Esubalew Ethan Johnston was born in Ethiopia and intentionally blinded as a child by men bent on using him as a beggar. He was ultimately adopted and now attends CU. (Hyoung Chang/ The Denver Post)
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By Kevin Simpson | The Denver Post
On a playground court, Esubalew “Ethan” Johnston cradles the basketball and begins a rhythmic, right-hand dribble.
He weaves the ball through his legs, darts forward, spins, drives left and pulls up to shoot — at a basket he cannot see.
In what passes for his field of vision, the white backboard casts a dull silhouette on a chalky sky. It is enough. With a flick of his wrists, the ball caroms off the board and through the net.
He wasn’t born blind. Esubalew (is-soo-BAH-low), now perhaps 22 by his own reckoning, navigates the few blocks from his Englewood home to the outdoor court with a white cane he leaves in the grass at one corner of the asphalt.
“My jump shot’s terrible,” he says. “But my inside game is good. If I could make a jump shot, I’d be the blind Kobe Bryant.”
He’s got the jersey — No. 24 in Los Angeles Lakers gold. And he shares one other trait with the NBA star.
“I feel like I’m living a millionaire’s life,” says Esubalew, who just finished his sophomore year at the University of Colorado. “I never thought I’d be here talking smack about the Lakers and playing basketball.
“I guess it worked out.”
Leaving home for a promised life
Esubalew was 5, maybe 6, when the men came. Age is an imprecise matter where he lived in Ethiopia.
He remembers certain things. The trees around his mother’s grass hut in the village of Inesa, the rainy season that sometimes made the hut collapse, the dry summers that scorched and cracked the earth so badly you could turn an ankle in the fissures.
He remembers tending a neighbor’s cattle in return for a large jug of milk. It was his way of contributing to the small household headed by his mother, Yitashu. He rarely saw his father.
And he remembers playing with his younger half sister, Etagegnehu, outside their hut one day, when two strangers asked his mother if she’d like her son to attend school in the capital city of Addis Ababa.
Wanting him to become something more than a poor farmer in the isolated village, she sent her son away with the men. They put him on a donkey, and that was the last she saw of Esubalew.
A few days later, they blinded him.
They told him to get ready for bed. Then three men held him down while another employed sticks and a caustic white extract from a tree. Blind children made the best beggars.
He was instructed to cling to a rail attached to local taxis and refuse to let go until passengers took pity and dug into their pockets. Sometimes the taxis simply took off, dragging him until he lost his grip.
On these days, his teenage overseers would tell the men that Esubalew hadn’t tried hard enough, and they whipped him with a switch.
“I thought it was my job for the rest of my life,” he says. “From daylight until dark, that was it — nothing else. It seemed like forever. But it was probably more like a year.”
Strangers come to the rescue
Then, while begging in a cafe, he met a couple who worked at a school for the blind. They inquired about his situation and eventually wrested him from his captors.
Fortune took odd forms. Esubalew contracted tuberculosis and had to be hospitalized. There, a doctor showed him to Cheryl Carter-Shotts, director of Indianapolis-based Americans for African Adoptions Inc. Her decades-long concern for children suffering on the continent has withstood controversy over international — and interracial — adoptions.
“Esubalew climbed into my heart a long time ago,” Carter-Shotts recalls, “and never left.”
In a country ravaged by civil war, she saw a blind child wearing nothing but a torn T-shirt and underpants. Esubalew had told his caregivers the name of his village, but no one had heard of it. Authorities never seriously pursued his case.
“It was wartime,” says Carter-Shotts, “and they were not going to focus on one lost child.”
She gave him a Matchbox car and promised to return for him. Months later, she did — and found him a foster home in Ethiopia until she placed him with a Missouri family who’d taken in special-needs children from all over the world.
“We thought a lot about adopting him,” recalls Kris Johnston, 56, from her house south of Columbia. “But I was scared to death. With a blind child, what would our life be like? We were going off a story and a gut feeling that we should do this.”
In October 1997, Esubalew — then approximately 10 — flew with other Ethiopian adoptees to Indianapolis. He stepped off the plane wearing an ivory tunic with embroidered trim.
“I was shaking, I was so afraid,” recalls Johnston, who met his plane. “But as soon as I saw his smile, I knew it would be OK.”
She nicknamed him Ethan, after the part Tom Cruise played in the movie “Mission Impossible.” Johnston thought the name exuded strength and character — and that it would help Esubalew’s transition to go by something easier to pronounce.
A view of contrasts in new home
His physical issues were obvious. One eye, Johnston recalls, was “horrifying to look at.” A specialist confirmed the extent of the damage and recommended a cornea transplant on his “good” eye to salvage even some semblance of sight.
When Johnston removed his bandages and asked if he could see anything, Esubalew replied: “Yes. You’re white.”
He describes it not so much as a shock as a revelation about the wider world, and the starting point for his understanding of race in America.
“It was just part of my education,” he recalls. “She said people will have issues because you’re black, or because you have white parents. I said, ‘Are you kidding?’ But she was right. There were some situations like that, and if I hadn’t been warned, I would’ve reacted instead of just letting it go.”
There would be several more cornea transplants as his body rejected the new tissue. Eventually, an artificial cornea produced the best results in his left eye. Months after his arrival, Esubalew’s right eye became so infected it had to be replaced with a prosthetic.
His vision yields little more than lights and darks and shades of color.
In his new home, he initially grew frustrated at his inability to express himself. English came slowly but ultimately supplanted his native language, Amharic.
He made friends easily, struggled academically through middle school but graduated high school with a B-plus average. Along the way, basketball caught his interest, starting with an NBA broadcast in which announcers hammered a new word into his developing vocabulary: “Shaq.”
Shaquille O’Neal’s Los Angeles Lakers became his team as they marched to league championships — though Kobe Bryant has replaced O’Neal as his personal favorite.
In sixth grade, a friend taught him to play, igniting a passion that he carries into adulthood. With practice, Esubalew learned to recognize the white lines on the court, use sound to judge the arrival of a bounce pass and shoot a passable percentage in loose pickup games.
Flourishing amid learning
Johnston, with architect husband Chuck, has reared 25 adopted children from all over the world — about one-third with some kind of physical disability — in the 4,000-square-foot home they built on 10 acres.
Esubalew stands out primarily for his perseverance.
“He’s not bitter,” Johnston says. “He has such a zest for life — just a real excitement for what’s coming around the corner, what next year will bring.”
When he turned 16, a high school counselor recommended he enroll in a summer program at the Colorado Center for the Blind, a Littleton-based school that teaches life skills.
Excited by his growing independence, he returned for a second summer, and then for a full-time program. Already in love with Colorado, he enrolled at CU-Boulder, with the help and encouragement of Eric Woods, an instructor at the center.
At first, he found himself falling behind in college classes — until he got his materials translated into Braille.
Although he has shifted his major from journalism to sociology, he remains fascinated by the possibility of becoming a sports-talk radio personality. But he realizes he must work harder.
“I’m way too laid back — like the Lakers with a big lead,” he laughs. “School’s tough. I need more discipline.”
Pickup basketball continues to be a big part of his life at CU. Also, he immerses himself in music. A few years ago, it was rap and hip-hop, which was an outlet for adolescent angst. More recently, he has embraced Ethiopian music.
“As I grew up, I saw life getting better and better,” he says. “I had to go back to my culture. Ethiopian music has a hip-hop beat, but the lyrics are kind of country — about family, how life is over there. It’s about appreciating life.”
Esubalew lives with Woods and his wife, Lori, while on breaks from CU. They speak of him proudly, like a son.
“He understands that something good has come of all this,” Eric Woods says. “Everybody’s got a tale to tell, and his is horrific. But he’s focused on the positive.”
Esubalew helps at the Center for the Blind when he can. He has taken a particular interest in another Ethiopian, a young man about his age, who also was blinded under circumstances similar to his own.
“I don’t think he knows how lucky he is, but as he learns English and the culture, he’ll understand,” Esubalew says. “We’re both lucky to be here in America with the opportunity to become somebody.”
Nervous about upcoming return
In about two weeks, Esubalew will walk into his native village for the first time in nearly 15 years. Karla Reerslev, an Oregon woman with two Ethiopian adoptees who lived in foster care with Esubalew, also runs a nonprofit that connects children there with American sponsors.
She used her connections overseas to track down his mother and arrange a reunion.
Esubalew’s initial excitement has become nervousness as he wonders how his mother will react. Does she feel guilt at letting the men take him away all those years ago? Will his return be cause for celebration?
He no longer speaks more than a few words of Amharic. But he hopes to convey that he understands her decision and that his life has turned out well — far better than he could imagine his lot in the village of Inesa.
“In a way, my mom’s dream came true,” Esubalew says. “So I think I won in the end.”
(Kevin Simpson: 303-954-1739 or [email protected])
Thousands of Ethiopian women have turned to begging with their children in order to survive, advocacy group Ethiopian Women for Peace and Development has said. The group claims that thousands of Ethiopian children are dying of malnutrition every day, as a result of a famine affecting close to six million people – but which remains hidden from the public and from the international community. The group has called for donor agencies to reassess their development efforts in Ethiopia, saying that the government’s policies on land, agriculture, and trade and bilateral agreements it has signed have had ‘serious impacts on food production and consumption’.
We want to bring the plight of women in Ethiopia, due to the current economic hardship, to the attention of human rights, humanitarian and peace organisations worldwide.
Ethiopia, a country of 80 million people, is one of the poorest countries in the world. The current economic conditions in the country are alarming. We understand that countries, small and big, throughout the world are affected by the current global economic crises. The current economic conditions in Ethiopia are not created by the global market situation only. It is mostly a result of the lack of good governance, corruption and poor economic and social policies. In the recent years, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has widened extremely. The government tries to convince the public that the economy is growing and gives examples of the construction of high-rise buildings and roads, especially in the capital city, Addis Ababa. These buildings, some of them condominiums, are not affordable for the average citizen. The majority of the people is living in abject poverty and is struggling for mere survival.
Recently, two members of our organisation took personal trips to Ethiopia and witnessed some of the conditions under which women and children live and the hardship they experience in their daily lives. The famine that is affecting close to six million people is hidden from the international community and the public in Ethiopia. It is not discussed widely in the government media. However, thousands of children are dying of famine and malnutrition every day. Even in the capital city, Addis Ababa, the economic situation is unbearable for most people. You hear anecdotes that siblings eat meals in turn – those who ate breakfast are not allowed to eat lunch because parents cannot afford to provide three meals to feed all their children. Thousands of women beg with their children in the streets of Addis Ababa. Young girls are engaged in prostitution, to earn money to feed themselves and their families, which leads to an increase in the spread of HIV virus and other diseases. And yet, one observes the booming of constructions and roads in the capital.
Some women are employed in the construction projects as day labourers. They mix sand and gravel and carry heavy stones and sacks of cement three to four floors up. We are not belittling or condemning their work and we also recognise that the construction industry has given employment opportunity to many women. However, the conditions under which they work are most abusive. What they carry is not only heavy and damaging to their body, but also they work in unhealthy environment and are exposed to hazardous toxic materials.
In an informal discussion with the labourers, one of our members asked few of them why they were engaged in this line of work. They said that it is better to work as a day labourer than working as domestic workers where they were physically and sexually abused. In general, in the cities, women who work outside of their homes are employed as construction workers, day labourers, petty traders, and factory workers. In the countryside, women are still engaged in backbreaking work as they have been doing for generations. They carry loads for long distances, grind grain, till the land, and sustain the household.
The government’s policies on land, agriculture, and trade and the various bilateral agreements it signed have serious impacts on food production and consumption. Ethiopia now produces flowers to earn hard currency. Though export commodities are important, priorities must be given to producing staple crops to alleviate the dire situation of food shortages in the country.
In addition, many question the appropriateness of some of the different bilateral agreements that the government signed under the current economic conditions in the country. It is reported in the Financial Times (Javier Blas, 4 March 2009) that rich business people from Saudi Arabia have leased very large tract of land for rice farming to be exported to Saudi Arabia even in light of food shortage in Ethiopia. Such policy of exporting food to Saudi Arabia while Ethiopians starve indicates the erroneous economic policies that the government pursues.
As a women’s peace and development organisation, we are concerned by the situation of women and children in Ethiopia under the current economic conditions. Due to the government’s strict control of the media, information about the dire conditions of the people is not available. One cannot separate the economic situation from the political situation. The basic tenets of democracy, such as freedom of the press and association, are suppressed after the 2005 national elections. Civic organisation that could have educated the citizenry about their rights and responsibilities are curtailed. Dissent is not tolerated. In plain language, people are scared to criticise the government and question its negative policies. Even the simple complaint about food shortage and the escalating food price is taken as opposing the government.
As stated above, the purpose of this article is to bring the plight of Ethiopian women and children, under the current economic crises in the country, to the attention of the international community. One wonders what the international community would do to alleviate the dire situations of Ethiopian women and Ethiopians in general. Ethiopia is one of the countries in Africa that receive massive foreign aids, estimated to be over two billion dollars every year. For the most part, donor countries have ignored human rights violations by the current regime (despite extensive reports by human rights organisations and civic groups) and pour their money in the country without strict conditions to influence government policies and procedures. The recent anti-NGO law, Charities and Societies Proclamation (CSO law), that the government passed in January 2009, is a good example of suppression of civic societies. However, donor agencies and Western governments did not challenge the government’s actions.
We appeal to human rights, humanitarian and peace organisations to pressure donor countries to reassess their development efforts in Ethiopia. They do not have to do extensive research to know if their development aid has benefited the poor or not. They only have to objectively observe how the poor live in Ethiopia and under what kind of political, social and economic conditions they dwell. A minority of the affluent live extravagantly while the majority flounder in abject poverty. The ‘development aid’ the West pours in the country, without any condition for accountability, transparency, and good governance has failed to fight poverty in Ethiopia.
(Ethiopian Women for Peace and Development is a women’s organisation created by concerned Ethiopian and Ethiopian-American women in 1991.)
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (Xinhua) — Madagascar’s major political parties would continue their negotiations in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia at the weekend in an effort to get the country out of the current political crisis.
Media reports said here on Friday that more than 50 representatives from all political camps of the island country would go to Addis Ababa to discussed and, if agreed, to sign the transitional charter prepared by international mediators last month.
The mediators, including special envoys from the United Nations, the African Union (AU), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the International Organization of French- Speaking Countries have met separately since Tuesday representatives of four Madagascan presidents, namely the current president Andry Rajoelina, who is the president of the High Transitional Authority, and his predecessors Marc Ravalomanana, Didier Ratsiraka and Zafy Albert.
However, they have not reached any agreement during the talks due to insistence of each president on his own conditions.
While Ravalomanana’s representatives insisted on the return of their leader, Ratsiraka asked amnesty for all political prisoners, who have been living in exile, and Rajoelina totally rejected the return of Ravalomanana.
This is the third round of political talks between the big four and the international mediators following Rajoelina’s take- over as president of the Indian Ocean island country on March 21 this year.
Vowing to “wipe out all traces of Marc Ravalomanana in the country,” Rajoelina described his predecessor as a corrupt president and a dictator.
A sentence for Ravalomanana is scheduled on Friday by a Madagascan court allegedly for Ravalomanaana’s killing of dozens of Rajoelina’s supporter in clashes between anti-Ravalomanana demonstrators and the armed troops guarding at the downtown presidential palace on February 7, when Rajoelina led his followers to try to enter into the palace to take over the presidency.
On Wednesday, the first instance court sentenced Ravalomanana to four year in jail and a fine of 70 million U.S. dollars for his misuse of public money to buy a Boeing 737-300 jet as his special presidential aircraft.
Ravalomanana, who has insisted that he is still president of Madagascar, rejected the verdict, saying that the court has no power to sentence a president still in power.
Observers here said that the verdict is likely a plot by the transitional government to ban Ravalomanana’s return to his country.
One day after the sentence, Ravalomanana told his supporters through telephone from South Africa that he would be back with foreign peacekeepers to celebrate Madagascar’s national day on June 26.
Asking Madagascan armed forces to lay down their arms, he claimed that he has the support from South African president Jacob Zuma, who has promised to send armed peacekeepers for his return, reports here said.
(Addis Journal) — There was an important musical happening in Addis this past week- an operatic soprano performance by musicians from Italy.
A soprano soloist Enrica Mari made her Addis debut at the National Theatre on Wednesday evening, June 3, in an event organized to mark the Italian National Day.
A chance to hear musical interpretations of Europeans opera masters such as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti don’t happen often yet the evening was one of those grand exceptions.
With the meteoric appearance of Encrica Mari, Ethiopian audiences were able to hear what these extraordinary sopranos had sounded like.
Mari’s performance combined recitals in number of languages-Italian, English and French and music by diverse musicians such as the arias of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi and jazz-derived melodic of the American George Gershwin.
Mari was able to impress a large number of expatriate and local audiences with her stage presence, warmth of her voice and her skill in a wide range of vocal effects.
She was accompanied by Chiara Migliari’s piano which expressed a depth of feeling and a skill with a capacity to touch the listener profoundly.
In a two-hour performance with brief pause, she also did interpretations of Tosti, Kosma, Gastaldon, Porter, Tagliaferri, Cardillo.
When singing in English, audiences might have smiled at her accent, but they were quick to realize the amazing singing actress was a unique and impressive impressionist.
She has made it possible for Ethiopian audiences to investigate and succumb to the glorious beauties of romantic Italian and European opera.
The works were well received and the musicians called to the stage for several bows.
Hurrah to the Italian Cultural Institute for organizing such wonderful event and bringing operatic music to an increasingly appreciative Ethiopian audiences.
