Finally! teamrat.me is mine and this site is live! It goes against my very private personality to expose my thoughts with my name. But when I turned fifty, I promised to break that cycle. For decades I have written my thoughts on different topics in anonymous blogs. Starting this now, when the web is so fast and our interactions are filtered through algorithms, seems counterintuitive. It is like I am venturing out into the dark space in search of aliens. This level of opening myself feels just right.
Fifty Notes
Wednesday, 11 February 2026
Tuesday, 5 March 2024
Malaria
This story occurred circa mid-September 1991, four months after Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia. My college education at Addis Ababa University was interrupted in my second semester of freshman year and I was back in Eritrea with an uncertain future.
It had been two weeks since my friend Tesfom and I arrived at Maria Tselam (ማርያ ጸላም) as middle school teachers at Asmat Boarding School as part of a national service that had yet to be declared officially. We met in high school a couple of years earlier. I knew Tesfom very well as he was a top student and organizer of all things fun in high school and our freshman year at Addis Ababa University the year before. I doubt he knew much about me other than my existence. I mostly kept to myself and did not participate in the soccer games that bound together most of our class.
Thursday, 8 December 2022
What is in the name
Today is the 50th birthday1 of my name. It was the exact midpoint of my life in my mother’s womb.
A few weeks earlier, my parents traveled to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) for vacation and business. My mom (mama) returned home to Asmara (then part of Ethiopia) two weeks earlier than planned to attend the funeral of a close relative. But my dad (baba), who worked as an independent accountant, stayed behind for two more weeks to file the financial statements of one of his long-time clients. The day before his travel, he sent a telegram to another of his clients in Asmara. He does not remember the exact wording now, but it was terse and said something to the effect, “I am done with the business. I will arrive tomorrow”.