understand, they would let the women bleed. But my husband would come and lift their legs up — not too much, just a little bit — and tilt their heads back and let them sleep in this position, so that they would not bleed to death. He would inject them with painkiller, too, and then he would give them light food.
My husband treated everyone. Some came to him almost dead from stone fights, some had hurt themselves as they watched their livestock, some came wounded from the war. No one taught him how to treat all of their different sicknesses, but he had a great ability to figure out what to do.
After a while, though, there came a time without peace; a time of leaving your home and fleeing, of leaving your children and fleeing; a time when a husband would flee, leaving his wife; a time when all fled, leaving their possessions.
In that time, the Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and his Dergue regime waged war against the Woyane rebel group and the Jebha rebel group. Sometimes the Jebha and the Woyane waged war against each other.
When the Woyane or Jebha were said to have taken a village, the Dergue would come and try to take it back. When the Dergue came, the people fled, or hid in their homes, or sent their children to the countryside, for they did not want to be caught between the Woyane, the Jebha, and the Dergue.
Mengistu’s decree,
“Yematfat zemacha,”
struck fear in our hearts. “Kill all living creatures, spare none
.”
Whenever the armies approached, my husband fled to the wilderness and hid there for several days. He feared that they would take him away, maybe kill him, maybe make him join their ranks as a doctor. One day it became too much — they approached and he fled to Sudan alone. He could not take us with him, for he was being watched closely by those who did not want him to flee.
We did not know if we would see him again; it was only the will of God that kept us all alive and brought us back together.
All the villagers mourned when he left, the whole territory did, because he had never refused them and he had not feared to put himself in danger when treating them. They wept, saying, “How will we find another like him, like Haileab, the son of Zedengel?
”
Some time passed, and my husband had travelers bring us messages: “Come, come, come. What are you waiting for? Come to Sudan, leave the livestock, leave the house, leave everything. Just bring the children and come
.”
But how could I leave my people and my home?
Dergue kept coming in and out of our village, and we started to fear that Dergue and Woyane would clash in our region.
More and more of our people started to hide in the wilderness, and one time I sent Tewolde and Selamawi to their uncle Nigusay in the village they call Geza Gono. I kept Mehret with me.
Uncle Nigusay came back several days later and told me that he would never again take them. He told me that his daughter and Selamawi were sleeping near the doorway on some bedding that Uncle had set up for them, and that while they slept, a snake came in from outside and started to slither onto Selamawi’s body.
“We could do nothing,” he said. “We could have hit the snake, but then the snake might have killed Selamawi. We could have warned Selamawi, but Selamawi might have moved in fear and caused the snake to bite him. So all we could do was watch and pray.
“The snake moved slowly, from Selamawi’s body to my daughter’s body, and we kept watching, praying, able to do nothing, until finally the snake slithered past them.
“Once we had killed the snake, I raised my voice and my hands to God, and looking up, begged, ‘Savior of the world, please save me from breaking the trust that has been given me. Please spare these children’s lives and let me bring them back to their mother safely.
’”
So Uncle Nigusay brought Tewolde and Selamawi back to me. He told me, “You gave your children to me that they would be saved, but they almost died with me.
My husband treated everyone. Some came to him almost dead from stone fights, some had hurt themselves as they watched their livestock, some came wounded from the war. No one taught him how to treat all of their different sicknesses, but he had a great ability to figure out what to do.
After a while, though, there came a time without peace; a time of leaving your home and fleeing, of leaving your children and fleeing; a time when a husband would flee, leaving his wife; a time when all fled, leaving their possessions.
In that time, the Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and his Dergue regime waged war against the Woyane rebel group and the Jebha rebel group. Sometimes the Jebha and the Woyane waged war against each other.
When the Woyane or Jebha were said to have taken a village, the Dergue would come and try to take it back. When the Dergue came, the people fled, or hid in their homes, or sent their children to the countryside, for they did not want to be caught between the Woyane, the Jebha, and the Dergue.
Mengistu’s decree,
“Yematfat zemacha,”
struck fear in our hearts. “Kill all living creatures, spare none
.”
Whenever the armies approached, my husband fled to the wilderness and hid there for several days. He feared that they would take him away, maybe kill him, maybe make him join their ranks as a doctor. One day it became too much — they approached and he fled to Sudan alone. He could not take us with him, for he was being watched closely by those who did not want him to flee.
We did not know if we would see him again; it was only the will of God that kept us all alive and brought us back together.
All the villagers mourned when he left, the whole territory did, because he had never refused them and he had not feared to put himself in danger when treating them. They wept, saying, “How will we find another like him, like Haileab, the son of Zedengel?
”
Some time passed, and my husband had travelers bring us messages: “Come, come, come. What are you waiting for? Come to Sudan, leave the livestock, leave the house, leave everything. Just bring the children and come
.”
But how could I leave my people and my home?
Dergue kept coming in and out of our village, and we started to fear that Dergue and Woyane would clash in our region.
More and more of our people started to hide in the wilderness, and one time I sent Tewolde and Selamawi to their uncle Nigusay in the village they call Geza Gono. I kept Mehret with me.
Uncle Nigusay came back several days later and told me that he would never again take them. He told me that his daughter and Selamawi were sleeping near the doorway on some bedding that Uncle had set up for them, and that while they slept, a snake came in from outside and started to slither onto Selamawi’s body.
“We could do nothing,” he said. “We could have hit the snake, but then the snake might have killed Selamawi. We could have warned Selamawi, but Selamawi might have moved in fear and caused the snake to bite him. So all we could do was watch and pray.
“The snake moved slowly, from Selamawi’s body to my daughter’s body, and we kept watching, praying, able to do nothing, until finally the snake slithered past them.
“Once we had killed the snake, I raised my voice and my hands to God, and looking up, begged, ‘Savior of the world, please save me from breaking the trust that has been given me. Please spare these children’s lives and let me bring them back to their mother safely.
’”
So Uncle Nigusay brought Tewolde and Selamawi back to me. He told me, “You gave your children to me that they would be saved, but they almost died with me.
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