STILLWATER, MN (Stillwater Gazette) — Tabor Wolde stepped up — the fifth kicker in a shootout for Mahtomedi High School in the Class A Minnesota soccer semi-finals earlier this month — and confidently struck the ball low and fast, past the goalkeeper to give his team a 5-4 shootout victory. His team went on to win the state championship, where he scored another goal.
Seven years ago, he didn’t know the Minnesota High School soccer tournament existed. At just 10 years old, Wolde, his sister Addis, then 12, and their mother fled Ethiopia to the United States.
They escaped in the shadow of the death of their father, Mamo Wolde, an Ethiopian world champion runner and Olympic Gold medalist.
They were able to come to the United States with the help of Joel and Marty Button, of Stillwater. Joel, then the head of a boarding school in eastern Iowa, read about the two in a Runner’s World article about their father, and helped the two children secure visas to come to his school, while their mother came to Minnesota and worked to get political asylum.
Their father, Mamo Wolde [wearing #70 on the photo], won gold at the marathon during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. He was a national hero in Ethiopia, and the story of his gold medal became legend there.
But when he returned, the government went through terrible turmoil, during which a new regime took over. Years later, when the government shifted again, Wolde was accused of murder and imprisoned without charge for more than a decade. The case had little ground, so little, in fact, that Amnesty International demanded his release.
His case became a passion of fellow Olympian and sportswriter Kenny Moore, who wrote about the case several times and was able to create political pressure for Ethiopia to free Wolde, which they finally did in 2002. But just months after he was released from prison, he died from a variety of ailments, including bronchitis and liver problems, according to his obituary in the New York Times.
Today, living in Stillwater, Addis and Tabor are flourishing. Tabor has excelled in soccer at Mahtomedi High School. Addis, now a freshman at Bethel College, has decided to study medicine.
Addis’ acclimation to the U.S. has gone well, but her biggest test since moving to the United States wasn’t a cultural but a health issue.
In April 2008, Addis, who ran cross-country in high school, started to feel sluggish and tired after every run.
“Before that, when I ran, I felt so good and refreshed,” she said. “After, when I’d run, I’d be exhausted and then sleep.”
She went to the doctor, who told Addis, then a junior, that she was pregnant. But more tests found a mass, a malignant tumor. It was ovarian cancer. The next day, she was in surgery, and for the next three months, she underwent chemotherapy.
“She was the star of Children’s Hospital,” said Marty Button. “The politest, and she looked the best in a gown.”
Addis says the experience helped her grow.
“I learned a lot from it,” she said. “I think it happened for a reason. It made me stronger.”
While it gave perspective to a then 17-year-old who had already been through a great deal, it gave her an interest in medicine.
“When I was sick, the nurses and the doctors were wonderful,” she said. “I thought, ‘Maybe I want to be a nurse and make people who are sick feel better and feel happier.'”
Tabor, 17, is much more focused on soccer, something he’s done all his life.
“I’ve played since I could walk, I just kicked around outside in street soccer,” he said. Outside of high school he plays with the St. Croix Celtics club, and he hopes to play in college or on an academy soccer team.
The two say they are used to life in the U.S. now, they’ve been trick-or-treating on Halloween, they’ve gotten used to ice cold winters, and even taken on snow blowing chores.
But there were definitely adjustments.
“Back home we are very close. If you are friends there, you walk with each other holding hands, even guys do it,” Addis said. “Here its a different story. It’s like ‘Whoa, you’ve got your space and I’ve got my space.’ It was very different.”
While they’ve embraced life here, there are still a longing to return to Ethiopia, at least for a visit.
“I miss it – definitely,” she said. “The people, I still have my whole family back there, my cousins, my aunts, my older brother.”
They are in touch by phone, but they’ve not gotten to see that part of their family since coming to the U.S.
The two would like to return to Ethiopia, but they are still a few years off from becoming U.S. Citizens.
“We don’t know what would happen,” said Joel Button. “Because they are here because they are here via political asylum, if they go back (to Ethiopia), their country won’t look too favorably on them. So, they aren’t going to go over until they get citizenship.”
While its hard, the siblings say that’s for the best.
“It’s tough, but its OK,” Addis said. “When holidays come, like for Christmas or new years we used to do a lot of stuff there and the whole family would gather.”
“But we have family here,” she added, smiling.