By Adera Kinijit

I came to the USA from Ethiopia two months ago on a business trip. Since I am an active member of Kinijit back home I decided to pay a visit to our office in Washington DC a few days later. By an unfortunate circumstance the Kinijit office in DC is the temporary headquarters of Kinijit and its officials are the de facto leaders of the party. So I had a lot of expectation. However, when I arrived at the office I was taken aback by what I saw–there is no sign indicating that it is a Kinijit office, there is no Ethiopian flag, the building is too dirty, trash all over the place, the chairs and tables look like they are picked up from a garbage dump… In short, the place looks terrible. This is an organization the people of Ethiopia elected to lead them for the next five years. Why did its representatives in the world’s most important city (Washington DC), occupy such a rundown, dilapidated office space? What would American and other officials think of our party when they come to visit our office? The officials cannot argue that they don’t have the money, because Ethiopians in Washington DC have been incredibly generous in supporting Kinijit. If they don’t want to ask the people money for a better office, since about half of the Kinijit officials in DC are millionaires, why don’t they pitch-in a couple of hundred dollars every month, rent a better place, and hire an office cleaning company? I had been invited and went to the home of one of the Washington DC Kinijit officials. His house is bigger than the White House and the carpet is so clean I couldn’t get myself to walk on it. If he takes care of his house in such a way, why not pay attention to the people’s house (Kinijit office), too? Many of you who read this may ask why didn’t I mention my complaint to the officials. In fact I did more than once when I came here in January. Nothing changed!

Since I am working for an international organization I am using a pen name.