Never Been Colonised

Boys Fishing on Lake Awasa Ethiopia

Ethiopian young women in Lalibela

Fishing on Lake Awasa Ethiopia

Table Football in Ethiopia

I’ve written a poem on a feeling that I’ve been trying to pull apart and piece together for a while now. Being in Ethiopia is amazing! Being black in Ethiopia is an education. Having worked with young disengaged people of colour and my own experiences of growing up in England, I can’t deny the differences I see. The difference between a country that has never been colonised and one that has is remarkable to me. So I put it in verse.

Never been colonised, what does that mean?
More identity than I’ve ever seen.
The lost and found or just lost look I see,
Searching for ownership of identity.
Never forced to believe their way is wrong,
Never had to march to an alien song,
Never stripped till the memory is a blur,
Though there are internal bumps, I concur.
They’re their bumps to own, not whipped from abroad,
They’ll whip themselves with their umbilical cord.
Stubborn and proud, means valued and free.
Black pride here really isn’t necessary.
There’s nothing to prove, the battle was won.
Their year, their time, their rules, nothing has gone.
I miss this, it’s something missing in me.
I grew up begging for diversity.
Displaced, misplaced, some gone without a trace,
Family, history of an entire race.
Now hanging somewhere where everything’s changed.
Where fitting in has to be arranged.
Never been colonised, what does that mean?
So much more in the faces that I’ve seen.
Never been colonised, what does that mean? So much more in the faces that I’ve seen. Click To Tweet
Mama Grace

Ethiopian Wedding Lalibela

Ethiopian Wedding Lalibela

Orthodox Church service Lalibela

Priest in Lalibela

Priest in Lalibela

Man in the Lalibela market