The longest time I’ve spent away from Addis, the city where I was born and raised, wasn’t even two years. It was a transformative time for me, once I got over the culture shock and discomfort that comes with living away from home for the first time. I’d moved to China, where I worked as an English teacher (anyone else done a stint as an ESL teacher somewhere in the world?).
China changed me. The Addis I knew before and after also changed with it. When I returned, I made an effort to expand my world, meeting foreigners living and working in the city. Though I came back thinking it would only be a temporary stay, I’m still around a decade later, glued to this place where I feel not just belonging, but a sense of duty. It’s hard to leave a place you feel you owe something to; a country that gave me so much.
