| Reaching ouT
reaching out |
If I don’t, who will? By Chloey Mayo ’10
Clad in a crisp gray dress shirt and herringbone vest, the young Eritrean student flashes his signature smile and boldly urges every passerby in the student center to apply for Oglethorpe’s IDEX Fellowship for Social Enterprise in India. “Don’t you want to make a difference in another part of the world?” Awet Woldegebriel ’14 is the picture of confidence, but he wasn’t always this collected or assured. The son of an African tailor and housewife, Awet arrived at Oglethorpe with childhood memories of life-changing wartime upheaval—a journey that brought him clear across the world and left him more mature than his 20 years.
Awet’s Journey Since the early 1960s, the African country Eritrea has fought a decades-long war over its independence with its southern neighbor, Ethiopia. In 1993, the countries agreed to a peaceful separation that led the region into a state of “no war, no peace”—with the outbreak of war a constant possibility. During the peak of one of these upheavals, a little more than 10 years ago, seven-year-old Awet fell victim to the realities of the Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict. Originally from Eritrea, Awet’s father had made a comfortable living in the prosperous country of Ethiopia, where Awet was born. Just months before the war began, Awet’s father immigrated to the United States for more business opportunities and a brighter future for his family. Meanwhile, Awet continued to live in Ethiopia with his two older sisters. “My sisters raised me,” remembers Awet, who is the youngest of 11. “My oldest sister, who was in her early twenties at the time, took care of us as if we were her own children.” One evening, Awet and his eldest sister headed home from the market and encountered Ethiopian soldiers who demanded to see his sister’s identification. Her family name immediately belied her Eritrean descent, and the soldiers began to forcefully take her to prison. “My sister had so much courage and love for me that she told them she was not going to jail without taking me.…I was the youngest in the house and we were much too close for me to be separated from her.” Their captors allowed Awet and his sister to stay together, and they spent two days in jail before they were released. “We were so afraid. But even at my young age, I wanted to protect my sister. I felt responsible for her. We were responsible for each other.” 12 CARILLON | summer 2011
After their release, Awet and his family thought life would return to normal in Ethiopia. But, that night, Ethiopian soldiers approached their home with guns drawn, wielding batons. “They told us we had three days to get ready to be ‘removed,’” recalls Awet. “It was the scariest thing because even though our family is originally from Eritrea, my home was Ethiopia. I was so scared and confused.” The soldiers had decided to bus people of Eritrean descent to the border, fearing they would side with their home country’s military. Awet recalls being led by armed soldiers to a bus full of displaced Ethiopians of Eritrean descent. “I could never forget one old woman who went mad on the bus. I witnessed her son get shot and killed right in front of her as a result of an altercation with one of the soldiers. They had pushed his mother, and he was defending her. I remember wiping the fog off the bus window… just in time to see the shooting. It was heartbreaking. The woman screamed and cried for her son the whole way.” Nearing the border, everyone was ordered off the bus to cross over on foot. Armed soldiers and military tanks faced them from both sides. Awet recalls vowing at that moment to never return to Ethiopia. “I just remember holding my oldest sister’s leg for comfort. That place was no longer my home, and I had nothing left there.”
Home Is Where the Heart Is They walked on a desert plain for hours, sleeping overnight huddled together to deter coyotes. The women sang, and everyone shared what little food they had. Finally, they arrived at their “destination.” Awet and the other refugees were welcomed by Eritreans who shared what they had. Luckily, Awet and his siblings could communicate; their father had insisted they learn the language of their family. Awet immediately felt at home.
Awet with two of his sisters.
By the time he was 10 years old, Awet says he got used to hiding in closets and watching out for the police. As the Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict developed, he and his sisters moved through Kenya, where they faced more harassment from Kenya’s military. During this time, he developed a stronger sense of self, a responsibility to his family, and a responsibility to his new home country, Eritrea. Eventually, after living in Kenya as refugees for six months, Awet and his sisters were finally reunited with their father in the United States. “We did not always know the people around us,” explains Awet. “But we always felt that there were people who had our best interests at heart, so I view Eritrea as my home now. I don’t have a longing to see my birthplace, but I do have a longing to take the knowledge I learn back home to Eritrea.” Now a premed student also studying international relations, Awet plans to become a doctor and a microfinancier to help Eritrean war veterans start their own businesses. “I don’t believe in aid,” says Awet. “I think it cripples people. I guess that’s why I’m so big on social enterprise and businesses that help people to help themselves. I think Oglethorpe helps a lot of young people to do that, and I plan on returning to Africa when I finish my education. It’s my duty. If I don’t, who will?”
Chloey Mayo, a 2010 Oglethorpe graduate, works in her alma mater’s public relations office. She spends much of her time photographing and writing about campus life for the OU Blog (www.oglethorpeblog.org). At OU, she ran both track and cross-country while pursuing her bachelor’s in communication and rhetoric studies. summer 2011 | CARILLON 13