West Bethlehem, PA (mcall.com) — When he fled his native Ethiopia with images of dead bodies in the streets burned into his mind, Abraham Zegeye thought he’d never return.
But nearly 30 years later, the Lehigh Valley businessman has rekindled his connection to his homeland. He built a well two years ago to bring fresh water to farmers and cattle herders in his father’s native village. And his latest effort is to raise $80,000 to build a new school to replace the windowless stick-and-mud shack where about 150 children now learn.
”This country gave me a second chance to make something of myself,” Zegeye said, recalling how he was fortunate to find opportunity in America. ”A lot of people don’t get that second chanceÂ…Now it’s time for me to return and give something back. It’s about other people and how I can make their lives a little bit easier.”
Zegeye, who owns Abe’s Six Pack Shop in West Bethlehem, was raised in Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa. His father worked as a hospital administrator, so they had food and schooling and other comforts of city life, but civil war and strife ravaged his homeland.
He recalls going to the bus stop to find friends and neighbors dead in the streets. They were victims of the Derg regime that ruled the country in the 1970s and ’80s and abducted, imprisoned and executed those suspected of resistance. The dead were put on public display, with banners stating why they were killed to frighten the group’s opposition.
Like several of his siblings before him, Zegeye fled the country in 1982, at age 18, for the stability of the United States. He finished high school, attended college, became a businessman and had a family. Zegeye and his family members contributed $5,000 to build a well for the roughly 2,000 villagers. Clean water now flows from spigots atop concrete bases instead of bubbling up through a muddy ditch.
And now he wants to bring them a new schoolhouse to accommodate more children.
He will run a half-marathon in Philadelphia next month to raise money, and is seeking pledges as well.