After several years of inter bickering amongst themselves, the Eritrean National Union of North America (ሃማደኤ) Seattle branch and the Greater Seattle Eritrean Association (ማሕበረ ኮም) have resolved their differences and celebrated the International Women’s Day (March 8) jointly at ማሕበረ ኮም with a stunning success!
The exciting program started appropriately with a solemn remembrance to our fallen hero Major General Gerezghier Andemariam (Wuchu)! Two messages of intent and solidarity with each other were read by two beautiful ladies – Ms. Workinesh Debas, representing the ማሕበረ ኮም and Ms. Azieb Asfaha representing ሃማደኤ Seattle branch. Ms. Samrawit Michael, the chairwoman of the Eritrean National Union of North America, who flew in from Washington, DC for the special occasion, took the podium, in which she expressed her appreciation for all the people and organization who had made the event a smashing success and pledged to support and work with the subject organizations. This was followed by Mr. Dawit Haile of our Embassy in Washington, DC who expressed his satisfaction and admiration of the effort that was put forth in the reconciliation process and encouraged the audience to follow through with what was an excellent beginning.
Then it was some of our youngsters turn to read various poetry including one in the Kunama language. Naturally the young poets had March 8 and its significance to women in general and the Eritrean women in particular in mind. They narrated how wonderful and very special their mothers and sisters were considering the hardship they had to bear during the liberation struggle while caring for their family members. Yes, poem after poem were a depiction of recognizing of the Eritrean ተጋዳሊት and the cultural and biological hurdles that she had to overcome to assert her own right through participation in just about every field her male counterpart did, including in the battle field. The contents of the poems, especially coming out from the young kids was gratifying and makes one feel very proud of his/her Eritreanism!
The opening musical rendition in the Bilen language was heaven made match for the youngsters that were displaying their dancing skills on the stage for which the audience went wild in cheering and applauding the little angels on earth. In fact the beat and the music were so enticing that a couple of the mothers joined the dancing spree to the delight of the audience, who responded with a resounding applause.
While the musical show and dancing, which was conducted by our Tefono Aklilu, Musie Teame and Dawit was going on strong, but that would not be good enough without some Eritrean delight that came in the form of a variety of Eritrean vegetarian dishes appropriate for (ግዜ ጾም) and healthy choice as well as some meat dishes for the young and young at heart. Oh my! The food was “finger licking” yummy! Our thanks goes to those (ዋሓለታት) mothers and sisters who had prepared such delicious food. “ክብረት ይሃበልና”!
United We Stand” was the motto of this important Holiday and we were not disappointed!