Here is my history

Read the moving and insightful story of Asmare Endalew, a young Ethiopian adult who moved to Israel as a young child. He has lived at an absorption centre and has some great tales to tell.

My name is Asmare Endalew. I was born in a small village called Wendelef in Ethiopia 20 years ago. Since then I have made aliya and I currently live in Rishon Letzion. I have 5 brothers and 2 sisters. Now I learn in a yeshiva, but I am planning to go into the army in a year. My hobbies are playing soccer, learning about computers and keeping close relationships with my friends.

I was born on the 13th September 1990. The village in which I grew up was beautiful. My entire extended family lived in the same village, so I always felt very connected to them. My immediate family's house was on a hill. My father was a farmer and my mother did work around the house. She cooked and cleaned and took care of all of us. My siblings and I played vital roles in the village as well, we grazed cows and goats, and we harvested and plowed fields. My grandfather was the richest man in the village and he used to give most of his money to charity.

In the villages of Ethiopia there was no schooling, so I learned everything I needed to know from my parents. Obviously this did not include maths or science. Rather I learned farming and how to be a shepherd.

I had many friends who also lived in the village and I used to play with them. We didn't have modern day toys so we played hide-and-go-seek and we went swimming in the river. We all made aliya together and we still spend time together when I come home from yeshiva.

One time, when I was 4 years-old, I went with my brothers to a grassy area to graze the cows. We were away for a whole month. One day during that month, my brothers went with the cows and I stayed with a friend to guard the calves. The calves started dispersing so I ran after one of them. While I was running, my foot sunk into a deep pit, and when I tried to pull it out it got cut from a very sharp plant. The cut was very deep and it was bleeding badly. I had never learned what to do in this situation and the only person who could help was my friend, who was only a year older than me. He didn't know what to do either, so we stuffed the cut with dirt and covered it with leaves. The leaves stuck to my skin. My brother took me home on a donkey and my mother, who wasn't a doctor, started to treat me. The closest doctor was a whole week's walk away. First she removed the leaves with butter. Then she cleaned the cut. The pain was excruciating and I still couldn't walk. I had to lie in bed for a whole year until my leg healed on its own. That's what everyone did when injured - they lay in bed until the wound healed on its own.

Another time, when I was a little older, it was night and my father told me to take a cow from my house to the cowshed. This cow was the most dangerous one because she liked to head-butt anyone who approached her from the front. After dropping her off at the cowshed I took an ox from my grandfather's house to the cowshed. On the way, I saw that the cow had escaped from the shed, so I approached her from the side and while doing so I felt that the ground had become squishy [children didn't get shoes until the age of 14]. I felt something wind itself around my leg and then around my waist. It was a poisonous snake. I quickly pushed down all the coils and ran away leaving the cow and the ox behind. The next morning my father found the ox dead from a snake bite.

All in all, life was not easy in the village, but it was what I had so I was happy. When I was 8 years old, I heard that people from Ethiopia were moving to Jerusalem. In order to get from our village to the big city, Shahura, we had to walk for two weeks. We spent a few months in the city and then my parents and my whole family went to Gondar without me, and I stayed with my aunt. I stayed in order to guard the donkey that we used to move our belongings to the city until we could sell it. My parents could have left for Jerusalem, but they decided to stay in Gondar until I could join them. After some time, a man came to Shahura and said that he knew my father, and that he could take me to him. I was very excited, and I decided that I would go with him even though my aunt didn't allow me to. The next morning, my aunt lied to me, and told me that they didn't leave, but I figured out that they had left without me so I went by myself to catch up with them. After a few hours I caught up with them. They took me to the island of Dessie. From there we took a ship to Gorgora and a bus to Gondar, where I reunited with the rest of my family. In Gondar we spent 7 years. In 2001 - 2002 there was a terrible famine in Gondar and many people died of hunger. After the famine, when I was 12, the Jewish Agency opened a Jewish school in Gondar. This was the first time I had ever studied. In school I did very well. I studied there for 5 full years and in the 6th year we moved to Jerusalem.

It took us 7 years because we didn't have anybody in Jerusalem that could help us. After a few years my brother made aliya with his wife, and they fought for us in Jerusalem. Eventually we made aliya, in 2006, and we met my brother at the airport. From the airport they sent us to the absorption centre in Tzfat. There they sent me to the Ulpan in Ma'alot. I studied in the Ulpan for 3 months and then the Second Lebanon war broke out. All the parents stayed in the bomb shelter in Tsfat and the children were sent to Hadassah Niurim School in Netanya. There, we had a lot of fun. Volunteers came to visit us and did lots of activities with us. They took us to swimming pools, hikes and other fun places. It was the first time in my life that I really had fun. We spent a month there without visiting our parents and at the end of the war we returned to Tsfat.

At the absorption centre in Tsfat I took a course in the basics of using computers. My teacher's name was Oodleya. At the end of the course there was a competition. I won the competition so I received the first prize - a desktop computer and internet sponsored by Compedia.

After the course, I was sent to a boarding school called 'Abir Yaakov' in Nahariya. At the beginning of the year I had a hard time making friends, mainly due to my lack of ability to speak Hebrew fluently. Slowly but surely I started to get to know my classmates and they turned out to be my best friends. The teachers at the school were very understanding and sympathetic and they tried to help me out in every way possible. Until tenth grade I studied in a special class for pupils from Ethiopia. Due to my success in that class, I was moved up to the regular class, where I did very well. I was successful in my Bagruyot exams, even though most of my teachers feared I wouldn't succeed. I was persistent and didn't let up until I was put into the 4 point class [out of 5] in both English and Math. To succeed in these classes I needed extra help so I used to meet with a private teacher after school. Unfortunately, my parents can't work in Israel because they don't understand Hebrew, so I had to find another source to pay for my private lessons. I turned to the Jewish Agency and they put me in touch with a righteous Jew from England, who donated to my studies. I am still in touch with him now. In the end I was the only Ethiopian in my class to be so successful in these advanced classes. This proves that will and persistence are key factors in success.

After graduating, I debated at length going to a special army programme, where one studies toward a first degree and then does army service in his field; or going to a hesder yeshiva - a five year program that includes army service and Judaic studies. In the end I chose to go to the hesder program in Yerucham and I am very happy here. I volunteer in the surrounding neighborhood every Shabbat and I help an elementary student with his Judaic studies. Most of my time is spent learning Torah. After I finish the hesder program, I hope to start studying medicine in university. I hope to grow to be a great Torah Jew, helping out societies and contributing, in particular, to the Ethiopian children of Israel, giving them a fair chance to a successful life in Israel.

For more information on UJIA's work with Ethiopian Olim (immigrants) please contact Adrienne Cinna