Of Beetles and Angels

by Mawi Asgedom

  I almost abandoned my dreams of becoming a top student and earning a scholarship. But I loved my family too much to give up. And I knew that my brother Tewolde never would have given up. I knew that the way to honor him best was to take myself even higher. Not just as a student, but as a human being who saw beauty in others.

  So I decided that I would always keep my brother in my heart. I turned to God for strength and started to work even harder. I aced my finals and maintained my straight A’s.

  Sometimes I took extreme measures to get the grade that I wanted, as in my junior English class.

  Tewolde had warned me about the teacher: “She doesn’t give A’s.”

  Still, as the semester was coming to an end, I was close. I needed a 96 on the final to get an A in the class. But that was pretty much impossible — her tests were nightmares.

  There was only one way I could ace the final: Reread every book that we had covered. Take notes and have them fresh in my mind.

  So I did it. Over Christmas vacation, I read and took notes on more than twelve hundred pages.

  I couldn’t finish every book, though; I didn’t have time to reread Ethan Frome. So I went to sleep the night before, praying that Ethan Frome would mind his own business and stay off my exam.

  A snowstorm hit the next morning, forcing our school to shut down. I stayed home and reread Ethan Frome.

  The test was as hard as I thought it would be. But I had every book fresh in my mind, and I aced it. And I aced the class.

  While schoolwork consumed most of my energy, I still loved basketball. I was thrilled when I made the freshman team.

  But being on the team had its own challenges.

  Often, especially on Saturdays, I couldn’t get a ride to practice. So I would run the three miles. On the coldest days, I showed up unable to dribble because my hands had become icicles. And on a few crazy days, I ran to practice, ran all throughout practice, then ran back home.

  After the season ended, I decided to focus completely on schoolwork. I hadn’t planned on joining the track team.

  But one day after school, my basketball coach, Coach Kroger, saw me getting on the bus. It’s funny how one word of encouragement can change your life.

  “What are you doing going home, Mawi? You should be on the track team — you were always way up there in the wind sprints.”

  Several weeks later, I ran in my first meet. By the end of the season, I was among the fastest freshmen in our conference.

  I wanted good running shoes, but spending fifty dollars on a new pair was out of the question. So I wore a raggedy pair that my mom had rustled up. My track coach, Jim Martin, noticed almost immediately.

  For each of the next four years, he paid for my training shoes and racing spikes. Sometimes he even took me shopping for school clothes — without telling anyone.

  Even with such support from my coach, I made only marginal progress during my sophomore and junior years. So at the end of my junior year, I made myself a promise: That summer, I would run at least six days a week and lift weights every other day.

  I did it, working during the day and training at night.

  Again, my hard work paid big dividends. In cross-country, where four schools in our conference were ranked among the state’s top twenty, I earned all-conference honors.

  Fueled by my improvement during the cross-country season, I kept training throughout the brutal Illinois winter. I ran almost four hundred outdoor miles between November and January and lifted weights in my room every other day. Before I went to sleep each night, I recorded my mileage and weight training at the front of my journal.

  The discipline brought results. In track, I ran the anchor leg on our all-state 4 x 800-meter relay team. We won our conference championship and competed in the state finals.

  Looking back, I’m always thankful that Coach Kroger stopped me alongside that bus my freshman year.

  I was never one of the popular kids in high school, but during my sophomore year, I finally started to develop close friendships: some with kids on my sports teams, some with kids from the advanced-level classes. And I still had my refugee brothers and sisters from back in the day.

  No matter whom I hung out with, I always tried not to view my classmates through the caste system that runs most high schools: the cool kids — usually beautiful kids or athletes; the normal kids — who comprise most of the school; and the dreaded ones — the nerds.

  Most of my friends were from the lower two castes. But that was fine. My parents and my brother had taught me to see beauty in everyone. And to be honest, I often saw the least beauty in the coolest, most popular kids.

  It’s funny how things work out. My best non-habesha friend in high school was Mike Olander — the same kid from whom my brother and I had “borrowed” all those Reese’s so many Halloweens ago.

  Mike ran track and cross-country with me and went out of his way to give me rides to school. One day, in September of our senior year, he picked me up at 6:30 A.M. for our first National Honor Society meeting.

  About sixty of our classmates had gathered in the auditorium. We were late. I grabbed a seat next to Bonnie Nadzam, the girl that I and every other guy in school had a crush on.

  An announcement went out: “Last call for nominations for president.” I thought for a second about raising my hand. I had never participated in student government, partly because I couldn’t get rides to the early meetings and partly because I wasn’t popular enough to get elected.

  But I figured, what the heck? So I asked Mike to nominate me.

  I didn’t think I had much of a chance. Six or seven other students were running, many much cooler than me.

  We closed our eyes and voted. We opened them again, and I was the president.

  I looked around the room, and I knew what had happened. Half of my classmates had voted for cool kids. But there had been three or four cool kids to choose from, so none of them could amass many votes.

  The other half of the class wouldn’t have voted for the cool kids if their lives had depended on it. Why? Because all throughout high school, the cool kids had made them feel like beetles.

  I hadn’t. And that’s how I got elected. I had treated everyone as an angel.

  I wasn’t the first person in my family to apply to college. Tewolde had started to apply. He had an A average and good test scores, and he would have had fantastic letters of recommendation — every teacher loved him. But he never finished the application process.

  Like him, I wanted to stay close to home, and when my senior year started, I pretty much knew where I wanted to go: Taylor University in Indiana. I had just gone through their summer honors program, and it had sold me on the school.

  The only real question was how I would pay for it.

  I remember visiting my counselor, Mrs. Martin, to get some tips. She was my track coach’s wife, and she had also been my coach for scholastic bowl.

  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: It’s funny what a few words of encouragement can do. She told me that I could probably go to school anywhere I wanted. Duke, Yale, maybe even Harvard.

  I thought she was crazy. Mrs. Martin, I wanted to shout, I’m about the most ghetto, poor, welfare, refugee brother who ever lived. Those schools are gonna laugh if they get an application from someone like me.

  But she kept encouraging me to apply. “Let the admissions committees say no,” she told me. “Don’t say no for them. You’re ranked in the top one percent of your class. You have top test scores. You never know, they just might say yes.”

  Then Mike’s mom, who had become a second mother to me, started to encourage me. Then several of my teachers pitched in.

  So I decided to do it. I found out what achievement tests those schools required and took them in December — long after most applicants had taken them and right before each school’s application deadline.

  Then I got my letters of recommendation. Later, when I talked to college administrators, they told me that the
letters of recommendation had had the biggest impact.

  What were those letters about? They said little about my grades but much about my attitude. Seeing beauty in others had paid off again.

  In fact, seeing angels had helped even with my grades. My transcript included several A’s that could have been B’s. But those teachers had appreciated how I treated my classmates, and they had also appreciated my work ethic, so they had bumped me up to the A.

  I applied to eight schools in all: Taylor, Miami of Ohio, Illinois, Duke, Wake Forest, Washington University in St. Louis, Yale, and Harvard. I applied to so many because I didn’t know if any would give me a scholarship.

  The only problem with this strategy was that each application cost about fifty dollars. I got some schools to waive the application fee. For the rest, I attached a letter to my application, explaining that I could not afford the fee and asking if they would please consider my application anyway.

  They did.

  First, I heard from Miami of Ohio. They flew me to their campus and offered me a sizable merit scholarship.

  Then Duke flew me out. They offered even more.

  Last came Wash. U. They flew me out for a four-day weekend and offered a merit scholarship worth $90,000 — free tuition, plus an annual stipend.

  I got home and found two envelopes waiting for me, one from Harvard and the other from Yale.

  I opened them and read their contents. Then I walked over to the living room to tell my parents. Their dream had come true. Their boy had earned admission to the best universities in the country.

  And Harvard — the best-known one in the land — had offered him a full-tuition scholarship.

  My senior year in high school, my family sits on the couches my father bought from the Indian brother. From left to right: Mehret, Tsege, Mawi, Haileab, and Hntsa.

  FATHER HAILEAB

  During the last two years of my father’s life, I only saw him for about four weeks. We spent two weeks together in December of 1997, during Christmas break of my junior year at Harvard. After that, I never saw him again.

  During those last two weeks, we sat together on the beaten-up, dirt-brown couches that we had bought back in 1992. These couches were the first ones we had ever bought; all our others had come from our free mall or our friends.

  But this had been a special occasion. My mother, after twelve years of homesickness, had gone back to Adi to see her mother and family. My father, declaring that we had to do something for her, had gone down to the Indian brother that all habeshas went to back then and bargained for the couches on the eve of her return.

  We sat on those sagging couches almost six years later, and my father started telling Hntsa and me stories that we had never heard before:

  ONE TIME, WHEN WE HAD JUST COME TO THIS COUNTRY AND OUR HABESHA BROTHERS AND SISTERS HAD JUST STARTED TO TRICKLE IN, TEMESGEN AND KIBROM CALLED ME TO HELP THEM.

  Temesgen and Kibrom were two skin-and-bones brothers, not even twenty when they first came to the States. They had lived with us for several weeks until their sponsors had found them a home.

  THEY HAD GOTTEN THEMSELVES INTO TROUBLE AND DID NOT KNOW ANY ENGLISH. KNOWING NO ONE ELSE WHO COULD TRANSLATE FOR THEM, THEY CALLED ME.

  I HAD WARNED TEMESGEN BEFORE THAT AMERICA IS NOT LIKE ADI. I HAD WARNED HIM THAT THIS IS A COUNTRY WHERE YOU CAN BE JUST ONE PENNY SHORT AT THE GROCERY STORE, AND THEY STILL WON’T FORGIVE YOU.

  BUT YOU KNOW TEMESGEN, HE HAS NEVER CONSIDERED THE TALK OF PEOPLE.

  THEY WERE DRIVING ONE DAY NEAR THE RAILROAD TRACKS, WHEN TEMESGEN BECAME DISTRACTED BY SOMETHING ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.

  THE NEXT THING HE KNEW, HIS CAR HAD JOLTED OVER THE CURB AND BROKEN THROUGH SEVERAL SIGNS, HALTING ONLY AFTER IT HAD DEMOLISHED A YOUNG PLANT.

  HOPING TO ESCAPE BEFORE ANY AUTHORITIES ARRIVED, TEMESGEN AND KIBROM FRANTICALLY TRIED TO GET THE CAR STARTED. BUT A POLICEMAN CHANCED UPON THEM ALMOST IMMEDIATELY. HE ACCUSED THEM OF DRIVING WITHOUT RULE, BREAKING THE CITY SIGNS, AND KILLING THE YOUNG PLANT.

  THEY CAME AND BEGGED ME, “PLEASE, FATHER HAILEAB! HELP US! THEY HAVE THREATENED TO TAKE AWAY TEMESGEN’S LICENSE AND TO MAKE US PAY FOR THE DAMAGED PROPERTY. THEY WILL STAIN OUR RECORDS AND MAKE US LOST!”

  I DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO OR HOW I COULD HELP THEM, BUT I AGREED TO GO TO COURT WITH THEM SO THAT I COULD AT LEAST TRANSLATE ON THEIR BEHALF.

  Hntsa and I looked at each other with excitement, trying to imagine our father before a judge. This was going to be better than the Sanford and Son episode where Fred G. Sanford went to defend his son, Lamont, and got charged with contempt of court!

  WE WENT TO COURT, AND THE JUDGE ASKED ME IF I KNEW ENOUGH ENGLISH TO TRANSLATE AND IF I UNDERSTOOD BOTH LANGUAGES. I TOLD HIM YES AND I TOOK THE PROMISE THAT THEY MAKE YOU TAKE IN COURT.

  THE JUDGE ASKED ME TO ASK THEM IF THEY WERE GUILTY OF DESTROYING THE PLANTS AND THE SIGNS. I WAS GOING TO SAY YES. BUT I HAVE PSYCHOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE — KNOWLEDGE THAT IS NOT CONTAINED IN BOOKS — so I STOPPED MYSELF. I KNEW THAT IF WE SAID YES, THE JUDGE WOULD FINE THEM AND GIVE THEM MANY OTHER PUNISHMENTS.

  BUT WE COULD NOT SAY NO, EITHER, BECAUSE THE POLICEMAN WAS RIGHT THERE AND HE HAD SEEN THEM TRYING TO START THE CAR.

  “LISTEN TO ME,” I COUNSELED THEM. “IF YOU SAY NO, HE WILL KNOW THAT YOU ARE LYING AND HE MIGHT GIVE YOU AN EVEN GREATER PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR DISHONESTY. BUT IF YOU SAY YES, HE WILL STILL CONVICT YOU AND YOU WILL STILL FACE GREAT PUNISHMENT BEYOND YOUR MEANS.

  “SO LET’S TELL HIM THAT A CHILD CAME ACROSS YOUR PATH WHEN YOU WERE DRIVING AND YOU HAD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN HARMING THE CHILD AND DESTROYING THE PLANTS AND THE SIGNS. BECAUSE YOU HOLD NOTHING HIGHER THAN THE LIFE OF A CHILD, YOU PURPOSEFULLY HOPPED OVER THE CURB AND DESTROYED THE PROPERTY.

  “THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED!” THEY BOTH NODDED. “TELL HIM!”

  So I TOLD THE JUDGE. HE DID NOT UNDERSTAND ME AT FIRST, AND NEITHER DID THE POLICEMAN, BUT I EXPLAINED IT TO HIM IN A GOOD WAY AND HE UNDERSTOOD.

  Hntsa and I knew our father well enough to understand what he meant by “a good way.” We could picture him hunched over in the courtroom, with his head raised high and his body leaning on his cane, taking a deep breath, starting softly, then raising his voice to a near-shout, hands pumping emphatically to accentuate his points.

  X CUES ME, FATHER. WE ARE POOR. YOU SEE ME, I AM DISABILITY. I AM POOR MAN AND REFUGEE…. That poor judge, that poor policeman, that poor courtroom!

  “WHY DIDN’T THEY TELL THE POLICEMAN ABOUT THE CHILD?” THE JUDGE ASKED.

  “VERY GOOD,” I TOLD HIM. “THAT IS GOOOOOOOD QUESTION.”

  I HAD BEEN EXPECTING HIS QUESTION AND I HAD AN ANSWER READY FOR HIM: THE CHILD’S MOTHER HAD GRABBED HER CHILD AND RUN OFF BECAUSE SHE WAS SO TERRIFIED. MOTHER AND CHILD HAD VANISHED BEFORE THE POLICEMAN COULD SEE THEM.

  As TO TEMESGEN AND KIBROM EXPLAINING THEMSELVES TO THE POLICEMAN, I TOLD THE JUDGE THAT THEY HAD JUST COME TO THIS COUNTRY AND COULD NOT COMMUNICATE.

  I DO NOT LIKE TO LIE— YOU KNOW THAT THE BIBLE IT SELF TELLS US THAT WE SHOULD NOT LIE. BUT THEY CAME TO ME AND ASKED FOR HELP, AND I KNEW ONLY ONE WAY TO HELP THEM. MAY GOD FORGIVE ME.

  My father paused before continuing with his next tale.

  ANOTHER TIME, THE SON OF TESFU CALLED ME IN A PANIC. HIS FAMILY HAD JUST COME TO THIS COUNTRY AND HAD MOVED INTO THEIR HOME. THEN THEIR YOUNGEST SON, THE BIG, LUMBERING ONE, WENT TO TAKE A BATH.

  WELL, HAILOM HAD NEVER TAKEN A BATH THE AMERICAN WAY AND DID NOT KNOW HOW TO OPEN THE WATER. HE PUT HIS BIG HANDS ON THE TWO WATER OPENERS, AND INSTEAD OF TURNING THE OPENERS, HE PULLED.

  I DON’T NEED TO TELL YOU HOW STRONG HE IS. HE WRENCHED BOTH OPENERS OUT OF THE WALL.

  THE WATER STARTED TRICKLING OUT AT FIRST, THEN RUSHED AT HIM IN FIERCER BURSTS. SOON, IT HAD FLOODED THE BATHROOM AND FLOWED TO THE REST OF THE HOUSE.

  THE POOR FAMILY SCURRIED LIKE A ROOSTER WITH ITS HEAD CUT OFF, TO THE KITCHEN, TO THE BASEMENT, TO THE LITTLE PIPES OUTSIDE, LOOKING FOR A WAY TO TURN THE WATER OFF. BUT THEY HAD NO IDEA WHAT THEY WERE
DOING. THE WATER KEPT CLIMBING HIGHER AND HIGHER, AND DAMAGING MORE AND MORE OF THE TOWNHOUSE, SEEPING INTO THE WALLS AND EVEN INTO THE APPLIANCES.

  FINALLY, THE SON OF TESFU KNOCKED FRANTICALLY ON HIS NEIGHBOR’S DOOR. HE COULD NOT TALK WITH HER BE CAUSE HE DID NOT KNOW ENGLISH, BUT SHE UNDERSTOOD THAT HE NEEDED HELP, AND SHE RAN BACK WITH HIM AND TURNED OFF THE CENTRAL WATER SOURCE.

  BUT IT WAS TOO LATE. THE WATER HAD FLOODED THE ENTIRE HOUSE, AND WORST OF ALL, IT HAD SEEPED INTO THE WALLS. PERMANENT DAMAGE HAD BEEN DONE.

  WHEN THE LANDLORD SAW HIS HOUSE RUINED, HE BECAME CRAZED AND TOOK THEM TO THE HOUSE OF JUDGMENT, CLAIMING SOME THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. BUT SEVERAL THOU SAND DOLLARS MIGHT AS WELL HAVE BEEN A BILLION DOLLARS — THEY COULDN’T PAY IT.

  I HAD ALREADY TRANSLATED FOR THEM DURING THEIR FIRST DAYS, AS I HAD DONE AND STILL DO FOR MANY OF THE HABESHA.THEY HAD HEARD ABOUT HOW I HAD HELPED TEMESGEN AND KIBROM YEARS AGO. SO THEY CAME TO ME AND BEGGED ME FOR HELP. AGAIN, I DID NOT KNOW HOW I COULD HELP, BUT I COULD NOT REFUSE THEM.

  I TOLD THE JUDGE — A DIFFERENT JUDGE FROM THE LAST TIME — THAT I COULD TRANSLATE. AGAIN, I TOOK THE PROMISE. AFTER EXPLAINING THE ACCUSATIONS TO ME, THE JUDGE ASKED ME TO ASK THEM IF THEY WERE GUILTY.

  LIKE WITH TEMESGEN, I KNEW THAT WE COULD NOT COMPLETELY DENY OUR GUILT. THE PROOF WAS TOO STRONG. BUT NEITHER COULD WE ADMIT OUR GUILT BECAUSE THEN THEY WOULD PUNISH US BEYOND OUR MEANS.

  “WE ARE POOR PEOPLE,” I TOLD THE JUDGE. “WE DO NOT KNOW YOUR LANGUAGE OR YOUR WAYS, ESPECIALLY WHEN WE FIRST COME HERE. THEY CAME TO THIS COUNTRY FROM THE BACKCOUNTRIES OF ERITREA AND SUDAN, AND THERE, WE DO NOT HAVE PLUMBING SYSTEMS. HERE, YOU CAN EASILY OPEN THE WATER AND TAKE A DRINK OR A BATH. THERE, JUST TO DRINK WATER, YOU MIGHT HAVE TO DRAG THE WATER FROM THE WELL, EMPTY IT INTO A KETTLE, AND BOIL IT TO KILL THE PARASITES.

  “WHEN THIS FAMILY CAME HERE, THEY DID NOT KNOW HOW TO OPEN THE WATER. IN FACT, YOU ARE LOOKING AT A FAMILY THAT KNEW SO LITTLE ABOUT LIFE IN AMERICA THAT WHEN THEY CAME, THEY MARKED THE SAME BIRTH DATE FOR THEMSELVES. LOOK AT THEIR MEDICAID CARD HERE; IT SAYS THAT ALL SIX OF THEM WERE BORN ON JANUARY ONE.