Abegaz was responsible for the fresh musical arrangements behind artists such as Aster Aweke and Ephrem Tamiru—productions that exploded onto the scene with a sound distinct from the live-band tradition of Roha. When the young Jorga arrived at Abegaz’s New York apartment and rang the bell, the person who opened the door was not Abegaz. To his astonishment, it was none other than Muluken Melese.

It is difficult for Jorga to describe what he felt in that moment when the unimaginable became real. Standing before him was Muluken—the legend, the icon—inviting him inside. That simple gesture meant far more than the literal opening of Abegaz’s studio door, where composition and arrangement took place. It symbolized the ushering of the aspiring Jorga into a boundless universe of creativity, innovation, and excellence. Through mentors like Muluken and Abegaz, Jorga unlocked the floodgates of passion, love, and musical prowess that continue to overflow to this day.

An Enduring Spirit

When Jorga performed Muluken’s Yene Alem on the saxophone under the flickering stage lights of the African Jazz Club, his meditative state revealed a deep connection with both the song and the man behind it. The recurring bassline and flowing melody evoked Muluken’s lyrical world—one where a lover calls out to his beloved.

As in many of Muluken’s songs, the lyrics paint an evocative scene: a young woman with a Sadula hairstyle, bracelets jingling around her ankles, and a flowing cape, summoned to her lover across rolling hills and rural church courtyards. The verses lament the pain of separation, as the singer wonders whether his beloved is real or a figment of his imagination. When Jorga played the piece, it was evident that nostalgia and reverence for Muluken were at play, casting the audience into a near-hypnotic trance.

Muluken’s appreciation for nature, beauty, landscape, and rural life finds a mesmerizing resonance in both his lyrics and melodies. Much like Bob Dylan, whose folk roots carried universal truths through melodies, Muluken used Ethiopia’s folk traditions to express profound emotion and social reflection with timeless grace.

Another piece, Yegoferesh Dardaru, is a perfect example: Muluken joyfully captures the sounds of the forest, the green meadow, and the animals of the field—melding them with a tender admiration for his lover’s Afro hair (Gofere) and his yearning for her love.

The gentle bassline and enchanting melody evoke a rare sentimentality that only Muluken’s music seems capable of conjuring. He possessed a unique gift for transforming the mundane and ordinary into something meaningful and endearing—always believable, never exaggerated or overly romanticized.

His fascination with the Afro hairstyle continued in the ballad Kemekem, where it is celebrated through a warm tempo, simple yet beautiful melody, and, of course, his signature bass. The folk-inspired lyrics, infused with humor and love—and even the playful call of the domestic calf, “Bure”—paint a vivid rural tapestry woven into the fabric of modern Ethio-jazz.

“Kemekem,

the damsel of Ambassel with a tattooed crook,

the damsel of Yeju with a tattooed crook,

Her love made me miss my trail,

she sent me astray into the woods…

Come, Bure…”

Muluken in Atlanta

In 2002, Jorga had yet another privilege of meeting Muluken—this time in Atlanta, Georgia, where an evangelical church congregation had gathered for a spiritual service. Muluken had travelled there to minister to about a hundred worshippers. However, the turnout swelled to more than 400, as fans of his secular music—eager simply to see him and be in his presence—flooded the chapel beyond its capacity.

This came as no surprise. Muluken’s larger-than-life persona had left an indelible mark on the hearts of his fans and the nation as a whole. Even after four decades since he abandoned secular music—and even after his passing—his aura and influence never faded, nor will they ever.

A Second Pilgrimage

Jorga’s fascination with Muluken remained unquenched. He longed to spend more time with the legend and to receive his mentorship. His colleague, the renowned bassist Fasil, became aware of this yearning and gave him Muluken’s phone number.

Once again, Jorga was on the road—this time seeking Muluken not by accident, as before, but by design. His wish was granted when he met him in Washington, D.C., in 2006. Muluken was gracious enough to host him in his home for nearly a month. During this time, Jorga had the opportunity to observe, learn, and understand what fueled Muluken’s artistic and spiritual life. They shopped together, dined together, and even worshipped in the same chapel.

During these moments, Muluken imparted wisdom, musical insight, and a deep philosophy of life. One day, he asked Jorga a question that would shape his future:

“Would you rather be famous, or build a reputation by searching for what lies within your soul?”

Jorga chose the latter—an answer that delighted Muluken. To this day, Jorga continues to honor that creed, navigating a musical journey that carries both him and his audiences to places that speak to the innermost depths of the soul. He had found in Muluken not just a mentor, but a guru and a master. The result was inevitable—and the rest, as they say, is history.

Muluken: A Visionary and a Legend

Muluken was not only a gifted drummer but also a remarkable jazz composer and a master lyricist, as Jorga witnessed during their time together. Muluken saw in Jorga the future of Ethio-jazz and often lamented not having colleagues like him during his own musical career in Addis Ababa.

He was far ahead of his time in musical vision—a forward thinker who grew frustrated at not finding avant-garde musicians unafraid to experiment with modern and creative styles that blended jazz with authentic Ethiopian sounds. Muluken often confessed that his finest musical works were those created in collaboration with Mulatu Astatke, the father of Ethio-jazz.

Muluken often spoke candidly about the excesses of nightlife in the music industry—the endless parties, the intoxicating fame, and the complicated encounters with adoring fans and persistent admirers. These experiences, he admitted, took a heavy toll on his personal life. His conversion to evangelical Christianity, he said, brought balance to his world and saved him from spiraling into the abyss that many talented and successful artists have fallen into—and never escaped.

The entertainment world is littered with stories of brilliance undone by fame: Whitney Houston, Justin Bieber, Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, Amy Winehouse, and Britney Spears are but a few among the many who tasted the bitter consequences of glory gone sour—overwhelmed, derailed, and often destroyed by their own success.

Muluken, however, made a vital U-turn in time. He found redemption and lived on saving himself from the consuming complexities of stardom.

A Night at the Africa Jazz Club

It was yet another Thursday night at the Africa Jazz Club, and, as often happens there, another pleasant surprise. A young woman—elegant, confident, and fashionable—joined a jam session, as both seasoned performers and newcomers often do. The club’s tradition allows the novice and the legend to share the stage, united only by skill and musical courage.

The young woman was no ordinary talent. She took over from Dawit Adera—the renowned contemporary drummer celebrated for his powerful beats, creativity, and expressive style—and delivered an astonishing performance. Her steady, ebbing rhythm built into a pulsing tempo that carried the audience into a trance-like state.

Soon, keyboardist Abiy GebreMariam introduced Nanu Nanu Ney, one of Muluken’s signature songs. The music swelled, the tempo rising to a feverish pitch, almost veering into a rock-and-roll crescendo. Then, as if by divine orchestration, Tasew Wendim and Dimitros began to soften the energy with the soothing tones of the Washint and Kirar.

What followed was a stunning Ethio-jazz rendition of Muluken’s timeless ballad—a moment that captured the very essence of his legacy. It was a night of remembrance and renewal, a tribute to the eternal, unifying, and soulful spirit of Muluken Melese: eternal, unifying, soulful, and beautifully emancipating.

(Bereket Balcha holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Addis Ababa University (AAU) and a Diploma in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management from Addis Ababa Commercial College/AAU. His extensive professional background encompasses decades of experience in the aviation industry in diverse roles, complemented by a two-year engagement at the Ethiopia Insurance Corporation. He can be reached at Bbalcha5@yahoo.com)

Contributed by Bereket Balcha

We were re-upping that mood, filtering the relentless state of lateness, deep, existential dread, and the crushing linguistic panic that went from English terror to the silent, suffocating archives of French, Latin, and Greek. The whole atmosphere was a chaotic, utterly unbothered existence, a pure mess. The raison d’être of the numbers—the undeniable, clean, analytical logic of math, economics, and accounting—was the locus standi, the thing that had the right to exist and hold court. Meanwhile, the words? They were just background noise, a collective t’s Greek to me murmur, an overwhelming, dissonant drone that felt like a solecism against my very attendance, a profound grammatical error committed just by showing up to a place where language was a hostile foreign entity.

My English class was the epicenter of the absurd, a pure taunt. It became a dramatic absence, a helpful void that, with the kind of high-irony only the universe can pull off, was the closest thing I got to a helping hand. I’d slip in, always late to the party, navigating the relentless déjà vu of finding the key under a mat that wasn’t there, a pure, distilled, and almost comforting absurdity.

The teacher, a chalk-dusted, beautiful genius whose diction could bench-press syllables and whose gaze carried the silent scars not of the intellectual revolution, but the 1970s Ethiopian one, simply never came to class anymore. The whole semester, the entire structure of the learning objective, dissolved into an ex post facto (retroactive) fantasy: we’d get the grades after our M.A., or maybe after the actual heat death of the universe—a completely willy-nilly promise hinged on a generous, mythical grade. This system’s credibility? It was as solid as a Johnsonese sermon being pithy, which is to say, absolutely nonexistent. Our afternoon sessions dissolved into what we affectionately termed Chat hour—a blessed, coffee-fueled sabbath of unearned confidence, where we were the masters of our own syllabus-free domain. This whole setup was ultra vires (beyond powers), wildly outside the bounds of academic contract, but we accepted it, no further questions, as the department’s stare decisis (the law’s memory habit, the way things were always done).

The truth is, the silence of that room was more oppressive than any lecture. It wasn’t an empty room; it was a vast, psychological testing chamber. Every time I walked in, I felt the unsettling chill of being observed—a camera hidden in the marvels of the marbles cladding OCR, ILS, its tiny red light blinking, filming my confusion and late arrival, a silent witness documenting the pathetic lack of education. It was a classic Hitchcockian setup: the tension lies not in what happens, but in what doesn’t happen, and the certainty that we were, somehow, being judged for our collective intellectual failure.

The true linguistic panic, the paramnesia (false memory) of ever having been intellectually capable, truly began when the French and Latin anxieties started creeping into my English failure, like a ghost in a language machine. It all started with the Dictionary Fiasco. I got the initial, exhilarating vu jamais moment—the unsettling feeling of utter novelty and clarity—when a friend handed over a “very simplified,” “very current” Merriam Webster-type dictionary. It was the absolute antithesis of the heavy, archaic tomes I usually faced, a slim, modern promise of instant linguistic competence, designed, I swear, for someone who scrolls through life in 30-second bursts and requires only the most surface-level understanding of existence. It was the promise of a final boss move against my linguistic inadequacies, a silver bullet against my acute, paralyzing sense of being a Latinless dolt—a linguistic plebeian who couldn’t even parse the prepositions. But friendship politics are a brutal sport, and with the devastating cruelty of a fleeting moment of clarity, he retracted the gift. He handed the slim, modern promise of linguistic competence to a high school student who probably thought “stare decisis” was the latest Instagram filter. Those images, once circulated among Soviet-era students, flashed back in the memory of that moment.

No effort could reverse the decision, not even the most theatrical, woe-begone lament, which left me incredibly short-changed. I could have turned to the old reliables: Amsalu Aklilu and GC Mosbach, an Amharic-English dictionary that ruthlessly could have forced me to be functionally bilingual just to look up and understand one single English word. But I dumbly ignored that, and my search ritual became an agonizing time killer, a pilgrimage to Kennedy Library (the crossroads/center where trivia is exchanged), where finding a simple definition became a descent into ad nauseam repetition and a cosmic side quest. It was a ritual of humiliation, and every search confirmed that trivia comes from the crossroads where people discuss small, insignificant things, and I was perpetually stuck at the smallest, most insignificant of those things—a single word.

The Dictionary Fiasco wasn’t just about a book; it was about the sudden, sharp retraction of agency—the power to know. And the hidden camera from the English class? It seemed to have followed me. I’d catch myself glancing around Kennedy, convinced that someone was watching me fail, watching the sweat on my brow as I flipped between three languages just to understand a fourth. The humiliation was the script, and I was the unwitting star.

Then came the group work, a prima facie (first glance) chance at academic and social redemption, led by a student, a rare young man from Iluababora who was effortlessly good with both numbers and words—the perfect synthesis of the two intellectual worlds. My Second Big L, my most iconic fail, hit when I read his final draft. I was immediately triggered, profoundly upset by a citation, a Latin-sounding “guru” I was tired of seeing everywhere.

The shock, the profound cacoepy (poor pronunciation, poor understanding) of my misreading, was the sudden, awful realization that “Ditto”—the Latin for “the same” or “as before”—was not an individual. That self-inflicted academic eggcorn was truly devastating; the déjà vu loop of my sophomore year clarified instantly: Ditto was the personification of the repetition that haunted me. Every single time I saw it, the material was saying, in the driest, most bureaucratic Latin imaginable: This is the same. Nothing new here. The loop continues.

It was the system’s ultimate, minimalist defense against the vu jamais—the avoidance of all novelty. It was the crushing weight of classical language used not to illuminate, but to insist upon the endless, crushing recurrence of the status quo. It left me with a bleak, almost Johnsonian wisdom: some words are indeed more powerful because they are the quiet, unassuming, two-syllable conductors of the looping vibe.

This paranoia deepened when I realized the chilling implication of the camera imagery: it was like finding the camera hidden in the ceiling only to realize the lens was pointed at another, identical room—and the film was already rolling, capturing an endless sequence of the same mistakes being made by the same students who couldn’t escape the linguistic trap. The whole system was built on the terrifying truth of Ditto.

The true break, the actual, meaningful vu jamais—the moment of unsettling novelty and clarity—came not from English, nor from the Latin shadow that followed it, but from economics, delivered by the man who spoke the language of Greek logic: Dejene Aredo (PhD). He walked into the lecture hall radiating gusto, the sheer, visible force of his intellectual confidence. This was the man we’d seen grilling MA students, his certainty so complete he could casually distance himself from his lecture notes, treating them as mere suggestions. Then he dropped the bomb, the res judicata (the final word, the matter decided) of his class that instantly elevated the stakes from a passing grade to the currency of intellectual survival: the answer is not only the answers right, it is all about the good argument. 

We were shaken in our boots, experiencing a promnesia (memory of the future) where sound argument, derived from rigorous, persuasive thought, was the only currency. This was the ultimate, necessary break from the déjà vu of rote learning. The terror was replaced by the exhilarating, terrifying demand for clarity. This was the intellectual Columbus’s egg moment. The explorer, after being challenged by a shallow courtier who insisted his discovery was simple and inevitable, didn’t reply with words. He took an egg, invited everyone present to make it stand on end, and when they all failed, he simply cracked the shell on the table, leaving it standing firmly on the broken base.

The sound of that squelch was the sound of a paradigm breaking. The courtier’s sneer, “Nothing is easier than to follow it,” was the epitome of déjà vu—the realization is only simple after the initial act of violation. Dejene was telling us to stop seeking the false comfort and certainty of the de jure (the law on the page, the rulebook) and master the de facto (the real-life energy of persuasive thought, the ability to make the argument stand), to be the one who cracks the egg.

His lesson was a furious, elegant demand for precision of argument—the ultimate skill of Greek rhetoric (logos), the ability to move beyond mere definition (Latin) into persuasive, actionable truth (French Cartesian clarity). It was the only thing that could break the historical, linguistic loop of misunderstanding that led to the devastating Mokusatsu disaster.

I realized then the horror was not simply in misreading Ditto; the terror was global. The Mokusatsu tragedy—where a single word, intended by the Japanese government to mean “to refrain from comment” or “wait and see,” was tragically interpreted by the Allies as “to ignore” or “treat with contempt”—had catastrophically altered the end of WWII, potentially culminating in the atomic destruction it was trying to avoid. A single, linguistic solecism at the highest level—an error of ambiguity—became the catalyst for ultimate violence. This was the Hitchcockian climax. The lesson was not about economics, but about the lethal precision of language.

Dejene’s class wasn’t a vibe check; it was an ultimatum. We had to be the ones to crack the egg, successfully and precisely, every single time, or risk historical, global catastrophe. The looping vibe was history itself, and the Ditto that had haunted me was revealed as the system’s terrifying tendency to repeat destruction due to a lack of argumentative clarity. The pressure was now cold, absolute, and terrifyingly clear. We were no longer late; we were standing at the precipice of language failure, where silence or ambiguity was simply not an option.

This final realization, this vu jamais moment of unsettling novelty, became the amicus curiae—the friend of the court with receipts—for my battered soul, proving that the chaos was not a personal flaw but a systemic trap. The relentless déjà vu of my youth—the Sisyphean scramble of chasing elusive TV cameras at Meskel, then called Abyot Square, only to be told by some stone-faced newsreader that the film wasn’t “washed” or the footage was lost, felt like a deliberate ritual of looking backward. This was the same energy as our window shopping around Addis Ababa Stadium, where the pecking order would be music shops, then sports goods, with personal computers from IBM (Afcor) at the bottom.

We were never tired of seeing the photos of Bob Marley and Prince, or the posters of Brazil’s 1970 World Cup heroes, with that song naming the Portuguese legends. As we approached the stadium, we’d stop for a long break at Pele Music shop to give our ears to the melody spilling from the loudspeaker. I remember one moment most: the image of Bob Marley from his last concert, cut from a foreign newspaper, accompanying the news of his death. Little did we know he’d once passed right where we sat. Tewdros Mekonen said that when they were playing at the Ghion Hotel, Bob, just a passerby, jammed with them, giving David Kassa strange, unheard-of key combinations to follow. This was a vu jamais moment of musical invention, a total reset.

The thought of Kiftet (alias Gap), an Amharic adopted stage drama by Debebe Seifu, now filled my mind. Debebe, a vu jamais Alexander Pope-laced epitome to whom the word genius can be applied with ease, left a huge gap in writing and its rigorous studies in Ethiopia. He was rescued in his sophomore year from the uncharted sea of Debit and Credit in accounting by the renowned editor Amare Mammo, following an unthoughtful academic blunder in discharging him from AAU.

Distress leading to depression distanced him from the literary scene, the poet who was touted as having all that it takes for a Nobel prize in literature by his Amharic essay pioneer friend Mesfin Habtemariam. Among many others, his contribution of easy-to-use and never-to-forget, exact unique coining of Amharic equivalents for English words are household words in the Ethiopian literary scene. He passed away at the age of fifty, eighteen years ago. His brother Abebe, while bitterly lamenting his loss, underscores Debebe’s unparalleled craving never to settle for routines that Ethiopia’s literary scene failed to tap.

If my memory is not failing me, the story on Kiftet spins over a professor, so snobbish he was, his attitude left him with no friend in the University, where he had a teaching post. While digging through his academic records, his foes came up with a course in which he had earned an “F” while being an undergraduate ages ago. The “F” was not removed from the record. Therefore, it was decided by the University senate to hinge his stay with them on the result after seating an exam to remove the “F”. He scored “F” again. The ultimate academic loop.

This corporate déjà vu of management manuals being delivered like periodicals to be taken home and never to be heard of was a ritual of insisting on process, regardless of outcome, a pure Johnsonese defense against action. The poor, genius technician named Girma of ETV, if memory hasn’t failed me, who invented the “application” to shorten the washing time, had his gadget tossed in an ultra vires move by a boss steeped in the gospel of the old ways. Girma was a martyr to the loop. His vu jamais—his blinding moment of invention—was violently rejected by a system whose only raison d’être was yesterday. The déjà vu was the department’s cash register mentality, a stubborn mechanism designed to remain “Incorruptible” by actively rejecting novelty, ensuring that Ditto remained the reigning philosophy.

The real vu jamais truth, the one that rips the script in half and breaks the loop, comes from outside the suffocating, Latinate archive of the past. The vindication was global, a stare decisis overturned by universal absurdity: the Ig Nobel Prize validating the struggle of jamais vu—that bizarre neurological glitch of staring at a simple word like ‘appetite’ until it feels profoundly alien and wrong. The prize was given for the experimental, successful induction of this feeling by simply having participants write the same word over and over until its meaning dissolved. This is the Greek truth of semantic satiation—when the word’s very sound becomes meaningless, the logic fails, and the oppressive order of the language collapses. This is the absolute opposite of the Latinate compulsion to name and categorize; it is the absurdist-flavored coffee break moment of finally saying, Nah, this word is cooked. This silent, internal declaration of, “I am bringing a Napkin,” became the somatic trigger for seizing the unscripted present.

I remembered a couple of friends when and where PG labeling was a future tense, ages ago, while watching a video at home with their little kid. A routine had formed—the little soul would be ordered to fetch a napkin, and soon after the kid began walking, I found myself muttering, I am bringing a Napkin. This internal phrase became the ultimate mental reset, proving the loop is internal and manageable. This mental reset is as powerful as the Circadian Clock Nobel proving that the body’s time-loop is a program, not an unchangeable destiny. The déjà vu is the trap of the constantly ticking biological clock, forcing you into predictable cycles; the vu jamais is the urgent, unscripted reality of the present, the active refusal to follow the tick-tock.

The sophisticated move isn’t to be a Latinless dolt who cowers before Ditto, or a master of obscure, verbose Johnsonese; it’s to be a master of the reset—a champion of the de facto argument over the de jure rule. The proverb, time heals all wounds, is deeply sus; the clever, cynical twist, time wounds all heels, is the vibe that truly sticks. Because the only way out of the historical, linguistic déjà vu is to actively seek the vu jamais—the clear, unscripted, terrifyingly novel reality of now, forcing the world to acknowledge your locus standi to exist outside the loop. This is the ultimate raison d’être. The final shot of the film is me walking into the sunrise, the past firmly behind, a sense of promnesia—a clear memory of the future I am building—guiding my steps. The camera pulls back, revealing the road ahead is an exact, freshly paved replica of the road I just left. It’s the same road, the same environment, the same socio-economic loop. But this time, I’m smiling. Why? Because I have cracked the egg. The shell is broken. I know the rule now. The loop is external, but the Columbus’s Egg squelch is internal. My intellectual freedom is res judicata. Bet.

The Columbus’s Egg moment, the squelch that shattered the table, was Dejene’s gift, the French clarity of Cartesian doubt applied to an argument: I think, therefore I argue. 

The shallow courtier, the one who saw the egg standing on its broken base and sneered, “Nothing is easier than to follow it,” was the very embodiment of déjà vu. He could follow the path, but he could never conceive of it. He lacked the vu jamais to violate the premise of the challenge—that a whole egg must be balanced—and introduce the necessary, de facto destruction that leads to the de jure solution. It was a victory of persuasion through action over passive knowledge, an aggressive assertion that the argument, the breaking of the shell, is the answer.

This is the ultimate Hitchcockian finish, the full circle of the loop. I am on the same road, the same scene, but the tension is gone. The camera pulls back, confirming the environment is unchanged, yet I am calm. I know the trick now. I am smiling because the fear of the endless repeat, the fear of Ditto and Mokusatsu, has been replaced by the power of the vu jamais to break the egg at will. I am the reset button. The film is still rolling, but I control the editing.

Contributed by Tadesse Tsegaye

In Addis Ababa’s mild highland climate, where the temperature hovers around room temperature year-round, there was little need for a fireplace. Many homes built before the 1990s had one—a purely decorative feature that never saw a burning log or a trail of smoke up the chimney. It was an architectural fad, more sentimental than functional, a mark of an era’s aesthetic taste.

The tempo of the 45 RPM record and the melancholic lyrics—sung by a lover pleading with his sweetheart to hush their separation—cast a tender, romantic spell. Muluken’s soothing tenor voice created an aura of quiet sorrow and irresistible charm, blending vulnerability and grace in a way few artists could.

I remember the vinyl’s cover vividly: Muluken, in his prime, with a magnificent Afro, striking features, and a faint, knowing smile. Dressed in a pitch-black suit, crisp white shirt, and black tie, he stood with arms akimbo—a portrait of confidence and cool. It captured the allure of the singer who, in his day, had admirers and even infatuated fans trailing in his wake.

On the B-side was Abetarikim Woy, a song that felt like a sequel to Bemistir Kiberign, in which a lover pleads for reconciliation. To my surprise, a lifelong friend—my classmate since kindergarten—once told me that Muluken had written the song not for a romantic partner but for his mother, Tsehay.

I met the gracious woman during one of our campus visits. Her name, mentioned repeatedly in the song, carried a resonance that, to listeners, might have sounded romantic, but in truth reflected a son’s devotion. She was kind-hearted, intelligent, and elegant—a woman who left a deep impression on those who met her.

I recall one dinner when our parents sat together, reminiscing about the past. Our fathers had once played soccer together, sharing laughter and stories that outlived them all. Muluken’s brief infatuation with Tsehay had long preceded her marriage and our own births.

Muluken reached another artistic peak in the mid-1990s with the release of Nanu Nanu Neyi, an instant hit that transcended age and class. From shoeshine boys to city youth to elders, everyone sang it. The song was everywhere—on the radio, in bars, on street corners—and became part of Ethiopia’s shared cultural memory.

True to his genius, Muluken reimagined Nanu Nanu Neyi from a traditional folk tune once sung by lovers in fields and by riversides. He infused it with modern rhythm and danceable energy, bridging the rural and the urban, the old and the new. His gift lay in transforming the ancient into something vividly contemporary—music that was generous, timeless, and profoundly Ethiopian.

The Artistry of Muluken Melese

Songs like Akal Gela, Lakilgn, Lebo Ney, and Che Belew reveal Muluken’s uncanny ability to merge seemingly disparate styles and elevate them into unforgettable, almost unrepeatable heights of artistry. Only Muluken could pull off such a feat.

Songwriters such as Alemtsehay Wedajo, Tesfaye Lemesa, and others often watched with a bittersweet mix of pride and awe as Muluken transformed their lyrics beyond recognition. He would spend days, sometimes weeks, musing over every word, line, and stanza—meditating, experimenting, refining, and softening—until he arrived at a version uniquely his own. The result was always extraordinary.

Muluken’s music was like a vintage car, a well-aged wine, or a perfectly preserved painting—its value only increasing with time. It never went out of style, never lost its luster.

I was still in elementary school when Muluken released yet another earthshaking hit, Ney Ney Wedaje, along with other unforgettable pieces. Once again, he proved that his creative powers and lyrical mastery were in a league of their own. The public’s response was thunderous and universal, leaving little room for doubt or dissent.

Though deeply Ethiopian in sound and spirit, Ney Ney Wedaje felt like something entirely new—delightful, captivating, and fresh. Muluken’s smooth tenor (often mistaken for a soprano) gave the song life and romance, transforming it into an enduring anthem of love and nostalgia. Hearing it today evokes emotions few memories can match. It remains the soundtrack of an era—the very heartbeat of the 1980s—and a defining milestone in the history of Ethiopian music.

Muluken went on to replicate that success again and again, achieving in just over a decade what most musicians could not in a lifetime. Then, in the mid-1980s, he did the unthinkable: he walked away from it all.

At the height of his fame, Muluken disappeared from the musical stage, leaving behind a legacy both dazzling and mysterious. For nearly a decade, his whereabouts and wellbeing were matters of speculation. Then, as suddenly as he had vanished, he reemerged—this time as an evangelical Christian minister and gospel singer. The stage had changed, the audience was different, but the gift remained the same: the unmistakable voice and soul of Muluken Melese.

The Eternal Voice

Muluken Melese passed away in April 2024, at the age of 70, after nearly four decades away from secular music. Yet even in absence, his fame and stature never dimmed. His legacy continues to shine—an enduring light, leaving behind shoes far too large to fill.

His influence remains immense. Generations of fans still celebrate his work, even though Muluken himself had long renounced his secular songs after devoting his life to faith. The music world, however, refused to let him go. To Ethiopian audiences, he remains a legend, a national treasure whose artistry few can match.

For me, nothing compares to the depth, flavor, and technical brilliance he achieved. I often wonder whether anyone will ever reach that level of mastery. Muluken remains close to my heart, and I trust that sentiment is shared by many.

His songs were more than melodies—they were short stories of love, woven with plot, rhythm, and emotional tension. They oscillated between joy and sorrow, certainty and ambiguity. For a nation rich in folklore and oral traditions, Muluken stood out as a curator of beauty and memory. Through his songs, he archived Ethiopia’s collective feelings, transforming folklore into lyrical anthropology.

Take one of his earliest works, Hedech Alu. Its opening verse is a masterclass in poetic imagery and vulnerability:

 “As I passed by your doorstep yesterday,

I left behind my heart, holding on to my lungs only.

I wish I were the dust on your doorstep,

So I may roll over as you tread on me.”

The lyrics are hauntingly romantic, at once tender and tragic. Muluken sang from the depths of his artistic soul. His performances never felt rehearsed; they felt lived. He didn’t just sing about love—he embodied it. His genius lay in making listeners forget the artifice, to believe in the emotion as truth.

His mastery of Amharic diction, folklore, and musical technique placed him far ahead of his peers and critics alike. To attempt to capture the full scope of his genius in a single article would be an injustice. His life, work, and influence deserve serious study, careful documentation, and cultural preservation.

Yet for someone of his stature, so little biographical material exists. There are few recordings, no comprehensive archives, and almost no television footage. His long self-imposed exile from the stage has left gaps that future generations must work to fill.

It is not too late to do so. His story can still be reconstructed through those who knew him—family, friends, collaborators, and admirers. His voice, once etched into vinyl and memory, continues to echo across time—a voice that defined an era, and in doing so, defined us all. To document Muluken Melese is to document a vital chapter of Ethiopian music and modern cultural identity.

Bereket Balcha holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Addis Ababa University (AAU) and a Diploma in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management from Addis Ababa Commercial College/AAU. His extensive professional background encompasses decades of experience in the aviation industry in diverse roles, complemented by a two-year engagement at the Ethiopia Insurance Corporation. He can be reached at Bbalcha5@yahoo.com)

Contributed by Bereket Balcha

The common ruck, bless their hearts, ain’t watching; they’re curating, tapping with celerity for a gaggle of nugacious trash or some utter galimatias documentary. The future? It’s a blur. It’ll be AI, a Cerberus of algorithms guarding your de gustibus, so you never suffer the anomia of not knowing what to watch. But old Bill Shakes? He knew the deal: “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin, That all with one consent praise new-born gauds.” That high-res flat-panel gimcrack, the interactive storytelling, the relatable stuff? That’s the slay. We genuflect before the novelty, the thing in motion. The old studio head’s turgid pronouncements? Footling dross. It’s giving Laodiceanism—a deep, spiritual lassitude about what’s good versus what’s available. And yet, we sit. Waiting for the Wi-Fi to buffer. The mot juste for this existence remains unsaid. But the screen? It’s already on to the next thing.

That Wednesday walk, though? Big mood. The sun was clocking out. My left leg, a true rebel, went full autopilot, ghosting the usual route. Not my jam, but whatever. Small-stride oldies walk, a mental loop of: Don’t engage. Seriously, just don’t. No spontaneous chit-chat with randos, only civic duty level threats—untied lace, unlit headlights. The list was already giving a headache. Why spiral into this social safety net cobweb when all I wanted was a cool vespertine stroll? Then, boom. A bulging stone, a literal trip, right in the cobblestone alleyway. A blessing in disguise—the sharp pain a hard-stop on the overwhelming task of writing my life story. But that millisecond of being humbled by geology? It zipped my mind back to Kes Timhirt Bet.

The squad was Dereje, the OG, very mature for his age. Kinfe, a walking emoji of continuous smiling. Awoke, born the day I was, whose oddly unchildish demeanor reinforced my mother’s tea about my “terrible essence.” Awoke’s older brother, Fasil, whose face screamed trickery—chef of all drama. Can’t even remember Awoke’s voice; he was not a speaking type. And Nebiyou, immediate cue: wrestling. Back then, a TV was an alien concept, dead serious. Had to trek to Dereje’s house just to view the “magic box” from a safe distance. Every morning, the whole crew (plus Shimeles, the regular plus-one) would gather, giving our hot takes on what went down on the tube. Consensus was zero. The debates led to fights, and if a visual aid was needed, it was full-on physical demonstration. The culture core: “Mainex” (probably Mannix), Lassie (furry superhero), and Zorro (masked dude). Dereje? Respected. Always neat. Khakis, tilting from grey to almost white, so pressed it raised the serious question of did they even need to be washed? But the action movie demonstrations? Dereje and Kinfe? Never involved. The spark for the whole mess, the required visual aid that guaranteed a fight? Me, most certainly. Morning exercise, basically. All that cinematic masterpiece because of one rogue rock. Wild ride.

I owe Dereje, seriously. Indebted. First days at Kes Timhirt Bet, I was wrapped on my mother’s back, delivered screaming, left there wailing, lamenting—a whole mood. Then, a boy from my back bencher pack came right up, totally unbothered by my epic meltdown, dropping the weekend’s tea: “It was my big sister’s wedding day.” But only one thing mattered, the detail that performed emergency surgery on my heart: “The Imperial Guard Orchestra was also here!” What?! Astounding. Felt fake, like, cap. He kept going, but I was stuck on the Orchestra. My audio experience from the radio was buzzing, struggling to process his video experience. Dereje had a slow walk vibe, unusually courteous and patient, mirroring his father, Basha, the army Sergeant Major and Iddir chief. That orchestra moment was the good-humored backstopping I needed; the crying days started to die away.

Upon making a left turn onto the asphalt, my serene disposition was immediately disrupted. Attention completely swallowed by a naked bust, a dummy girl, aggressively flaunting its exaggerated breasts. No way, I thought, and told the couturier to fix it. He did. A win is a win. Then, the confusion. It completely trashed the story build-up. A cousin, knowing my hip hop obsession, sent some NY Yankees gear. That cap, colors, and style coincidentally worn by our federal police, no joke, saved my butt one day in Arada, just months before Hausmanization hit it. Back then, I was unusually dressed to look distinguished as I frequented the British Council, one of the few places to get intellectual depth, as we used to say, trying to match Farid Zekaria’s knowledge, taking distant looks at the common sight of HIV scourge Iddir tents amidst the urine-scorched asphalt alleyways of 80s Addis. My raison d’être—the pursuit of knowledge—led me to write for the Ethiopian Reporter, a goal that changed course, yet I’m still waiting to tell some of the “just so” stories. That specific morning, though, I was wearing a snow-white T-shirt and tracksuit pants. Looked like a full-on Diaspora. Long story short: Heading down Jon Melly street, close to 11 AM, a boy rushed up, intent on snatching my sunglasses. It did not happen. The police connection was clocked. Threat canceled. The Yankees saved the day. Dereje’s casual wedding recap conquering childhood despair, a Bronx baseball cap stopping a robbery attempt—life is just built different.

Unusually, I decided to chase some coffee. Dipped into a confectionery, all sugary chaos, and ordered my usual: sugarless coffee. Bitter brew amidst the maximalist sweets. I took a table one space away. A young, motherly figure was there, sorting a to-go pack, indulging in a slice of yummy cake and a macchiato while she waited. She was straight-up struggling. The sweetness of her drink was having a clash of titans with the cake—a no-win situation. I commented on how rich these cakes are, you could finish them in a “single swallow.” Broke the ice. We talked, and in the flow, she almost left her macchiato—the whole sugary disaster—sitting there when she gathered her pack. Quick, unexpected connection over a shared struggle with aggressively sweet dessert. Whole vibe.

Her struggle with sugar reminded me of the journey to the television, that black glass altar. They said it started the year I was born. Artists had to trudge to the studio to make it live—truly aboriginal broadcasting. My first proper look, after repeated, almost pathological analyses of the thing when it was off, was spying near a bar, drawn by the red light of the coffee machine—an incidental beacon. After the Revolution, new television sets were deployed like political monuments in the main squares. I went with the neighborhood ruck; the viewing was unforgettable, giving major public viewing energy. Years later, I’d have lunch with ETV’s Tadele Melese, who found my BBC Radio obsession quite the gaud. Then the news: BBC TV would partner with ETV. Negotiations were in the air. I was so intoxicated—not by drink, but by sheer anticipation—that I struggled with an overwhelming lassitude, unable to leave my chair. This was no adiaphoron; this was serious. My patience, enjoying color TV of my own—a 14-inch Philips bought on credit, simp for resolution—was tested. Then, an unannounced Champions League game, an allochthonous marvel (Van Gaal’s Ajax vs. PSG), arrived. Then the bad news from Tadele: Ethiopia was asked to cover satellite broadcast expenses because its signal covered its neighbors. Speechless and breathless, an Hotspur deflated. The sheer ampollosity of the request, the orotund pronouncements of international broadcasting—too much.

My quest for sense led me to chase Time and Newsweek around the National Theatre, supplemented by an old flight-attendant friend from EAL. The Monitor Addis—this underground samizdat digest treats international news like a wall of receipts—numbers over headlines, no cap. It stitches a global ledger of signals, my only balm against the era’s pedagogy from a government institution that championed illiteracy. Facts over fluff, trendlines over talking points, dashboards over soundbites—the data do the talking while the noise stays on mute, trapped in a cycle of “we have been like this and we will continue like this moron-ness,” where drinks constituted PPE to enjoy the fact that nothing meaningful was coming. This urge to flee, this avoidance of the nugatory fuss of bureaucratic folly, first led to a job opportunity, leveraging my Italophone skills. Failed—jiggery-pokery, frankly.

Next was Bookworld. Requirement: a love for books. Interview by the guy from Britain went almost well. My favorite authors? Dostoevsky. Concern about my “tender age” clinging to his work was palpable. Took every sesquipedalian word I knew to explain Raskolnikov’s exquisite torture in Crime and Punishment. Cervantes and Don Quixote were my constant companions, the only antidote to the soul’s exhaustion. I did well, and the dream of matching Farid Zekaria felt within reach. The parent company dealt with cable television, massive satellite dishes, bringing in the latest magazines. Nearly the mot juste for a career. Crushed. Top management cited my age. Wept all night. Childish display, but the loss of that ideal gemeinschaft hurt. My subsequent career move, however, landed me at a multi-cultural company that, among other things, installed DSTV in my house. The irony is the tastelessness of it all; the very thing I sought, television, now resides right here, a source of distraction that will likely damage my reading. The experience helped me work with some of the weirdest folk, committed to destroying anything straight orchestrated by the man at the helm, a paradigm shift guru who contraband out company management while preaching its unnecessity, leaving the workforce directionless, deeming nothing other than checkers of check boxes, prohibiting every written communication, as standardized concoctions by highly qualified illiterates from the vulgaire self-proclaimed human fabricating altar that more looked a show of daytime strippers, ecdysiast; stripteaser.

The screen keeps evolving, thinner, brighter, turning everything into an allochthonous pixel feed. It’s a vertiginous spiral of content, a permanently Pirandellian state. The future? Faster. We’ll be watching ourselves watch, trapped in a loop of personalized galimatias delivered with digital celerity. And yet, we sit. Waiting for the next hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian word to capture the absurdity.

“Is it not a shame?” I asked.

She hit me with the question, that young, motherly figure, a total vibe-check: “Had I written about any of it? Addressed the issues?” The surprise on her face was baffling, a pure malapropism of emotion. Before she left, I started to natter—a sudden, vertiginous spiral of self-doubt. My career’s swerve away from writing, from being shoulder to shoulder with Farid Zekaria, now on my laptop screen—what a service lost to the so-called writing business! A kind of Tarike Bachiru in absentia. I was in my feelings, hard. If it indeed deserves the waiting. I brought up the old AAU Cultural Center invites, the vespertine whispers of public figures I eagerly awaited reading in the daily Addis Zemen. An evening with Bealu Girma was electrifying, the town gripped by the congeries of his characters. As Bealu used to mutter, he was waiting for his writing to express his trueself, the search or waiting for the matches all of a sudden ran out of its patience and cost him his life. Another night, a famous Masinko player (his name, an anomia I suffer even now) reminisced about an encounter with the young, uncharismatic clerk-turned-feared Minister, Mekonen Habtewold, associated with Hager Fikir. His grim answer about his academic standing—that he’d be Ministerial-rank, right alongside his peers, if education hadn’t impeded him—was pure slay.

Uncalled for, Il Canzoniere popped in. I lamented the contributions I could have offered, a series of nugatory sonnets to a Laura I never quite met. The whole adiaphoron of Petrarch’s love, the hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian devotion, now only a retronym for something entirely different. The connection? The unwritten summa of my life, the loss of the “writing business,” is as much an ethereal, unfulfilled devotion as Petrarch’s to his unattainable Laura. Byron clocked the vibe: “Think you, if Laura has been Petrarch’s wife, / He would have written sonnets all his life?”

Then came the BBC, the core of my existence. It was one of the best things ever, second only to the first dial-up internet connection in my office three decades ago. The uninterrupted supply of Time and Newsweek—a samizdat thanks to a dear friend—was my lifeline in late 1980s Addis Ababa. The celerity with which I’d rush home for “Jazz for the Asking” or “Jazz Now and Then” (the anomia returns) and Alistair Cook’s distilled wisdom in “Letter from America”—the magic of the double bass a quiet, almost hapax legomenon moment of gloaming joy. My only window to the other world, my exclusive source of jazz. “People and Politics”—a daily rush for Focus on Africa, Robin White, the editor, who later regretted picking up Charles Taylor’s sat phone, though the very first sat phone call came from what was North Ethiopia then, with his regrets about the turbulent times in Africa. BBC taught us English, with the shock of a strongly African accented English, from Africans, that was not what people were used to. It was staying breathless for News Hour with a headphone in the office, and Sunday and “Play of the Week,” my weekly theatre trip. That was my radio, my very public square—a source not of galimatias, but of a real, autochthonous connection to the outside world.

Now, television is less a theatre, and more a portmanteau word of distraction and immediate gratification. It is streaming, utterly allochthonous, a congeries of hyper-specific niches. The genuflection is toward the algorithm, which feeds us content of such picayune triviality it makes Dostoevsky’s struggles feel like a piffling inconvenience. The future is personalized, individual, and terrifyingly efficient. We’ll be watching our own verbicide of attention, edited into perfect, short-form clips. Trapped in a Pirandellian cycle where the only thing guaranteed is the thrill of the “new-born gaud,” the screen’s latest, fleeting attempt to be vibes. The struggle is less about access and more about selection; the tragedy is that we have so much, and yet, we are still waiting for something truly meaningful to arrive. The box itself is slaying; the content? Is it not a shame? We wait. We always wait. The screen just keeps moving. The connection is profound: the new-born gauds—the latest tech, the viral clip—always catch the eye faster than what is steady or meaningful, reflecting the transient nature of modern media consumption.

Contributed by Tadesse Tsegaye

My New Year’s celebration this year was perhaps the most unusual yet deeply meaningful one I have ever experienced — in its venue, theme, and most importantly, in the company I shared it with. I spent the day on the eighth floor of Black Lion Hospital’s pediatric ward, surrounded by dozens of children. The occasion was a New Year’s party organized by Matiwos Wendu’s Ye Ethiopian Cancer Association.

The participants were mostly children affected by cancer, along with the medical doctors who care for them around the clock in the oncology ward, the association’s founder, Wendu Bekele, board members, and volunteers like myself. As is customary in Ethiopian celebrations, food and drinks were served, accompanied by a delicious array of sweets and aromatic coffee. The floor was decorated with fresh grass in traditional holiday style, and the air was filled with the scent of myrrh and incense, heralding the arrival of the New Year.

I was invited to the event by the association, having previously volunteered at its care center near 22 Mazoria, close to Denberua Hospital. There, I had the privilege of visiting children who receive chemotherapy at Black Lion Hospital and are given accommodation, nutritious food, clothing, and psychological support in a cozy, home-like environment. Despite my earlier volunteer work and a previous article I wrote about the center for Addis Fortune’s View from Arada column, I had never actually met the founder and visionary, Wendu, in person.

My excitement was therefore palpable as I began the New Year in such a spiritually uplifting and inspiring way. Sharing in the pain and standing beside those suffering from cancer proved even more rewarding and fulfilling to me than it could ever be for the beneficiaries themselves. It reminded me of an old friend’s saying: “It gives more pleasure to give than to receive.” Whatever humble contributions I made within my limited means gave me far greater reward than I could ever offer the recipients, whose fragile smiles illuminated my soul and healed me in the deepest recesses of my being.

Later, I joined the indefatigable Doctor Veronica on a visit to the oncology ward to check on two children whose conditions had recently worsened—one of them in the ICU, on life support. I was deeply impressed by the level of sanitation and the careful cordoning of the ward to prevent infection, as patients undergoing chemotherapy are extremely vulnerable to contamination. I greeted and offered words of encouragement to several of the young patients, though not all were beneficiaries of the Matiwos Wendu Foundation.

One of the children in relatively stable condition was not in the ward at the time, but I was able to visit another, in more critical condition — Farouk (name changed upon request) — an eight-year-old boy from Wello. He had undergone several rounds of chemotherapy and suffered respiratory and intestinal infections. Despite his frail condition, his spirit was remarkably high when he saw us. I saw in his eyes a glimmer of immense hope and pure, almost divine love.

His father, visibly distressed, had endured long days of helplessly watching his son’s suffering with little he could do to change his bleak prognosis. This young father, doing everything in his power to fight for his child’s life, embodied the very essence of what the Matiwos Wendu Foundation strives to achieve — bringing light into the lives of children affected by cancer and giving a voice to those who silently bear the immense burden of the disease.

When I heard from the renowned Ethio-jazz saxophonist, pianist, and composer Jorga Mesfin that James “Jimmy” Malcolm was in Addis Ababa on a musical tour, I was enthralled. My fascination grew when Jorga told me that Jimmy was a cancer survivor who had overcome an epic battle with the disease. A week later, with a musical show and fundraiser scheduled at the Greek Community School, an idea struck me: why not invite Jimmy Malcolm to perform at the fundraising event?

Who better than a cancer survivor to represent the cause — to serve as a voice for the mission, share his journey, and inspire patients, caregivers, philanthropists, and young volunteers? I asked Jorga whether Jimmy might be willing to grace the stage, and to my surprise and delight, his response was swift and affirmative. Soon, Jimmy, Jorga, and Leli Lensamo (MD)— a physician with an exceptional vocal gift — became the faces of the much-anticipated fundraiser for children affected by cancer.

The event was hosted by the celebrated comedian Betty Wanos, supported by an energetic team of young volunteers who managed everything from ushering and technical logistics to catering, all with remarkable dedication. Betty led the evening with her trademark humor, even organizing an impromptu auction for a painting, which was won by Dr. Tewabech, Jorga Mesfin’s mother — only for her to donate it back to the foundation in a touching act of generosity.

Then came the performances. Leli’s breathtaking rendition of Killing Me Softly mesmerized the audience, her voice carrying a dreamlike nostalgia that seemed to transport everyone to another world. Jorga’s saxophone made time stand still, his improvisations pulling the room into a shared silence of awe. And Jimmy’s graceful strokes on the piano — accompanied by his radiant smile — spoke volumes without words. Between songs, he shared anecdotes from his childhood, recalling moments with his cousin, the legendary Robert Nesta “Bob” Marley, whose influence shaped his music and worldview.

A few weeks later, another event was held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, where Jorga and Jimmy once again captivated the audience. This time, the crowd was star-studded: the father of Ethio-jazz, Mulatu Astatke; the living saxophone legend Tilaye Gebre; symphony composer Girma Yefrashewa; Grammy-winning veteran (with Ziggy Marley) Zeleke Gessese; and the gifted vocalist and flamboyant diva, Tamir Gizaw. I was at a loss for words — overwhelmed by the privilege of standing among these musical greats. It felt like walking down a hall of fame.

Jorga and Jimmy rose to the occasion, joined by bassist Kiya and drummer Dawit Adera, both members of the ASL Band, known for their Thursday performances at the African Jazz Club.

Always mindful of nurturing young talent, Jimmy had assembled a group of emerging singers, forming what he called the “Torch Bearers.” Together, they performed several of Bob Marley’s iconic songs, electrifying the atmosphere and lifting the spirits of everyone present.

Even Mulatu, Tilaye, Zeleke, and Tamir were visibly delighted, nodding and smiling in appreciation. Indeed, Jimmy’s vision of passing the torch to a new generation of musicians seemed already to be bearing fruit.

Jimmy Malcolm’s joy was complete when he visited the Matiwos Wendu Cancer Care Center in Hayahulet, finally getting to spend meaningful time with the children — offering them hope and faith drawn from his own firsthand experience as a cancer survivor. Grateful for the second chance at life after years of struggle, Jimmy found new purpose in using his story and his art to inspire others. Following his participation in the cancer fundraiser, his collaboration with the Matiwos Wendu Foundation, and his mentorship of young aspiring musicians, Jimmy embarked on an ambitious new project: releasing an album with his musical troupe.

The album, he explained, will feature both young musicians and children affected by cancer — a heartfelt collaboration intended to blend creativity with compassion. It is envisioned not only as a labor of love, but also as a work for a noble cause — a musical tribute to survival, solidarity, and hope.

About a month after the New Year celebration, I thought to inquire about Farouk, the young boy I had visited at Black Lion Hospital’s oncology ward. The news of his passing a few weeks later devastated me. I was overcome with grief, helplessness, and indescribable sadness at the thought of a child’s life stolen by such a cruel and silent adversary.

In that moment, I began to understand the anguish that must have gripped Wendu when he lost his four-year-old son to cancer more than two decades ago — and the profound motivation that drove him to establish the foundation in his son’s name. His vision has since touched the lives of over three thousand children, offering care, treatment, and the chance to live.

It also gave me a deeper understanding of Jimmy’s own drive — to record his upcoming album not merely as a personal triumph, but as an expression of gratitude for survival and a commitment to be a voice for the millions who continue to suffer in silence.

Cancer is real. It is prevalent, indiscriminate, and closer than many realize — lurking in every community, household, and neighborhood, striking without warning. Beyond the emotional toll, patients and families face overwhelming treatment costs, high mortality rates, and a troubling lack of public attention to this growing crisis.

According to a February 2025 World Health Organization report, cancer remains one of the leading causes of death worldwide, responsible for nearly 10 million deaths in 2020 — roughly one in six of all global deaths. Its many forms make it deceptively complex, often hiding behind symptoms mistaken for lesser ailments. Yet it continues to claim more lives than any other disease that could be mitigated through early detection, awareness, and sustained care.

Cancer is not a distant problem. It is here, among us — and it demands far greater attention, compassion, and collective action.

(Bereket Balcha holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Addis Ababa University (AAU) and a Diploma in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management from Addis Ababa Commercial College/AAU. His extensive professional background encompasses decades of experience in the aviation industry in diverse roles, complemented by a two-year engagement at the Ethiopia Insurance Corporation. He can be reached at Bbalcha5@yahoo.com)

 Contributed by Bereket Balcha

That Monday evening, I was “a man,” apprehended flagrante delicto, stepping off the path, only to be clapped back by a park guard—a miraculous and annoying apparition of petty authority. He popped off and rained down a hail of words—a shower of administrative fury that, in a sudden, cringe-worthy pivot of bathos, turned into praise and a wish for a hell of long years of healthy longevity. The descent from bureaucratic threat to ridiculous blessing was swift.

My crime? Picking up a plastic water bottle. That’s it. My act of being “a man” was an immediate response to a demand I couldn’t ignore, a real-world application of the hygiene factor theory from my college notes: leave the small negative thing unattended, and it leaves a mold in the mind that leads to a pile of regrets. This is why I live by my seconds-long appraisal. My metric isn’t a rating; it’s muttering: Did I act with a second thought? That is my wit, my defense against the inevitable howl of regret.

I’m low-key about demystifying status, choosing to look like cabbages—unassuming, essential—while doing the necessary work with hand tools, mops, and brooms. I’m no snazzy foppish figure, but I leave indelible marks. My “last feat”—tackling the three horrific garbage hot spots—was a hammer and tongs effort, a small-scale revolution against the mélange of collective carelessness. While everyone engaged in empty talk about the big road project, I acted, knowing the Spanish proverb was right: by the street of by-and-by one arrives at the house of never. I was the hogwash village idiot, the Boris Pasternak who survives by ignoring the general’s rules, proving that the new order of the words is Done easier than said. I used my own money, hired two youngsters, and turned my house into a temporary dumpster to break the cycle. This mystery is a testament to the demand for individual action.

The word “demand” itself became my lightning rod. My lifelong anxiety (inquietude), stemming from joining my batch late and perpetually playing catch-up, was a lack of self-imposed demand. Then came, the instructor, a human embodiment of demand. He was caviar to the general because his rigor, which felt like a slap in the face to our sorry state of English skills, defied the law of diminishing returns. His classes, though remedial, were highly coveted and repeated. He was the antithesis of the wann feeling that comes from low effort.

My final year papers were the perfect illustration of this struggle. The first was soft pathos (Greek: suffering, evoking pity). The second was bathos, trying to graft Perestroika and voodoo economics onto a furniture cooperative report. I struggled with my verbose language, but the upshot (the final shot in an archery contest, the result) was that the sheer struggle for content met the instructor’s demand, earning me a rare flash of a smile.

My friend’s performance appraisal topic led to a near fist fight over uncitable content. The key takeaway, the lesson I internalized, was that the supervisor should have been appraised on the performance of the least effective supervisee. Appraisal must be proactive and open.

The company I worked for lately was the institutional failure of this concept. The annual, emotionally charged appraisal, tied to salary, was a sick joke, a burlesque where scores were always 4.9-5 out of five. Ideas were mocked as a token for the exit door. Managers didn’t grasp that improvements needed a quick tete-a-tete, not an annual formality. It was a place where component parts consumption was the main business, a standup comedy company where demagogues could take a country to its doom through systemic mediocrity.

This history explains why my seconds-long appraisal is constant. The formal systems are incapable of correcting mistakes in real-time. The story of Roy Riegels running the wrong way in the Rose Bowl or Douglas “Wrong-Way” Corrigan flying toward Ireland is proof: a wrong direction must be corrected in the moment. You must appraise and fix immediately. The problem wasn’t Riegels; it was the teammate who didn’t correct him sooner, allowing the minor error to become the margin of defeat.

My employment history—my overall appraisal of my employers—is a list of failures to act.

My first government enterprise was so corrupt that appraisal was alien. Its only virtue was in the incomplete environments—the negative space where unofficial, real work could occur. Proving worth meant signing preprepared formats for purchases, wasting a dear workforce on the optics of effort.

My second government institution was a different flavor of chaotic. The workforce was barely reading and writing, forcing a cringe-worthy performance where one had to appear competent. The tragedy was using these workers to sign documents they couldn’t read, signing their names to the great, collective lie. The expat project manager, whose only honest communication was a seal engraved with “Bull Shit,” was the closest thing to an objective appraiser. The only truly valuable person was the Chinese-origin man hired as a CAD operator due to a legal loophole—the real engineer smuggled into the system.

My last employer, after a promising start, devolved into pure box-checking and worthless signature-putting. The environment became utterly vulgaire, fostering such waste that theft felt almost justified as a perverse form of economic utility.

The ultimate lesson, the one that took years to truly slip into focus, is that employment is reciprocal. Successful companies attract and maintain a hardcore—people committed to the demand of the work. My previous employers, instead, were happily awarding employment to girlfriends and third chance bonus life-wielding dotards who held the institution in a ransom-like chaos through destruction with their empty legacy. They were the anti-demand, the ultimate purveyors of bathos.

I have to be my own maintenance chief, running a day-by-day primer on my output, not waiting for the annual joke. I must be the “a man” who seizes the moment, acts on impulse, and accepts the ridiculous consequences without complaint. It’s the ultimate chiasmus—the demand for perfect internal and external alignment. I’m choosing to be the “a man” who takes the necessary step, even if it feels invita Minerva. I’m not doing it for the general; I’m doing it because the taste of self-correction is the only one I need to acquire. I’m low-key obsessed with ensuring my personal performance never devolves into a check box. That’s the only way to earn the giant leap—by making sure the one small step is actually worth a damn.

Contributed by Tadesse Tsegaye

Back in the early 1980s, one of our childhood rituals was visiting Gabriel Meda — a wide, makeshift football field, cycling track, and driving practice area near Bisrate Gabriel Church. There was a man named Chala who owned more than a dozen bicycles that he rented out to children. The fee was unbelievably cheap — about twenty-five cents — for a ride covering the entire field.

It took roughly twenty minutes to make one full round, much of it out of Chala’s line of sight. Several crossings led to nearby neighborhoods, but in those innocent times, even the most mischievous boys never thought of escaping with the bikes. Chala never seemed worried either; he was usually preoccupied with his motorbike or, later, his minibus taxi, which he drove from Bisrate Gabriel and Sar Bet through the Vatican Embassy area to Mexico Square.

How distant those carefree days seem now — and how nostalgic it feels to recall that what was once Gabriel Meda has become a concrete jungle. The smell of daisies, the gusting wind as our young feet pedaled Chala’s old but reliable bikes, and the exhilaration of roaming freely in the open all feel like a lost utopia.

I remember Chala’s gray hair, his piercing blue eyes, and his fatherly kindness tempered by firm authority — almost like a surrogate father. The field was alive with the sounds of children and youth at play. A football might roll into a cyclist’s path. Driving lessons in the legendary Fiat 500 — the “Baby Fiat” — and Volkswagen Beetles crisscrossed with football and cycling activities. It was not uncommon to see runners and gymnasts practicing amid the colorful microcosm of 1980s Addis, where open space, natural climate, and a spirit of friendship reigned supreme.

Materialism, globalization, and the anonymity of urban life were notions still unknown. People regarded each other as family, and the city’s psyche was more or less homogeneous. Migration was almost nonexistent.

Cycling remained a favorite pastime when I moved on to Black Lion High School, where we rented bikes to ride around the field next to the Victory Monument near the post office. I remember weaving through the less convenient asphalt tarmac, sharing space with taxis, pedestrians, and parked cars. A better spot was the Addis Ababa Stadium biking field, which, like Gabriel Meda, also doubled as a driving school area.

The last time I rode a bicycle was in Dire Dawa, where I rented one and traversed the town from end to end. I started near the Coca-Cola depot by Dechatu, pedaled past Ras Hotel under the cooling shade of Kezira — the neighborhood immortalized in countless romantic ballads. Dire Dawa remains a bike-friendly town, with its flat terrain, clean streets, and moderate traffic.

When I rode that August day nearly 30 years ago, I didn’t realize it would be decades before I got on a bike again. Addis Ababa, by contrast, has never been bike-friendly. Its hectic traffic, steep terrain, and congested, often unclean streets — crowded with unregulated parking, pedestrians, and vendors — have long made it inhospitable to cyclists. It’s no surprise, then, that biking has neither been a practical nor a popular leisure activity in the capital for decades.

Having long abandoned my gym routine, paused my Zumba class after our instructor traveled to his ancestral Armenia, and found the rainy season unsuitable for horse riding, my life had become largely devoid of physical activity — leading to gradual weight gain and dwindling fitness.

So when I spotted a few bicycles for sale at Lomyad Supermarket in Ayat, my imagination ran wild. I began picturing the benefits of cycling — fitness, fun, and a better quality of life. Yet I hesitated. The bikes on display seemed too small for adults. I faced a similar dilemma when I checked All Mart Supermarket in Jemo, leaving again uncertain.

On one of my return visits to Lomyad, however, a gentleman offered me a useful piece of advice: “You should check Piassa, at Atikilt Tera. There are many vendors with all kinds of bikes there.” It was a suggestion that would prove both timely and transformative — and though I wouldn’t recognize that man if we met again, I remain deeply grateful for his kindness.

That weekend, I drove up Churchill Road, past Tewodros Square, turned toward Cathedral School, and passed the Pushkin Center before reaching Atikilt Tera. I parked my car near Piassa, across from the iconic Noor Mosque, and couldn’t resist taking a photo of the minarets rising gracefully behind the historic Arada buildings.

From there, I walked into the alley lined with bicycles of every kind — new and used, modern and classic. My attention was immediately captured by a foldable Dinos bike that could fit neatly into a car trunk. The idea of being able to carry my bike anywhere, park conveniently, ride freely, and return to my car at will was irresistible.

Negotiating the price, however, proved tricky. The vendor had the only foldable model, and several other customers were already inquiring about it. I thought about it for a few days, wavered a bit, and finally gave in to the irresistible urge to make that beautiful bike mine. By the time I placed a down payment it was nearly sold, but I persuaded the young vendor to hold it for me. After a small discount and the final payment, I loaded my new treasure into the car.

It took some maneuvering — folding down the back seats to make extra space — but when I saw the bike again at home, I knew I had struck a good deal. Friends and bike renters around Meskel Square confirmed as much, praising my choice. A quick online search revealed that Dinos, an Italian manufacturer, has been making bicycles for more than 125 years — a reassuring mark of quality.

Then came the real test: Could I still ride a bike after 29 years?

The moment of truth arrived as I climbed onto the seat — 29 years older and 30 kilos heavier. My first attempt was a disaster. I couldn’t balance, my coordination was gone, and my fitness was clearly not what it used to be. I realized I would need some instruction to get back on track.

I turned to YouTube tutorials, which offered modest guidance but no breakthrough. Determined, I drove to a new sports arena near Summit, only to find my efforts there equally frustrating. Finally, I decided to head to Meskel Square, where experienced cyclists and instructors gather in large numbers.

I parked my car at La Pâtisserie Café and crossed over to the Meskel Square biking arena. As soon as I arrived, I paid the 20 birr entrance fee and approached the bike owners for a lesson. But all of them refused, explaining that they could only train people using their own bikes — of which they had plenty for rent. I quickly realized they weren’t eager to help someone who had brought his own. Even my offers to pay for instruction on my own bike were politely declined.

I found myself standing in the vast expanse of Meskel Square, staring at my new bicycle and confronting the unsettling reality that I was on my own. So I decided to rely on the YouTube tips I had watched earlier and gave it a try. And then — alas, and eureka! — after a few awkward, wobbly attempts, it all came rushing back.

As I pedaled across the square, zigzagging between dozens of other cyclists, Celine Dion’s words echoed in my mind: “It’s all coming back to me now.” I realized it wasn’t my weight, lack of fitness, or lost skill that had held me back — it was my own mind. The refusal of the bike owners turned out to be a blessing in disguise, igniting a small spark of indignation that pushed me to reclaim a skill that had never truly left me.

It made me wonder how many things in life pass us by because we are trapped by fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Bob Marley’s words never felt more true: “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; none but ourselves can free our minds.”

As I rode lap after lap, the wind rushing across my face and chest, the memories of Gabriel Meda, Kezira, Black Lion, and the Addis Ababa Stadium all came flooding back. It felt like reliving a long-forgotten dream in real time.

I returned the next day and repeated the exercise, growing increasingly confident that my riding instincts had fully returned. My next goal is to brave the newly built cycling lanes along Addis Ababa’s corridor project.

Riding safely within the spacious Meskel Square arena is one thing; navigating the city’s bike lanes — amid pedestrians, motorists, and fellow cyclists — will be another challenge entirely.

Before I knew it, I had developed a deep interest in watching the growing biking culture in Addis — and what an eye-opener it has been. To my surprise, the cityscape has transformed beyond recognition. I began noticing a steady flow of cyclists using the newly built bike lanes along the corridor project — a phenomenon that would have been unthinkable not long ago.

One Sunday evening, I was dining with my youngest brother and his family at Hiber Ethiopia restaurant, seated by a large glass window overlooking Bole Road. I was mesmerized by the scene below. Under the bright, modern lights of the corridor, a steady stream of cyclists, scooter riders, and roller skaters glided along the clean, well-marked bike lanes. It seemed as if, almost overnight, a new urban culture had taken root — one that celebrates movement, health, and recreation in equal measure.

On another occasion, I saw an elderly expatriate cruising on his scooter near midnight, a headlamp strapped to his forehead, even though the streetlights already provided more than enough illumination.

The sight brought back a vivid memory from 15 years ago in Frankfurt, Germany, when I accidentally wandered into a cycling lane. A biker sped past me so fast I could feel the gust of air as he brushed by within inches. I was stunned, and only then did I notice that the road was clearly divided — one side for pedestrians, the other for cyclists. At the time, I couldn’t imagine Addis Ababa ever having such orderly, well-maintained lanes.

Yet here we are.

Just as I once doubted my ability to ride a bike again, I had underestimated my city’s ability to transform. Addis has proven both assumptions wrong. Today, the capital proudly boasts beautifully designed cycling lanes — a sign not only of modernization but also of a changing mindset. It shows how much can be achieved when we push past our psychological limits and refuse to settle for less than what’s possible.

Indeed, Addis Ababa has, almost overnight, become one of the most bike-friendly cities in the region. I now look forward to the coming weekends — and any spare hour I can find — to acclimate myself to this new urban rhythm and join the growing community of cyclists reclaiming the city’s streets.

A friend of mine, a professional biker, reminded me that helmets and protective pads for the knees and elbows are essential safety gear for city riding — advice I intend to take seriously. After all, rediscovering freedom on two wheels is one thing; keeping it safe and sustainable is another.

Contributed by Bereket Balcha

My route took me up the steep climb toward the iconic Sarbet and onward to the Vatican Embassy. Ironically, the “Key Afer Meda”—a red clay field in the gorge overlooking Sarbet—later became my parish grounds, as I occasionally attended Sunday sermons at the International Evangelical Church there.

Sometimes, Binyam and I would linger at Key Afer Meda, where children and teenagers from the Sarbet, AU, and Lideta neighborhoods gathered to play football. Watching those competitive matches was a feast for our eyes and gave us more moments together as friends. The field was sometimes graced by the most unexpected of guests, drawing steady crowds. His unannounced arrival felt like the surprise cameo of a celebrity on a popular sitcom—much like Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, or Bruce Willis appearing in my all-time favorite series, F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

The celebrity in question was none other than the legendary Ethiopian national team and St. George Football Club captain and hero, Mulugeta Kebede. I remember him vividly—dressed in a light waterproof hoodie, football shorts, and boots, wearing his trademark humble smile. The crowd followed his every move, holding their breath to see what stunt he might pull. Yet, instead of showing off, Mulugeta often chose to highlight the young talents on the field, training and playing alongside them. It was a gentlemanly gesture, one befitting a hall-of-famer.

To be honest, everyone on that field was simply mesmerized—flabbergasted, even—by the mere presence of such a hero in a neighborhood sporting arena. From time to time, someone would shout “Mule!” or “Enewdehalen! (We love you!)” to which he would respond with a modest smile, tiny beads of sweat forming on his brow, and a vein throbbing on his forehead as he kept on playing.

Mulugeta Kebede emerged on the footballing scene in the early 1980s as a midfielder for St. George Football Club—then called Addis Brewery, the precursor of today’s St. George Brewery. St. George is arguably the oldest and most celebrated football club in Ethiopia, founded in 1935 at the onset of the Italian occupation. Its hall of fame includes towering figures such as Yidnekachew Tessema, Mengistu Worku, Fisseha Woldeamanuel, and Shewangizaw Agonafir, to name just a few.

Mulugeta’s club career reached its pinnacle when he became a key member of the Ethiopian National Team that clinched the CECAFA Championship in December 1987. The tournament’s dramatic twists and turns—nail-biting matches, tense runners-up, and its melodramatic culmination with Ethiopia at the helm—were nothing short of the stuff of dreams. That dream team, featuring the likes of Mulugeta Kebede, Mulugeta Woldeyes, Gebremedhin Haile, Dagnachew Demissie, Mulualem Ejigu, Tekabe Zewdie, and Eritrean stars such as Negash Tehlit and Amanuel Iyasu, was a star-studded lineup of rare pedigree. The only Ethiopian side comparable in stature remains the equally historic squad that won the 1962 African Cup of Nations.

The events of the 1987 CECAFA tournament remain etched in my childhood memory. The team stormed through the qualifiers, scoring goal after goal, delivering drama after drama, and filling the nation with jubilation. Mulugeta was the engine of the side—both a scorer and a playmaker. His decisive assists and clinical goals paved the road to glory, leaving in the minds of fans a trail of beautiful strikes and a colorful style of football.

By the time the final arrived, anticipation was at fever pitch. The atmosphere was electrified as the nation looked to its heroes to deliver the long-coveted trophy. But the final against Zimbabwe began with a disappointing tempo. Ethiopia failed to dominate, showing little of the tenacity that had carried them so far. When Zimbabwe scored first, tension gripped the stadium. Minutes ticked away, and with the deadlock unbroken deep into the last quarter, the dream seemed to be slipping away. The team appeared destined to settle for second place, the vision unfulfilled, as the dying minutes showed no sign of promise.

It wasn’t until the dying moments that salvation arrived. A clinical cross from the right flank, delivered by Mulualem Ejigu, was met by an astonishing leap of faith. Rising high above the defense, Gebremedhin Haile powered a header from over 12 meters out, a bullet of a strike by any standard. The ball tore into the net, sending the anxious crowd into a rapturous frenzy. The equalizer, scored in injury time, forced the game into extra time and then penalties—no less dramatic in their unfolding.

In the shootout, it was goalkeeper Tekabe Zewdie who became the unlikely hero. His string of extraordinary saves set the stage for the final moment. When Dagnachew Demissie stepped up and hammered home the decisive penalty, the stadium erupted into absolute pandemonium. Fans flooded the field, and police had no hope—or perhaps no will—of containing the tide. The euphoria spilled beyond the stadium. I remember leaping out of my parents’ compound, running through the neighborhood, jumping, hugging, even kissing strangers in the sheer joy of victory.

The triumph didn’t end on the pitch. The victorious team paraded through downtown Addis Ababa before being summoned to the palace, led by none other than the intelligent and streetwise Mulugeta Kebede. Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam, then head of state, held a particular admiration for Mulugeta. When asked what he wished for, the shrewd midfielder requested residential plots for the players. Mengistu immediately authorized his request, granting each member of the squad a plot of land, along with a monetary reward of 5,000 birr—equivalent to roughly USD 5,000 today. To crown it all, the team received the coveted NEC television sets of the era, with an additional VCR awarded to goalkeeper Tekabe Zewdie in recognition of his heroic penalty saves.

Rumor has it that Tekabe’s home in Dire Dawa became the center of a spontaneous festival. Residents poured into his compound, dancing and celebrating until dawn, while his family stayed awake the entire night basking in the community’s joy.

Mulugeta’s leadership extended well beyond the national team. With St. George, he added trophy after trophy, winning the adoration of fans and cementing his place as a hall of famer. His glory was matched by his charisma. Universally regarded as a people’s person, he was showered with compliments, gifts, and affection wherever he went. Those who knew him closely recall his wit, mischievous pranks, and spirited conversations.

Urban legend has it that Mulugeta could walk into Africa’s oldest and busiest marketplace, Merkato, empty-handed, and leave fully dressed in suits, sportswear, and shoes gifted by merchants eager to clothe their hero. At first I dismissed the tale as mere fan exaggeration—until I heard Mulugeta himself nostalgically confirm it in one of his rare interviews.

His fame also led to moments of comic misunderstanding. On one occasion, he was mistaken for a thief. In one memorable incident, he was taken to a police station after being accused of stealing money from a passenger on a long-distance bus. Ironically, the very men who accused him had spent the previous night celebrating his goals with whiskey toasts. Once his identity was revealed at the station, their bravado collapsed. One even fell to his knees, begging forgiveness, confessing that he had been shouting “Mule! Mule!” all night in celebration.

I remember a St. George employee’s bus driver from our neighborhood during my childhood who once took us to a match in the thick of St. George fans at Katanga, in Addis Ababa Stadium. The game was a final—St. George facing off against the legendary Ethiopian Coffee Club. After a convincing victory and a trophy celebration, our bus headed to the St. George Brewery Club near Lideta, where the night unfolded in singing, dancing, and unrestrained jubilation.

Entry was limited to those with club membership or those who had arrived on a St. George bus, but once inside, no one paid for a drink. Bottle after bottle of St. George beer seemed to flow endlessly. I still recall one fan, draped in the yellow St. George flag with its iconic red “V,” soaking himself from head to toe in beer. It was no surprise—most were already tipsy or outright intoxicated.

Yet amid the chaos, the same names rose again and again in song: Mulugeta Kebede, Gebremedhin Haile, Solomon Luche, Solomon Cherke, and others. Of them all, it was “Mule” who was invoked most often—and rightly so. His magnetic character, sheer genius, resourcefulness, valor, and passion, both on and off the field, left an indelible mark.

A word of salute—and rest in peace—to the one and only, Mulugeta Kebede.

(Bereket Balcha holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Addis Ababa University (AAU) and a Diploma in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management from Addis Ababa Commercial College/AAU. His extensive professional background encompasses decades of experience in the aviation industry in diverse roles, complemented by a two-year engagement at the Ethiopia Insurance Corporation. He can be reached at Bbalcha5@yahoo.com)

 Contributed by Bereket Balcha

My rot started sophomore year. A real “ripe and ripe” moment—except it ended in decay. I showed up late to a class, which was already an L. To catch up, I had to borrow notes from my Boswell, who had dutifully recorded the lecturer’s words and deeds. It was a whole feeling—me and this stack of pages, my entire academic future hanging by a thread. The silence of the night, the distant city’s faint clangor, and the slow, terrible realization: I was utterly alone in this self-inflicted in-camera deliberation.

Then the word appeared. Again and again. A relentless, omnipresent figure in the margins of economic thought. “Ceteris Paribus.“

So there I was, a sophomore in econ class that was, let’s just say, a bit of a vibe check. I rolled in late, as is tradition, and was drowning in a sea of notes from some over-achieving classmates. They were pristine, perfectly organized, and honestly, kinda sus. But then I saw it—this character, this absolute main character: Ceteris Paribus.

And I was sure it was a “he.” Kept popping up. “Assuming Ceteris Paribus, the demand curve will shift right.” “If Ceteris Paribus holds, then we can expect…” This dude was the backbone of the whole course! The silent partner, the puppet master. I imagined him as some ghost in the machine—a shadow figure in a tweed jacket, whispering assumptions into the lecturer’s ear.

‘Who’s Ceteris Paribus?’ I asked my study group. They looked at me, bewildered, as if I’d asked about the color of a sound. It was then, in that moment of collective silence, that the truth dawned on me. Ceteris Paribus wasn’t a person. He wasn’t a shadowy figure, not a silent partner, not even a cool dude with a tweed jacket. Ceteris Paribus was just… a concept. A Latin phrase meaning ‘all other things being equal.’ It was a bit of a letdown, to be honest

 The world, it seems, is full of people who aren’t really people, and assumptions that are just… assumptions. There’s nothing to be done about it. You go on.

I am not lying when I tell you, my mind was convinced it was a person. A name. Like “John Smith” or “Aristotle.” I saw him as some kind of silent, economic guru, a torpid deity whose assumptions were so fundamental they were simply referred to by his name. A pococurante master of the universe who, for some reason, just lived in these notes, haunting me. Every time the phrase came up, I pictured a guy in a tweed jacket, just chilling, his existence a cruel punchline. You know the type: the middle-aged, middle-class guy trapped by the success of publishing one novel twenty years ago, his fate now merely the footnote of academic meetings. This supposed Ceteris Paribus was that guy, only his novel was the entire economic canon.

This absurd belief quickly morphed into a prosopography on a micro scale, an attempt to build a collective biography of an entire field of thought around a single, nonexistent figure. It was an act of faith, a hagiography, perhaps, a worshipful, but ultimately flawed, portrait. My whole academic life was on the line. I was trying to solve a mystery that was a figment of my own frantic imagination. The entire thing felt like a timocracy, a system where only those with the inherited or innate property of knowing the unwritten rules could pass. And I, a hopeful idiot, had just made up a new rule.

And then the test came. The final battle. I was putting my faith in this Ceteris Paribus, this non-person, and his apathetic, unfeeling rules. The whole situation was absurd. It was absurdist bleak, a play where nothing happens because I’d created my own tragicomedy with a character who didn’t exist. I was trapped by my own success in overthinking, convinced I had found the hidden truth when all I had was a Latin phrase.

And so, from hour to hour, I prepped and prepped. And then, from hour to hour, I got it all wrong. Thereby hangs a tale of the biggest L of my academic career, all because I thought a phrase was a dude. The simple truth is never simple, and language is a snare.

It all came back in a flash, that day in college. A torrential rain locked us in the lecture hall, and our Geography lecturer, Fekade Shewakena, was just… a whole different mood. Unlike the Kozlov-Afanasieve wielding terror of our other classes, he came with a smile, a real one. The dim ambience of that normally light-friendly architectural marvel felt like a setting from a bleak play, but he lit it up with a story.

He hit us with a question that, for our generation, was never a question: “What about the population increase in Ethiopia?” Nobody had the answer, so a wild guess floated from the crowd. A culprit was apprehended: “Electricity.” The room erupted. Laughter was missing from our curriculum, and it felt like a collective release. But for me, it was chilling. It was my red pill moment. A wake-up call that research, that life itself, was out there to improve with every single encounter.

Later, when I first heard the expression “the bigger picture,” I low-key wanted to claim it. I used to call it “looking from above down.” This drive for finished courses and application-prone teachings may have cost me on some simple exams, but it paid off where it mattered. It turned every encounter, every meeting, into an opportunity to learn. This willingness to look “from above down” would become my only defense against the looming stupidity of the working world.

The “ceteris paribus” debacle had a sequel, a relentless second act in the theater of the absurd. I was stuck with other courses—group dynamics, cognitive dissonance, change management—all supposedly easily rote-learned, a continuation of Paribus’s reign. This whole mess was facilitated by a short, wiry Indian lecturer whose classroom was disastrously sucking.

As I struggled, still clinging to the childhood dream of joining the naval or Police College, her essence became a centrifugal and centripetal force that simultaneously pulled me to and pushed me away from college. She was so belittling, her classroom a hypnotizing nagging that reminded me of time wasted in vain. Yet, she was also utterly pitiless in bulldozing what was adrift.

The irony was not lost on my cynical, overthinking brain. She was beautiful. Her name was Meera, which means “ocean” or “peace.” Her classroom was a real contradiction, and a mood. Her essence, lightyears away from our few years in college, was a living paradox: a beautiful bully whose very name promised serenity but delivered only chaos.

It was only in my third year I was a bit reassured. Asmelash Beyene (PhD), with his extreme sophistication, was a different feeling entirely. He’d tell these surreal stories from his junior years as an acting Head of the Department of the Awrajas Administration of The Ministry of Interior just after the eruption of the revolution. There was the meeting that took place in Bedilu Hintsa, with Professor Mesfin and some young Derg officials trying to redraw regional boundaries. Professor Mesfin was having none of it, citing that the land with its mountains and rivers wasn’t just a table they could round. It was all so wonderfully, practically absurd.

Then there was the other story, where he predicted Zambia’s collapse, as beer became the nation’s primary obsession—a kind of perverse nationalistic fervor that he called “unbridled Zambianization” that ignored competence. He told us how the country’s quacha, once equal to the sterling pound, plummeted into ruin. An economic lesson that completely trashed any “ceteris paribus” assumptions or simply the reality of how things should work.

It’s just like him, I had all the respect. And that terrible Indian, Meera, too. Along with other brilliant professors—Ayele, Aklilu, Miheret, Tegegne, Mekbib, Karinga, and Teshome—all PhDs, all our guides. They helped us traverse the gap between academic theory and the messy, contradictory equivalent of realism from the arts. If it was not for them, and the repeatedly notorious bosses I had in my working life, who epitomized that growing up is optional, I could not have come so far. They were my survival manual.

The commute, or whatever you want to call it, to Lideta Mariam when I was a kid? Low-key, it was a whole mood. Not the destination, which was fine, but the atmosphere on the way. It was all about this one house—you know, the main character of the block—whose view was forever garnished with the taste of that sticky, fragrant vine resin my mother would snag for me from the roadside OG sellers. That taste? That view? Still lives rent-free in my head.

Then, plot twist. I found out the house belonged to this absolute legend, a true pillar of society: Sinidu Gebru. She was everywhere the country needed her, doing the absolute most. Patriot, lyricist, the first woman parliamentarian, human rights champ, diplomat—the whole glow-up.

But the real tea was her time as an MP. This wasn’t some quiet background character; she was Slay-nidu Gebru. Her points were so maverick, so iconic, that if you missed a session, the first question anyone would ask was, ‘Wait, what did she say today?’ She was the daily drop of drama, the essential feed.

I threw this whole assertion—her being the daily must-see—onto a history Facebook page, because why not? And then, boom. A comment. A reply. Not from some random, but from her own sister, Emahoy Tsige Mariam. Talk about getting the receipt. A total flex on my part, honestly. It just goes to show you: the background characters are often the most legendary. And the old stories? Still fire.

Look, this all came from a walk that went astray after an idea I thought was worth the page disappeared without a hint. Anyway, here we are. Something is better than nothing. The idea just got lost, maybe because I was fuming that all the “ceteris paribus” were nothing other than their creators and the struggle they had envisaging them.

It’s giving the same feeling as back in AAU. There was always a special consideration for academic staff noted for research. I was told of people who walked in Eshetu Chole and Desalegne Rahmeto. You lament the previous’s languishing in jail with talks of never being able to meet the demand to satisfy his reading appetite. The latter’s bold recommendation on “food for work” to “money for work”—as “food for work” stifled agricultural activities—dug deep into our relevance to society. This is what led me to dedicate myself as a permanent experimentor of variance analysis from “ceteris paribus.” The real-world stakes were so high, and the theories were just… words.

That same feeling of futility seeped into the working world. The first government enterprise I ever clocked into? No hustle, just shelves of management manuals gathering dust. We symbolically jailed Mr. Ceteris Paribus—locked him up like some myth. My bosses, from the first to the last, all shared this unhinged smile—one so wild I’d swear it bordered on insanity. It was a grin that fueled the wasting of mad human and material resources, like some sick joke.

Meetings significantly influence the overall atmosphere. In my previous role, they often lacked a focus on idea generation. They were about roasting gaffers in front of the second, third, or even fourth string. There was this farcical succession plan called “air planes abc,” where a sales floor attendant somehow ended up as GM. The only requirement? A portrait for the license. Grand gatherings weren’t for business—they were for family weddings and birthdays. That’s the rot Shakespeare warned us about, and trust me, it had to be called out.

I never missed a meeting. My college lecturers drilled into me a lifelong obsession with variance analysis. That’s why the Addis Ababa rivers project, while pretty, doesn’t hit the same. It needs a new word—something to describe the atmosphere . It’s giving me flashbacks to my time in the water sector.

One rare meeting on groundwater development, I raised the issue of the catchment flow in the city. A colleague, in a moment of pure gold, said the water tasted “floody in Kiremet.” Absolute absurdity—just a perfect human data point. On a separate occasion, I was disparaged as a “fool” for raising concerns regarding an underground tunnel project, irrespective of its scale, internal dimensions, or resource requirements.

I came out alive—variance hunter. I flagged hundreds of millions in waste, prevented disasters, only to get pushed aside. My work was done. The rot had set in, but I, the eternal experimentor, had saved immense resources. The story of my life? Not just a footnote of a failed equation. And there, my friend, is the tale.

Contributed by Tadesse Tsegaye Engida 

The movie’s plot revolves around a witch named Gladys who casts a spell on society that drains their energy, turns them against each other, causes them to self-harm, and serves her evil and self-centered purposes. Gladys is immaculate, painstakingly crafty, and brutally efficient in her machinations, leaving no room for error or any would-be adversaries. Her ploys—mind control, black magic, sheer cruelty, and utter disregard for others’ well-being, lives, and aspirations—work without a hitch, like a Swiss watch. The victims of her incomprehensible, weird, and devilishly conceived plots become avatars of her nightmarish visions, turning the most noble of men, innocent children, and unassuming folk into agents who implement her wishes. They act as if her will is their command, whimsical objects at her beck and call, and dead set on the objectives she sets.

The movie I didn’t see much promise in suddenly became highly intriguing and piqued my imagination. Seeing innocent members of society turning against each other and harming themselves was truly appalling. She turned them into zombies who acted in a preprogrammed manner, pitiable for not using their own wisdom. In short, the masses had lost their minds and their way. Like a puppeteer controlling her subjects with strings behind a curtain, she successfully maneuvered her victims into doing any act she set her mind to—and they obliged.

Her treachery reached colossal proportions when she tricked an entire classroom of children into a basement of a home she had colonized by bewitching the adults in the house—a husband and wife. Their son had been spared the spell but lived in absolute horror as his mother and father sat motionless at the dining table, staring absentmindedly at each other and saying not a single word. Gladys threatened the son, Alex, not to utter a word about them to a living soul. She cast a minor spell to show him she meant business, causing his parents to self-inflict injury on their faces with a sharp object. His parents didn’t wince as they crisscrossed their faces with the knife, as if they were peeling potatoes. Alex felt powerless as his futile attempts to stop them failed. Within minutes, their faces were covered in grotesque scars and blood. The message was loud and clear—there would be repercussions if he dared speak out. So he obeyed and kept quiet. Alex was also coerced into luring his 17 classmates into Gladys’s trap, ushering them into the underground basement by collecting personal items that she used to tether them to their confinement.

I saw a striking parallel with the zeitgeist of our era, where we are mass-fed distortions of reality, engineered narratives, and induced to feel concocted threats and fears. A spirit of apathy seems to hang over the skies of our country, where people appear unwilling even to welcome positive developments. The nation’s optimistic and resilient spirit is being dampened by waves of negative news, fabricated perspectives, and a parallel universe of falsehoods.

It is deeply concerning that virtual media platforms—supposed to create healthy social interaction—are now the primary tools of sowing discord, mistrust, and animosity. What’s more alarming is that toxic fanfare and propaganda have found an audience: a public lured, entranced, and intoxicated by sensationalized versions of reality. We have reached a convoluted and fallacious version of reality, divorced from plain, crystal truth. People have become obsessed with a dose of illusion and twisted virtual narratives rather than what they see and experience firsthand. For some, seeing and believing what is at face value amounts to a denial of their established worldview. Even if they do not deny the truth, they reinterpret it through a fallacious lens to suit their prejudice.

I was reflecting with a friend about the public reception of the recent inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam—a colossal and historic achievement by any standard. The project was a labor of love, the sum total of aspirations from citizens of all walks of life. There isn’t a single religious, cultural, or political group from the broad and polarized spectrum of entities that didn’t lay a hand in building or breathing life into the project. With this in mind, one would expect thunderous applause and rejoicing when this thousand-year aspiration came to fruition. However, the prevailing lukewarm reception—and, in the worst cases, twisted interpretations and conspiracy theories blaring confusion and murky negativity—cast doubt on people’s perspectives. Indeed, the reluctance to fully appreciate the fulfillment of a grand, longstanding dream calls for serious soul-searching.

When Moses led his people through the Exodus to the Promised Land, wandering through the hostile desert for forty years, many lost hope, reset their priorities, and created a parallel universe that suited their imagination better. Sometimes the gravity of past experiences sows the seed of pessimism, doubt, and illusion, preventing us from recognizing when the real deal is in front of us. Nothing good ever happens for those who refrain from appreciation or gratitude when good things occur. There needs to be clarity of vision, firmness of objectivity, and a positive mindset to see things as they truly are. Optimism breeds more optimism and paves the way for navigating the future with hope.

I remember a veteran colleague who once made a witty remark during a contemporary’s funeral. He said, “The good days pass us by as we doggedly wish they happen in the future, but deep down, we are never ready nor willing to embrace them when they come.” From Mount Sinai to the Jordan River, the Israelites never relented in turning down blessing after blessing, obsessed with the epic addiction to complaint and brooding over trivial obsessions.

Just like Gladys’s toxic spell played tricks on the minds of her subjects, the relentless tide of social media disinformation and misinformation seems to have taken a heavy toll on the psyche of our society. Ironically, those who propagate negative mindsets, charter narratives of falsehood and irrational bigotry, and drain the life and energy out of the nation’s aspirations are, for the most part, epic idlers of the virtual realm—contributing little to nothing, if not a detrimental influence. In yet another striking resemblance to Gladys’s spell, their concoction of toxic narratives seems to hold sway and gain traction with unsuspecting masses. These narratives are not confined to the issue of GERD, which is just one example cited, but extend across a host of issues that touch the lives of our people. In a sour irony echoing the title of the movie “WEAPONS,” we should never underestimate the power of lies. As has now become vivid and widely acknowledged—even by its original proponents—the myth of “Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction” was simply false. One exasperated commentator quipped, with biting sarcasm, that “LIES were the true weapons of mass destruction.”

There’s a famous saying that has nearly become cliché, but I admire greatly and have adopted as my personal mantra: “Happiness is not by chance, but by choice.” Every morning, I try to make a conscious effort to be “alive and kicking”—starting my day with a refreshing cold shower, listening to select jazz pieces as I drive to work, enjoying whatever life offers within my means, and, most importantly, staying away from energy vampires who fixate on a pessimistic worldview. I try to maintain my mental sanity, free spirit, and love for life by avoiding toxic conversations in all forms—online, printed, audiovisual, or in person. I prefer to focus on what is positive, promising, emotionally rewarding, and ultimately promotes the well-being of those I interact with, including myself. I do this not because the world is perfect—nor is our country—but because I understand fully and consciously that no useful result comes from hate-mongering, pessimism, or ruminating on perceived ill fate.

I am only a year away from living on God’s green earth for half a century, and there has never been a time since my childhood when people didn’t lament their times, their fate, or others.

Towards the end of the movie, Gladys gets a taste of her own medicine as Alex finally gathers the courage to beat her at her own game. He casts a spell in the same fashion she did and unleashes a chain of events with unprecedented results. The 17 children she abducted storm out of captivity and chase her halfway around the town, eventually brutalizing and obliterating Gladys, the evil puppeteer. Others still under her spell keep fighting it out but eventually come to their senses as her poison wears off with the master conductor gone. An eerie silence, the lifting of the stormy cloud of falsehood, and the dawn of truth, hope, and promise gradually usher in a new day.

I sincerely hope the same will happen for our nation—may our own “Gladyses” wither and disappear beyond the horizon, their pessimistic chatter drowned by voices of hope, faith, and encouragement. In this world, absolute evil and absolute bliss occur every moment in time. Optimism and a positive attitude do not mean everything is perfect. In fact, far from it. They must be cherished, embraced, and celebrated in spite of whatever goes wrong.

Bereket Balcha holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Social Anthropology from Addis Ababa University (AAU) and a Diploma in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management from Addis Ababa Commercial College/AAU. His extensive professional background encompasses decades of experience in the aviation industry in diverse roles, complemented by a two-year engagement at the Ethiopia Insurance Corporation. He can be reached at Bbalcha5@yahoo.com)

Contributed by Bereket Balcha