| African brothers
Many battles later, my brother graduated to the fourth- and fifth-grade playground and left me to fend for myself. My younger sister Mehret was still on my playground, but she was small, too small to fight. Mehret was so small that one day the strong wind picked her up and slammed her into the fence. My father berated the school administrators for not doing more to help her. But what could they do? She was small, and the wind was strong. With time, I started to make friends through the soccer games at recess. Although my parents could not afford to put me on a team, Sudan had taught me well, with its days spent playing kiesoh igre, or ball of foot. My brother met a good-natured white kid named Brian Willmer who lived right up the street from us. Brian became my brother's best friend and a great friend to everyone in our family. He came over to our house often, always telling us that we should send pictures of Hntsa to baby modeling agencies because Hntsa was so cute. We made other friends, too, and started to fit in better. But the old enemies did not disappear. They had new ammunition, too. Every day, the TV news would broadcast explicit footage of famine-stricken Ethiopians. "Hey, Salami! You look so skinny. Let me know if you need more food. You want another sandwich? How about some extra milk? I don't want you to starve." It was even worse for my sister Mulu, who had to brave high school by herself. Her classmates drew skeletons on her locker and even serenaded her with the popular famine fundraising song, "We Are the World." She fought back until Wheaton North suspended her. Tewolde and I even had confrontations with the only other Africans at our school: big, puffy-cheeked Frank and small, silent Mbago, a pair of brothers from Nigeria. Both were in second grade with me, even though Frank was three years older than the rest of our class. How could that be? None of us knew for sure, but we knew that he wasn't too bright. He used to pay other second graders to do simple math problems for him--five minus three, eight minus four, six plus seven--all for 2 cents a problem. Even though we were from different countries, we still should have been brothers, defending and helping each other. But like our brothers in Africa, we were making war when we should have been making peace. I tried to avoid them by playing on the opposite side of the playground. But Mbago always provoked me. I think that he disliked me because I was poor and looked it, and he was ashamed to be African with me. When Frank was there, I had no choice but to let Mbago call me any names that he wanted. But whenever I found Mbago alone, and Mbago said anything mean to me, I always pounced on him and made him cry. Invariably, he would return with Frank. They would corner me far away from the supervisor, when I least expected it, and beat on me until I had escaped or they had had enough. They lived just down the street from us, less than one block away, so one day my bro and I hid in some bushes and waited for them with long, lean sticks in our hands. We would show them, Sudanese-style. We sprang on them. Slash. Scream. Slash. They ran desperately. But we were faster and cut them off. And Tewolde let out his anger. Don't you ever touch my little brother again or you'll get it even worse! We strutted back home, victorious, even laughing as we recounted the incident. But then we thought of whom they might tell, and our laughter stopped in a hurry. We retreated into our house, afraid of what we had done. When we heard the frenzied knocking on our door, we knew that our time was up. Their parents stood outside, guarding bruised and teary-eyed children. My parents yelled out in anger for us to appear. DID YOU DO THIS? DON'T YOU DARE LIE OR I WILL MAKE YOU LOST RIGHT THIS MOMENT! Lifting us by our ears, my parents screamed at us and threatened us until the Nigerian parents had been appeased. Then the parents began talking about Africa, immigration, and all of the things they had in common. "Would you like some injera? How about something to drink? That's all you are going to eat? How about some tea? Please. Visit us anytime you want. Of course not! Do not call first. You know that our people do not believe in appointments; come over whenever you want!" It was the start of a beautiful friendship.
African brothers |