By Alegnta Dawit
My name is Alegnta Dawit Mezmur, and welcome to one of the chapters of my life. I was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, located in East Africa, and also the birthplace of coffee. It is pretty ironic how I have to elaborate more on where I am from, as many of the people I have encountered abroad are unaware of its location. They can write up a whole essay about their love for coffee and how they can’t live without it but not know the place of its origin, quite ironic.
However, as time went by, I understood the real meaning of the statement; what is local to them is foreign for me and what is foreign for me is local to them. Nevertheless, through the positive aspect of globalization, we can find common ground.
After I graduated from high school in 2019, I enrolled at the College of Wooster. In my eyes, the College looked gorgeous, while we browsed the catalog and the website. It was an unfamiliar place, as I didn’t get the chance to visit the campus.
As some got to feel the air, the wind, and most of all, the energy, I just flipped a page and decided to travel 7,336 miles away from home.On August 19, 2020, I arrived in this new place I was yet to call home. I was startled as I faced several culture shocks. For instance, at home I lived in a tropical climate, so I did not have to worry about what to wear because of the weather nor check the weather application on my phone. In Wooster, as the months went by, the weather changed, as it got too cold to bear. I woke up one morning, and, as I went to open my curtains, I saw snow for the first time. I was glomming like a flower during spring, and my excitement was equivalent to a little kid receiving candy. Little did I know that this was the only time I would be this excited about snow. Through time I was not too fond of this severe cold weather as we did not like each other after that day.
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As a social science student, my high school education taught me a lot about African history, an education not limited to colonialism but to how Africa was before colonialism and how it is a powerful continent. So, as I embarked on a new journey 7,336 miles away from my home to the College of Wooster, I realized that non-Africans had little to no knowledge about Africa. For instance, my freshman year in college, I was getting food from our student center (Lowry), and one of the staff members asked, “where are you from,” I replied with Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The staff member was confused, so I elaborated more and said, “it is located in East Africa.” She said, “oh yes, Africa! You know I have a friend that works in Kenya; maybe you might know her!”
I was utterly shocked. The staff member assumed it was like knowing a person from across the road. Some do not realize that Africa has 54 independent countries with their own respective languages, customs, and cultures. For instance, there are an estimated 2000 languages spoken in Africa, and in Ethiopia, there are 86 individual languages spoken. It is not the same as moving from Ohio to Texas, where at least they speak the same language. So, this made me think, why do they not know this? Do they choose to stay ignorant, or is there a lack of teaching about the true history of Africa? Ethiopia is a place of great significance to me because this is the place where I began to walk, talk, or most of all, a place where my existence came to be. However, many of the people I met in the USA scarcely seemed to know of its existence nor had any knowledge of its size or about the countries. So, in due time I learned that the education system was at fault. Most non-Africans were taught of the “single story” of Africa, an image that is fixated towards the typical stereotypes enforced by Western media rather than the reality of Africa from a local perspective. As I have embarked on this journey, I am yet to embark on more. Stay tuned for the next chapter in my life.
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