Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it
The farthest I traveled outside Addis Ababa before I left Ethiopia as a teen was to Langano. I don’t think I’m alone in this; most native Addis Ababans belong in this group. In 1997 I went on a backpacking trip across Ethiopia that lasted almost a year. I returned broke and having pissed off my family that sent hard-earned cash to a sera fet hippie- biTé . The last leg of my trip took me from Gonder and I ended up in Yeha . I looked forward to visiting Axum, ground zero to Ethiopia’s 3000-year history. The dusty Gonder-Axum road was spectacular and the holy city even more. I took dozens of photographs of Tsion-Mariam for my mother and Ezana’s rock for my more historically astute pops. But the Axum sojourn ended up being more than a voyage back to Byzantine Ethiopia: I struck a two-week friendship with a one-eyed eight-fingered former TPLF fighter. In 2003 I took my family on the historic tour and during our stay in Axum found out that Tewelde (a name he gave me but his wife called...