Travel Guide |
July 27, 2013

ESFNA Festival in Maryland: Some Observations


By Fekade Shewakena

July 27, 2013

Ethiopians
from all over the United States and other parts of the world including from Ethiopia
descended on Washington DC by the thousands during the past July 4 week to be
part of the annual weeklong soccer and cultural festival organized by ESFNA
(Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America).  It was a flood of Ethiopians everywhere
that a friend of mine who watched the crowed in downtown Silver Spring said
that this is the only instance he knows in history that people from a far away
land can invade a place in such huge numbers without an army.   Downtown Silver Spring, located some 15
minutes drive from Byrd Stadium of the University of Maryland, where the event
was held, was so crowded that, at times, you may even think you are somewhere
in Addis Ababa.

The scene
at the stadium was simply a colorful celebration of Ethiopia and a show of its
culture in all its forms. According to ESFNA officials there were more than one
hundred eighty vendors selling all kind of goods and food around the stadium.  Seeing many people eating from the same
plate, the smell of Ethiopian food and coffee and the loud Marakato-like music coming
from every vendor’s tent at the same time, nearly blowing your head, gives
you the impression that you are somewhere in Ethiopia.  The adorable Ethiopian tricolor was splashed
everywhere in different forms that it seems the only thing you see all around
you is it.  Even my little 6 year
old, Liya, that I was walking with through the crowed on “Ethiopia Day”, demanded that she gets Ethiopia painted
on her face and stood me in line for nearly half an hour until her turn comes
up.   She calls everything green-yellow-red
“Ethiopia”.  She was
more beautiful with the tricolor on her face but she also said she needs more “Ethiopia”
and made me buy her the Ethiopian soccer team’s shirt of her size and a small
Ethiopian flag to wave.   She
was at her happiest when she owned the colors that watching her happy and excited
nearly drove me to tears.   You know, she is an all American child
that has not seen and experienced Ethiopia.  She only heard about it and still thinks she
belongs to a distant land named Ethiopia and loves it anyway.

Soccer is
only the excuse. More people come here for numerous other purposes and be part of the celebration of their culture and their
country.  There were more people
walking the vending area than watch the interstate soccer tournaments in the
field.  Many people have experiences
of finding long lost friends and acquaintances during this ritual. I found mine
both this year and in the past.  
Some, I heard, have found their wives and husbands here.  But whether you find anybody or not, struggling
to push your way around through the crowed also gives you a special feel. Outside
of the stadium and all over the Washington DC metro area, there were probably
hundreds of meetings during the week. Political organizations, civic groups,
professional associations, alumni associations, ‘edirs’, charity
organizations etc., held their meetings. 
ESAT has the largest and most crowded fund raising gathering.  It probably needs a stadium in the
future.

ESFNA that
hosted the gathering lived up to its motto of “bringing Ethiopians
together”. That is all it did. It brought us together and left us to do
what we want to do.   Its dedication of this year’s event
to celebrating Ethiopian women and appreciating their plight was a great idea.
The Center for the Rights of Ethiopian Women (CREW) was made to stand at the
center of the celebration this year representing Ethiopian women. They did a
wonderful job of bringing up the plight of our sisters in the Middle East.

The Ups and the Downs:

As the
saying goes, no good did go unpunished.  Like many things Ethiopian, this
beautiful event has not passed without seeing something mind boggling.  There was a failed attempt to divide the
community and destroy such a beautiful institution built over thirty years of
toil, perhaps one of the best Ethiopians ever built in our countries of exile.  This was exactly what a splinter group
that gave some weird name to itself “AESA one” or as Sheik Mohammed
Al Amoudi, in one of his addresses to its members calls it,
“Essawa”, were trying to do. 

With the
help of billionaire Sheik Mohamed al Amludi’s millions of dollars, the group
was trying to organize the same thing at a huge stadium in Washington with
identical programs like ESFNA.  Some
anonymous sick crooks were also writing emails to local government officials,
the University of Maryland and the managements of hotels reserved by ESFNA in
attempts to sabotage and crash the event. 
The crooks who wrote the emails under pseudonyms wrote ESFNA is a cheat
organization that has no money to fulfill its side of the obligation and advised
these organizations to cancel the contracts and any help they may be giving.  I have seen these emails with my own eyes
as received by these agencies.  I
hope ESFNA will publish this emails on its website or even find this
individuals and expose them to the public. ESFNA organizers were made to climb
an unnecessary uphill battle to fight the possible effects of these evil
campaigns.

But, thanks
to the community, the net result was the opposite of what these dividers intended
to do.  In fact, the unexpected huge
turnout this year is in part explained by the anger this splinter group and the
Sheik’s efforts have produced in our community. This group deservedly had
an empty stadium for a week and a well deserved egg all over their faces at the
end of the day.  What they did is
simply sad. Even if they have a problem within ESFNA, they could have tried to change
it from within rather than go out and do this satanic thing.

Why the Sheik
got involved in this sham exercise with his millions of dollars is hard to
understand. For all I know, he was a supporter of ESFNA for many years in the
past and a onetime guest of honor of ESFNA.  I can’t for the life of me
understand why he spends so much money for attempting to destroy this wonderful
organization.  I don’t think
he is basically a bad person himself.   Perhaps he is fed bad information
from bad people. I know many people accuse him of queasiness with regime
officials in Addis Ababa which they perceive as a corrupting influence.  But I think that is his right. He can
believe in any politics of his choice. 
But trying to destroy our institution in a land where we live as a free
people is a different thing all together. 
 In one of their radio
advertisements the splinter group even insulted themselves and the entire
Ethiopian community by promising to give us free lunch, paid by the Sheik, if
we go and attend their event.  This
is despicable. Come ‘on, in America, where food is one of the cheapest
things? I almost puked when I heard it. If you are his friend and happen to
read this, please tell the honorable Sheik to do a favor for himself and for all
of us by stopping this destructive agenda as he promised to continue doing on
one of their events.  He can get
more respect by trying to reconcile divided groups rather than joining in the
fray.  He should also be told that
there are a few things money cannot and should not buy.  Just watch the reaction of the crowed on “Ethiopia
Day” in this video  (see video )
as the singer in the lyrics says something about the meaning of “money
without love”.  It was no
doubt the public’s reaction to the Sheik’s attempts.  

The event
was a success but there are a few things to be said about everybody to make it
better for the future.

ESFNA Management:

 There were numerous glitches in the event
including people returning from the gates of the stadium for lack of space.
There were problems following the daily schedules and meeting obligations as
advertised. The public understands that ESFNA officials are doing a hard and
difficult job.  This year they have
to spend quite a lot of time and energy in defending the organization from the
splinter group.  That obviously
takes their attention and time. But they could have added manpower by asking
for volunteers and overcome some problems.  For the future, they should do a huge
reorganization and restructuring of the management and outsource some of their
functions to businesses and professionals. 
They should consult Ethiopians with management expertise for helpful
advice on reorganization. We have all kinds of professionals around us that can
help voluntarily.   Adding the
negatives and positives together, ESFNA has done a wonderful job under
difficult circumstances.  We all
should be grateful to all the leaders and Ato Getachew Tesfaye, the president
of ESFNA, who had to juggle this monumental task with his tough work schedule.  Ato Getachew is a nuclear scientist who
has lots of responsibilities at work and travels between Europe and the United
States frequently even while he was working on the festival. All the leaders of
ESFNA deserve a huge thank you and our respect for what they have done for us
and Ethiopia.

The DC Area Businesses:

Most
Ethiopian businesses, particularly the restaurants were prepared for the crowed
and provided a lot of entertainment. We have heard of some who charged
exorbitant prices for their services, obscene in some cases, like selling a
bottle of beer for twelve dollars and a single lunch for thirty dollars. We all
know that there are additional costs these businesses incur during these times
and some price hikes are understandable. Many restaurants employ additional
labor, police and security during the week. But thirty
dollars for a single lunch? This boarders on the criminal and should
never happen again. Such greedy get-rich- quick individuals should know that
the community can punish them by boycotting their businesses if they frequent
it. Fortunately these are only a handful. There were also many who charged
everything at their regular prices and treated their gusts professionally and
as though they were doing it in their own homes.

The Crowed:

The crowed
was magnificent in every respect. We are all prouder of the dignified way we
handled ourselves.  There
wasn’t a single case of violence. There wasn’t a single incident of
misbehavior or drunk driving or anything of that sort. Not even accidents.  The hotels have already started asking when
this crowed is going to come back again so that they can prepare for better
services.  Even the police are
wondering how a large crowed of people stay one week together and leave without
creating a single incident.  Those
of us who live in Maryland are grateful for the crowed for positively affecting
our lives and giving us a good image in addition to contributing millions of
dollars in income to the state. More importantly, we all need to be happy by
the unanimity in our rejection of division in any form.  Ethiopia was a little more proud of us
during the week.

The Ethiopian Government:

No government
agency or embassy official of the Ethiopian government was around the stadium. I
am told embassy officials chose to go to the empty stadium organized by the
splinters ignoring the 99.9% of us who were celebrating Ethiopia at the ESFNA
event. That of course is unfortunate and a shame. This event was not a
political event as anybody who has been there can attest. ESFNA is a
demonstrably non political organization. We also want it to keep out of
divisive politics.  ESFNA’s job
should remain bringing us together.  All political groups did their events
outside the stadium.  Of course,
they had their tents at the stadium like any other agency would.  If we were a lucky country, we would have
seen a tent among the nearly 200 tents in the stadium to encourage people to buy
bonds for the Abbay dam or demonstrate the project.   It is a proof that all this
patronizing the Diaspora by the government is about love of our money and not
us.  I only pray for the day we have
a loved government official sitting among us at ESFNA events and celebrating
Ethiopia with us.

Conclusion:

ESFNA has
proven itself that it has become a big institution owned by the community. It
is so obvious that ESFNA has outgrown its capacity and the way it is being
led.  ESFNSA officials could be
making a huge mistake if they think the large turnout this year was due to
their exclusive efforts.  I hope
they understand this more than anyone. 
I am also sure they will be responsive to the public and be a
transparent organization especially when it comes to financial matters. There
are huge expenses that the public doesn’t know. Some think the
Organization is amassing money only by looking at the turnout. Make the details
public so that we have more trust, respect and love for ESFNA. In as much as
possible ESFNA should avoid big money from individuals in the future.  We are better of poorer than involving people
who want to pull strings though the money they help us with.  I am told ESFNA makes better money when
it holds the event in Washington DC. If that is the case, I suggest that the
2014 celebration be also held in the DC area. This is just a suggestion to help
its financial strength. I also suggest that it open an office with at least one
full time employee. It is also good to start preparation for the next event in
advance than rush though it during the last one or two months before the
occasion.

What a
week!! The 30 year anniversary of ESFNA was a blast. Thanks to our brothers who
started it thirty years ago and the many who still
keep it going.

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