethiopian community celebrating our New Year in Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
I told my family with excitement and I could not
contain myself for another day and wanted to drive to Springvale to see my
fellow Ethiopians. As soon as I got to the center, I parked my car and while
walking to the office, I saw groups of people watching soccer games, in a small
park, competing against each other and I went over to see them. When I got
there, everyone (Ethiopians & Somalians) was gathered to meet & greet me
thinking that I was just another newly arrived migrant. I introduced myself and
watched the soccer game in a long time since I arrived in Australia.
Eventually, after the game was finished they took me to their dorm for
continued amorous discussions.
MY TIMELINE, AS IT HAPPENED
After a long day, I left making new friends and
promised to see them again & came back home to my family feeling exhausted
but refreshed and told them how my day was filled with joy with my new
discovery and told them about my intentions to form Ethiopian community in
Australia as my partner is aware of my experiences of community involvement, in
Greece and America. By doing so, the perseverance finally pulled me through the
tunnel, I felt I settled in with ‘no worries’, and my journey eventually came
to an end, ‘Downunder’, at the bottom end of the world feeling on top of it.
MY PAWSITIVE PARTNER
Read the actual story of the beginning of Ethiopian
Community: http://timeforchangesociety.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/the-launching-of-ethiopian-community.html
Peace &
Good Health
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