Fighting for Love

Sahle Teklie Legesse

by Sahle Teklie Legesse

Story

In Ethiopia, we used to have a monarchical feudalism system for more than 3000 years. Social makeup, laws, and regulations were different for the royal class and for the regular people. The kingdom was called the Solomonic Dynasty as believed by many, descendants of King Solomon of Jerusalem, Lion of Judah and elect of God.

In this very conservative society there appeared a little boy from the poor villages of Simien Ethiopia, who fell in love with the daughter of one of the local landlords. She was very beautiful with amazing eyes and long curly hairs. She was shy and raised in the norms of the royal family. The boy was also handsome and attened the Ethiopian Orthodox Church education, which was the only schooling system then. There was a culture that families host music, chanting and dance for at least two weeks before any royal wedding and all youth would attend. It was amongst rare opportunities for the poor and royal youngsters to come together and it was on one of these days he got a crush on that beautiful girl. She also noticed him from the crowd and showed him her amazing smile like a green light.

However, their case came to the ears of the girl’s family and her father took the situation as an attack on his dignity and consider his own daughter as an embarrassment that brought disgrace to his built name. He also hunted the boy and imprisoned him. It took him very short time for the boy to win the hearts of all prisoners. Though he was dying missing his little dream girl and his parents, he kept reading all available books.

He was representing himself in the royal court which by the way made the laws and implements with no check and balance. The way he defended himself in front of the crowd, how polite he was and above all his knowledge helped him to win the attention of many in the court. His new ideas, even though they were against the existing system, got full support from his class and unbelievably from many of the monarchical aristocrats too. His fame expanded to the nearby counties and suddenly he was taken as a hero who stood for what he believed in.

One day in the court while he was defending himself, there came a very graceful voice from the royal seat and the room went in absolute silence, it was the girl’s father. Everyone was waiting for furious comments and order for harsh sentence on that poor boy. Rather, the lord started his speech by how he was started to be captivated by the knowledge and composure the boy had and how changes were imminent in the already established social systems. Everybody was shocked, no one expected that to come. He underlined how education and logical thinking were important in changing his stance and he announced that he was happy to give his little girl to that wise boy. The court was changed into the happy ground and all chanted & dance outside and the news was spread across all areas. They got married and lived happily ever after and have sixteen children. Among them, one is the most beautiful daughter, and she is my mom.

© Sahle Teklie Legesse 2019-04-11