By Claire Martin
Denver Post Staff Writer
05/30/2007

With one child dead and the other dependent on life support, Gezaee and Mulu Kahsay spent Tuesday shuttling in a daze of grief between the church and the hospital.

“The doctor told us there is nothing he can do,” said the children’s uncle, Johannes Haile. “We have asked them to give us until tomorrow. If some kind of miracle happens, that’s what his mother is thinking. Maybe his brain will wake up.

Ngiste Gebrezgi, left, a friend of the victims’ family, weeps as she walks to the home of Bethlehem and Yakob Kahsay, supported by one of Bethlehem’s classmates. Bethlehem’s drowning at Raintree East in Aurora hit the Ethiopian community hard. (Post / Lyn Alweis)

“Our Bethlehem,” he said, “she was so brave.”

Wrapped in white veils, wailing, grieving women from Denver’s Ethiopian community surrounded the parents and relatives of Bethlehem Kahsay, 16, who drowned Monday in an apparent attempt to save her 11-year-old brother as he struggled in a subdivision pool.

Dozens of people gathered at the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church near downtown Denver, trying to console the children’s father, Gezaee, and mother, Mulu.

Already the Kahsays are weighing the prospect of taking their daughter’s body back to Ethiopia for burial, but, as Haile observed, as refugees, “we don’t have a lot of financial resources.”

Bethlehem was wearing street clothes when her body was found Monday near her brother, Yakob, who was wearing swim trunks, leading to speculation she tried to save him.

Bethlehem and Yakob immigrated to the United States last fall, joining their father, who has lived in Colorado for 10 years, and their mother, who arrived here a little more than two years ago. Gezaee Kahsay works in United Airlines’ catering department. Mulu Kahsay works part time at a hair salon and as a cook, said Haile.

Bethlehem, a sophomore at Overland High School, was an exemplary student and a capable member of the girls soccer team, Haile said. While she loved American rock music, Bethlehem knew how to make excellent injera, the traditional Ethiopian flatbread, and other dishes, including the popular chicken stew, doro wat

Haile described Yakob as an energetic boy who loved splashing in the pool, less than a30-second walk from his parents’ town home in the Raintree East subdivision. He has a special knack for math – though his uncle also wryly recalled that Yakob needs reminders to finish his homework before turning on his favorite ninja cartoons.

The children attended the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church with their parents. Bethlehem showed a special interest in her faith. Hours before she drowned, she had talked to Haile on the phone, asking him to bring her a Bible in Amharic, Ethiopia’s official language, so she could study it more closely.

“The family has really been going to the church a lot, because that’s where the support system is for them,” explained Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center spokeswoman Angie Anania

Anania said she could not comment on Yakob’s prospects for recuperating. She also said the hospital had Yakob’s last name listed as Gezaee and police said that was also Bethlehem’s last name. Haile, however, said their last name was Kahsay.

“Obviously, our pediatric specialists are working with the family and doing whatever they possibly can for Yakob,” Anania said. “They’re focused now on what’s going to happen here in the next 24 hours.”

At the East Raintree complex, neighbors expressed dismay and sympathy for the family. Jesse Reggans Jr. described Beth lehem as a devoted big sister who often accompanied her brother on the short trek from their doorstep to the mailboxes that abut the pool area.
Several neighbors put arrangements of candles and flowers alongside the pool fence.

Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-954-1477 or [email protected].