Beth Gebresilasie - When People Ask Me Where I'm From

 

When people ask me where I am from, I usually just say, “It’s a long story.” And it is. I was born in this really small country in Eastern Africa called Eritrea. I loved it there. The weather was always perfect. It was warm and sunny with a breeze always there to curb the sun rays. I had my select group of friends who I loved and adored, and I spent almost every single day with. 

 

When I was in third grade, I was nine years old, and my mother took me aside from the rest of our family. We were standing in front of the doorway when she told me that her job at the UN was relocating her and we were moving to Sudan. I was actually, incredibly excited. I loved seeing new things. That’s what I saw in Sudan, a new place to see and new friends to make.

 

My parents are separated, so my father had to stay in Eritrea. In the airport, he was just trying to hold on to me to get the last few pieces of me, but I was so hyper and excited that I barely said goodbye. In Sudan, on the first day of fourth grade, I got on the school bus. I was nervous and really antsy to see how things would go. I sat next to this girl named Yasmin, and she turned to me and said, “Hi.” And I said, “Hi” and we were friends. [audience laughter] 

 

Sudan turned out pretty great. I learned Arabic, I memorized the national anthem and I had a new group of friends. From my friends, I was closest to Rayan. Rayan understood me so well, and she could make me laugh so easily. We played this game where she would speak in Arabic really, really fast and I would try to translate it as perfectly as possible. I did miss my old friends, but I had found a new sense of comfort. 

 

Towards the end of sixth grade, my mother and I were watching TV. She told me that we would be moving again, this time to Virginia. I did not want to go to a new place. This time, I did not want to make new friends. I spent the last week just crying with my friends. On my last day, we went to the mall. We did what we usually did. We ate, we drank, we looked at clothes and walked around. In the end, we all just crowded onto a bench and cried together. Virginia offered nothing appeasing to my sense of displacement.

 

At that point, all those years of torn friendships had taken a toll on me and I could not take it anymore. I did not want to make new friends, only to leave them again. So, when school started, I did not talk to anyone in high school. I moved to New York City. I despised it. [audience laughter] But in many ways, it made me feel better about my choice to be alone, because this time, I was not leaving anyone behind. I would not speak in class and I would eat lunch alone. I did not want to make friends, only to leave them all over again.

 

In 10th grade, my mom urged me to apply to an internship at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. She noticed how alone I was, how hurt I was and how desperate I looked. I was against it. I did not want to have to talk to people. But after much persuasion, I applied and shockingly, I got in. After the first meeting in my internship, I did not even want to consider talking to anybody. But over time, it grew harder to be quiet and isolate myself. In the internship, all 15 of us had to discuss social justice and our own heritage. Its very nature required vulnerability. 

 

In one of our first meetings, we had to bring artifacts from our culture and talk about them. I brought a picture of a traditional coffee set, because it was too big to bring in there. We all offered something different and we all opened up. And in opening up, we just all automatically connected. Through the internship, I realized how much I was missing out. I made these amazing connections that I had cut myself off from and I thought about everyone else I had not talked to that I was just protecting myself from losing.

 

The internship ended, and those connections and those people did fade. But the way they have changed me always remained within me, imprinting my soul. I learned to find permanence in impermanence. Thank you.