ABSTRACT
Abba Negusse, my adoptive father, is an old man, tall and strong, with bright eyes which appraise everyone and everything around him. He is usually quiet and dislikes people who go ‘blah blah blah’ all the time – ‘you should speak only when you have something to say!’ He is a cheerful man and his neighbours often congregate in his front garden to chat in the afternoon breeze. Abba Negusse loves to recount the days when he was a wealthy farmer and renowned weaver: ‘I had land from here, right up to the bank’, his arm stretches out towards the local Bank Hapoalim, some five hundred metres away. ‘I had cows and sheep! And a mule! And I had a gun with so many bullets!’ At other times, especially when a dispute is the topic of the day, he loves to speak of the elevated status he acquired in his village: ‘For five years. I was a judge (dagna). People came to me with their problems. I listened and then I said: “This is good. This is bad. Do this. Do that.”’
