Haben by Haben Girma

Author:Haben Girma
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-08-05T16:00:00+00:00

When Justin or Gordon see me in the Bon, they walk right up to me and tell me where they’re sitting in the large room. Students never invited me to their tables in my K–12 cafeterias. Having people ask me to sit with them feels strange and wonderful, like a desert-dweller discovering a reliable source of water.

The three of us try to arrive early for meals, when the noise level is at its lowest. Tables next to walls have superior acoustics. Capturing one of these, especially a corner table, feels like a little victory.

The Bon doesn’t serve Eritrean or Ethiopian food, and Justin and Gordon have never tried it. Gordon and I are looking up restaurants from the campus center’s computer room. Gordon stares into a monitor as he looks up the route to the Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant in Portland.

He disappears into the visual world of the computer while I sit by, waiting, seemingly forever. Time slows to an unbearable crawl as he silently interacts with the inaccessible screen—another glass wall. I debate going to the accessible computer in my room and just looking up the route myself.

I drum my fingers on the table. “Are you looking up how to get to Mexico?”

His eyes stay fixed on the screen. “This map only shows North America.”

“Mexico is in North America.”

“No, it’s in South America.”

I burst out laughing. “Mexico is in North America. Look it up!”

“What?” He starts furiously typing.

My rib cage shakes with laughter. My whole body, even my chair, vibrates with the belly-laughs that roll over me like waves. They pause long enough for me to ask, “Where did you go to school, Alaska?”

“Okay, you’re right. It’s North America.”

“Told you!” I burst into another round of chair-shaking hysterics.

“Oh, stop that! At least I don’t assume a professor’s a man or something dumb like that.”

The memory of my sexist comment stifles my mirth.

A woman starts shouting behind us. “Don’t call her that! Haben is not dumb! She’s intelligent, and you need to be nice to her!”

My body stiffens as my mind tries to label the emotion coursing through my veins. Fear? Anger? Despair?

Navigating ableist situations is like traversing the muckiest mud pit. Ableism runs so deep in our society that most ableists don’t recognize their actions as ableist. They coat ableism in sweetness, then expect applause for their “good” deeds. Attempts to explain the ableism behind the “good deeds” get brushed aside as sensitive, angry, and ungrateful.

My nerves jangle as I clear my throat. “We’re just joking around. You don’t need to speak for me.”

The woman storms out of the room.

“Who was that?” I whisper.

“That girl who hangs out with Carrie.”

“Anika.”

“Yeah. She and Carrie keep talking down to you and it’s super condescending.”

“You noticed!” A warm, summery feeling sweeps over me. I feel weightless, like the sensation on the high point of a swing. “I thought no one else noticed. It always feels like they’re talking down to me, and everyone else calls it ‘being nice.’”

A heady mix of astonishment and relief pulse through me.

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