Life is My University
The story of me sleeping under the bar at Fendika for seven years has been told before. But that is only a small part of those early years of my career. My sleeping hours at Fendika were limited from 4 am to 7 am on many days. After that, I closed up Fendika and went out into the streets of Addis Ababa again.
This was the late 1990s and early 2000s. I had no home to call my own. Because of that, I developed the skill to make myself at home anywhere in the world. But I was not just wandering the city aimlessly. I had dreams and goals that my adoptive mother Tirunesh instilled in me. She told me I would go on to do great things, even though she would not live to see them. I took her words to heart, and I always believe in myself, no matter how hard times are.
I was in the 9th grade when Mother got ill and passed away. I dropped out of school because I wanted to take care of her when she needed me. In my adoptive family, she was the one who loved me the most and taught me to love without expectation. I lived on the street after her passing. But I kept dancing; I knew I was good at it. Although I kept my other options open (like possibly becoming a taxi driver), I never gave up on dancing. Thankfully, Fendika became the place where I not only made a modest living by dancing, but also found my other talents – organizing and managing.
I danced in Fendika Azmari Bet every night for 12 years. I love dancing; but sometimes customers treated me with no respect, and the system was inherently abusive of the performers since we were only paid tips, no salary. From those years, I knew what it was like to be seen as “nobody”, or “just a dancer.” My family and my society taught me that education is essential, both morally and practically for one’s future. As a child, I always wanted to be a good student, but I couldn’t achieve that goal because with the responsibility to looking after five cows, I found it difficult to focus on my study. Even though I had to drop out for a while, I promise myself that I would at least finish my 12th grade education.
As soon as I made enough money by dancing at Fendika at night and doing odd jobs during the day (from teaching dance to doing construction work), I put myself back to night school, every day from 5 pm to 8 pm. Right after school, I danced at Fendika, from 9 pm to 4 am. Then I restored myself as much as possible with the 3 hours of sleep under Fendika’s bar on a straw mattress. What followed was yet another day of odd jobs, not only to make ends meet for myself, but also to support my birth mother and siblings who returned from Sudan after 16 years.
Melaku and his sister Fireweyni in late 1990s
Even for me, three hours of sleep was not enough. Sometimes I fell asleep on mini buses. I would tell the conductor “Arat Kilo,” and he’d find me sound asleep at Mercato. “Wake up! Wake up!” They’d shout, “This is not your hotel!”
It took me seven years to finish grade 9 through 12. The daily struggles aside, sometimes I took on jobs that required me to travel out of the city. One time I worked for a lottery company, dancing in a moving vehicle through the countryside to advertise lottery tickets. I would be dancing Guragegna in a car, when all people could see was my upper body! Another time, I joined Save the Children Association’s HIV/AIDS prevention campaign, dancing and putting on puppet shows in different towns. We must have done well, as the audience often thought the puppets were real people.
Those travels forced me to delay my school education; but they offered me education of another kind. When I travelled, I paid attention to the dances in different parts of Ethiopia; I even interviewed the farmers about their dances. Although I did have dance training in the theaters and associations in Addis Ababa, my best learnings came from the countryside, where the sources are. People in the countryside are guardians of our ancient wisdom and culture. We can learn much from how they pray, how they work the land, and how they tune in with nature.
When I passed the 12th grade examinations, I felt I had obtained a Ph.D. 2002 was a good year. I was technically prepared for further studies at a college or university. But by then, I had other responsibilities and priorities. I started dreaming of doing great things with Fendika. I saw the limitless potentials, for both the place and myself. Traditionally, music and dance are not considered legitimate knowledge in Ethiopia. Most families encourage their children to become doctors, engineers or pilots, not musicians, dancers or artists. I saw Fendika as a place where I can begin to change these ideas and bring respect to what I love – art, music, and dance. I would do so by helping both Ethiopians and the rest of the world see and value the beauty and richness of Ethiopian culture.
Sometimes I feel lucky that life’s circumstances had put me in the street - that’s where I found my path and freedom through dance. If I were brought up in a middle-class family, the path of dance would most likely have been blocked off for me – like for many children in Ethiopia. Maybe my story shows how important it is for each child to discover their own unique gifts and to follow their own passion. The narrow path of being “normal” squashes creativity out of our children, our future.
Although I paid for some of my siblings to go to college, I knew my own university does not have gates and walls. Life itself is a university. My art is dance; it springs from the study of life and society. I am lucky enough to study with my beloved Ethiopian people at Timket, at weddings, and at Mercato. When I started traveling the world to perform, the curriculum of my study also broadened. I learn from every person I meet and talk to, whether it’s on the streets of Kazanchis or in a restaurant of Washington, DC. As long as life continues, my education will never stop.