Zaena Tessema - The Vampire Rabbit

 

Okay. So, Darabe became a part of my life, really, from the moment I was born. Exactly what or who Darabe was, I wouldn't really know until my adulthood, but its presence was felt on a daily basis until I was probably in my adolescence. So, I would describe Darabe as a, let's say an invisible babysitter, an enforcer of the rules, even though I could never really see it and didn't know what it was. Darabe was what my mother would call upon if me or any of my siblings were breaking the rules, or if I was in a fight with my brother, or if we were taking too long to do something or if I needed to clean my room, she would just say, "Do you want me to call Darabe?" and she would be met with immediate obedience.

 

Really, the power that Darabe had over me and my siblings was derived purely from fear. Fear of, what is Darabe? What happens when it gets here? [audience laughter] We had no idea. We were so scared of Darabe, and the idea of Darabe that none of us even talked about Darabe. [audience laughter] Just hearing Darabe's name made the hairs on the back of our necks stand up and sent a chill down our spines. This was our life for years, until over time, our fear of Darabe gradually declined and we grew a little older and we got to the point where we were able to talk about Darabe. We discovered that Darabe was something completely different for each of us.

 

So, I'll start with my brother, the youngest of the three. He always had an irrational fear of insects. So, for him, Darabe was a giant spider that hid in the shadows. My sister, the oldest of the three, was a little more rational. And for her, Darabe was just a man who would come and punish us if we did something wrong. And for me, definitively the most imaginative of the three, Darabe was something much more terrifying and sinister. Darabe for me was a vampire rabbit that would sneak up behind children and come and bite their necks. [audience laughter] So, clearly, I was suffering more than they were [chuckles] all these years. [audience laughter] 

 

 I'm sure if my mother actually knew the silent torment that we were going through every time she'd say Darabe's name, she wouldn't have used it anymore as a parenting tactic. But she did, and it took many years. Eventually, after we realized this, our fear declined even more, because there was that hope that one of us had to be wrong, at least one of us. So, maybe it wasn't a vampire rabbit. When we were adults, we were laughing about this amongst ourselves. And so, we decided to finally ask our mom. how come we hadn't done this yet? 

 

So, we asked her, “What is Darabe?” And she goes, “Oh, Darabe.” She tells us this story how, when my sister was born, she was trying to change her diaper one day, and my sister was not being cooperative at all. So, my uncle happened to be there, and he walks past and he says to my sister, “If you don't stand still, I'm going to call Darabe.” And my sister went silent. My mom was able to clean her diaper, and she was like, “I've never been able to do that so effortlessly before. “What is Darabe?” And he says, “Oh, Darabe, he's some guy we used to know back in Ethiopia. He was just kind of weird.” [audience laughter] 

 

So, all these years, I came close to wetting my pants at the fear of Darabe showing up in my room. Finally, this whole time, I was just scared of some dude that used to be in Ethiopia. [audience laughter] So, I guess sometimes what you're scared of isn't what you think you're scared of, and sometimes what you're scared of really isn't anything at all. [chuckles] Thank you.