English Translation Transcript of Oral History Interview with Garibe Lolo
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Garibe Lolo Narrator Ayano Jiru Interviewer November 16, 2016 Saint Paul, Minnesota Interview conducted in Afaan Oromoo Translated into English by Hassen Hussein Garibe Lolo -GL Ayano Jiru -AJ AJ: I am Ayano Jiru. I am recording the history of the Oromo in collaboration with the Minnesota Historical Society. Today it is November 16, 2016. Today I am going to conduct an interview with Mrs. Garibe Lolo. Mrs. Garibe has lived in the US for twenty-one years. She actively takes part in Oromo and American affairs. Mrs. Garibe, I thank you for volunteering to do this interview. Thank you. GL: Thank you, too, for inviting and bringing me here. AJ: Just to commence the interview, let us start with your place of birth. Where were you born? GL: Where I was born is called Tijo Kentara, in Gadab Asasa [Gedeb Asasa, in the Oromia region of Ethiopia]. AJ: Tijo? GL: Kentara. AJ: Tijo Kentara? GL: Yes. AJ: What is Kentara? GL: A river that flows. Where we used to live is called Funa-mura, which is a small place. AJ: Under what city or town is this Tijo? GL: Gadab Asasa. 1 AJ: How was life in Tijo Kentara? What kind of land is this Tijo? GL: A beautiful land, a lovely place where what you sow grows. It has lots of eucalyptus trees. My father used to have many acres of land. He farmed in the same village. It was a lot. It was so lovely, quite a bit. AJ: Your father and mother were both born in Tijo Kentara? GL: Yes, they were both born there. AJ: What did they do as a job? What did your dad do in Tijo Kentara? GL: My father used to have his land worked upon. He had a flour mill. In the old days, he was a landlord. He did not till the land himself—he had others do it for him. AJ: How about your mom? GL: She too. AJ: A wife of a landlord? GL: Yes, that was how it was, quite a bit. She lived well. Her life was all right. AJ: How many siblings did you have? GL: My father had twenty-five in all, ten from my mother. AJ: That is a huge family. GL: Yes, we were a lot. We had lots—thirteen boys and twelve girls. AJ: How was it like to grow up in such a large family? GL: It was really nice. You are together, you did whatever you willed. It was nice. We fought. We took stuff from each other. We dined together. It was nice. AJ: Did your father and mother have education? GL: My mom did not have education. My father studied until grade seven during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie [emperor of Ethiopia, 1930-1974]. He studied in Finfinne [Addis Ababa]. AJ: Did he manage to get a government position with that education? 2 GL: Yes. In Finfinne, he had a car as well as a hotel. He had land. His hotel was expropriated by the Derg [Dergue, Ethiopian socialist regime established in 1974]. He used to work while we were growing up there. AJ: Did you guys also go to school? GL: Yes, in our country. I started first grade in Tijo. They promoted me from first to third grade right away. Then when my sister got married, they gave me over to her, and my elder sister, Madina Lolo, took me with her. I studied with her until ninth grade. I came to the US after passing to the tenth grade. AJ: When you went to first grade in Tijo, was Tijo not countryside? GL: A small town. It was called Asaffe then. AJ: The school where you went to first grade, how was it like? GL: It was nice. Where else do we know back then? It was really nice. This Tijo Kentara had first to eighth grade. I walked to school. From our village, it was something like a few minutes. I went there only a year. After entering first grade, they promoted me to third grade, and when I passed to third grade, I went to Dodola. Because my sister lived in Dodola, I studied there. AJ: Was that a small or big school? GL: It was big. All the area kids went there. It had first to eighth grade, which meant kids from as far away as two to three hours walking distance went there. There were lots of kids. AJ: With what language did you learn? GL: In Amharic. Once in third grade, we started the ABCD. We studied in Amharic. [Laughing.] AJ: Those days, there was no Afaan Oromoo [Oromo language]? When did they start teaching in Afaan Oromoo? GL: There wasn’t. Afaan Oromoo did not start until 1991. When it did, I was already in sixth grade taking the national exam. In seventh grade, I took one Afaan Oromoo class. We used to take only one class until I left there. AJ: In your classes, what kinds of seats did you guys sit on? Did you guys sit on your own chair, or you sat in groups on those long logs? GL: It was mixed. Some sat on the long ones, others on the short ones! The one where you sat in lines! It was mixed. AJ: How about English? Did you learn that too? 3 GL: Yes, did I not tell you? We started ABCD at third grade. After seventh grade, all subjects are in English. Actually, I learned to speak nicely while studying there. AJ: When you moved from Tijo Kentara to study with your sister, did you start at the fourth grade? GL: Third. I went there for a year and moved to Dodola afterwards. AJ: It was only you that moved to your sister’s? GL: Yes. My siblings joined us there once they reached high school. They, too, moved with us at ninth grade. My brother, Gutama—now they call him Mustafa here—and my sister whose name is Zamzam also studied there. AJ: When you had to leave your parents and move with your sister to Dodola, was it difficult? Leaving your mom and dad at such a tender age? GL: Yes, it was hard, a little bit. My sister took good care of me, and her husband was also very nice. You would still feel it, though. It was all right, even if difficult. Well-fed and with play, what do else do you feel when you are a child? AJ: During those childhood days, what did the Oromo have in their homes? GL: You mean what? AJ: For example, in America we have a sofa, we have TV, we have tables where to eat. GL: In Tijo, my father had everything. Our house had a tin-iron roof. Even in the countryside in Tijo, he had it all. He had these long chairs as well as other ones. Also once I moved with my sister, she had it likewise. They had everything. There was the small twin bed. Our father used to have the one made from iron coils. My grandmother used to have a twin as well as one made of hides. We slept on stuff like that. There were two or so sponge mattresses. In some cases, some people also had a bed made of mounds. Others had such stuff. Not our parents. AJ: You had a house in the countryside as well? GL: We have had, yes. My father built in the countryside the same houses one has in the cities. He also had a flour mill. He had everything. AJ: In our rural place, I remember, calves and heifers lived inside the same house and the chickens as well. The calves as well as the heifers were tethered next to the mound beds. The chicken house was built right outside next to where people lived. Every morning, you collected chicken poop. [Laughing.] In your countryside, did people have those things? GL: [Laughing.] Yes, they did. Regarding the place for chickens, they have their own place, as for the cattle. There were lots of cattle. My grandmother, in particular, had lots of them. There 4 was also the task of having to clean their dung, which I used to help out with from time to time. There were also sheep. Thank you for reminding me of that. [Laughing.] When I was little, I used to herd the sheep for my grandmother, my father’s mother. There were calves and heifers, too, as the chicken. We used to raise dogs as well. Not just dogs, but also cats. All the things of our country are really nice. We used to play among the cattle—like running. We used to tie high grass together [into a trap]. We used to make the dung into patties in the field. AJ: You make toys from the grass? GL: Yes, from threaded grass. Of course, that was very nice. AJ: Did you guys also collect dried dung [used with or in lieu of firewood]? Who from your family collected those real well? GL: [Laughing.] I collected no little dried dung. While I was with my sister in Dodola, I used to collect it. [Laughing.] This is after I moved to Dodola. On weekends, we used to get together and collect it and go home with it. We had to go out of town to do so. I used to enjoy doing that. AJ: Did whoever collected more get more rewards? GL: No. We just liked collecting it. We were given no reward at all.