Tezeta
Now and then Tezeta Mitiku Adisu Tezeta is a poetic, pan-Ethiopic sentiment that is both palpable and elusive. It could mean nostalgia, memories, a dense enveloping feeling, a yearning (and inability) to recall the past—perhaps even to grasp the future. Tezeta is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a monopoly of Ethiopians. The Russians, too, are intimate with it, as were Adam and Eve. Humans have generally excelled at re-creating moods; some, of course, more than others. For Ethiopians, tezeta is a pastime of choice. When all else failed, one cuddled tezeta to de-sensitize oneself to the menacing past. Ethiopians mostly lived in the past. No wonder big meals provided the venue for such activities and are often tinged with inexplicable sadness as well as shots of merriment. Tezeta at times transitioned into the collective, the heroic. This took reconstructing a hedge around a gloriously presumed past where, for example, Ethiopian rule extended across the Gulf of Aden into...