Cry of the Giraffe by Judie Oron

Author:Judie Oron
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV039250, JUV030010
Publisher: Annick Press
Published: 2010-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

I’d never been alone in a big city before. I was scared and I prayed that I had done the right thing in using the last of my money to come here. At first, I stayed close to the bus station. I was looking for a foreigner—an American, I’d been told. But I didn’t see any faranj among the crowds and after a while, my confidence grew and I began to move farther away from the station.

As I walked, I came across a crowd of people. They were watching a group of government soldiers being marched off to jail by rebel soldiers. The crowd was spitting and throwing stones at the prisoners.

“Down with Mengistu!” one man shouted.

“Death to the Butcher of Addis!” another screamed. The rebel soldiers struggled to keep the crowd away from the prisoners.

“These are nothing but young boys,” a man next to me said, shaking his head. “They were probably taken from their village in a government raid. Now, suddenly, they’re the enemy!” I nodded and continued to move forward.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Without any warning, three large blasts rocked the area. I cringed when a block of wood fell off a building and landed only a few meters from where I was standing.

I was bent over, coughing from the dust kicked up by the blasts, when I heard loud, high shrieks. “What happened?” a woman screamed, running out of a building and hugging a child to her breast.

“The rebels are blowing up the bridges to stop Mengistu’s tanks from coming back into the city,” someone answered.

“Oh, my God—look at that, look at that!” another woman cried and people rushed forward to see.

I pushed my way to the front of the crowd and was stunned to see two eyes staring up at me! I stood completely still, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. It was a man’s head, lying right there on the roadside! I gagged and turned away, pushing blindly outward while the crowd continued to stand there, muttering uneasily.

I ran back to the bus station and leaned against an inner wall, trying to catch my breath.

What do I do now? I thought. That woman on the bus was right. I shouldn’t be here. How stupid I was to think I could just walk around and find a faranj to save me!

I realized that with all this fighting, people would be suspicious of strangers, just like in Amba Giorgis. I would never find work here. At least in Amba Giorgis people knew me a little. They’d seen me carrying water all over town. One of my customers might even hire me. Then I wouldn’t have to be afraid—I’d have a safe place to sleep.

Whatever my decision, I needed to make it quickly. It would be dark in another few hours, too dark to walk all the way back to Amba Giorgis. And I couldn’t stay in the city—I had no money for a bed.

I tried to think past the tiredness, hunger, and fear. I looked around, wondering if I might be able to sneak onto a bus.

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