Mistaken Identity

Today I wore my new Ethiopian scarf as an accessory because I love it so. It’s very basic in design, with loosely woven cotton & thick end caps with red, yellow & green stripes & bits of gold thread. I 1st saw this type of scarf while visiting Detroit’s Eastern Market. Well anyway I was leaving the cafeteria with my breakfast when I was stopped by a pleasant woman who very gently asked me what country I was from. I quickly stated I am from the US & she looked very confused by my answer. She then pointed to my scarf & said that is from my country & I then figured out where she was coming from.

At this point I proceeded to embarrass myself by asking her if she was from Somalia, "she said no dear I am from Ethiopia", then she flipped it & "said that I must have been in the US for a long time not to remember where I was from". So then I told her that I had just gotten the scarf from a shop in Detroit (actually Highland Park @ Hakeem's African Imports). We then parted ways with me feeling somewhat like a fool!

I will say that my lesson learned is to be aware of what I am wearing when it comes to ethnic attire, because you never know who will approach you.

Some quick African facts:

Ethiopia

• Approximately 73,053,286 people
• Addis Ababa is the captiol
• Ethnic groups - Oromo 40%, Amhara and Tigre 32%, Sidamo 9%, Shankella 6%, Somali 6%, Afar 4%, Gurage 2%, other 1%
• Amharic, Tigrinya, Oromigna, Guaragigna, Somali, Arabic, English spoken
• Oldest independent country in Africa and one of the oldest in the world - at least 2,000 years

Somalia

• Approximately 8,591,629 people
• Mogadishu is the captiol
• Ethic groups - Somali 85%, Bantu and other non-Somali 15%
• Somali 85%, Bantu and other non-Somali 15% spoken
• 1 July 1960 (from a merger of British Somaliland, which became independent from the UK on 26 June 1960, and Italian Somaliland, which became independent from the Italian-administered UN trusteeship on 1 July 1960, to form the Somali Republic)