At the last minute I found a professional to look over my taxes here in Edgewater in Chicago. Desalegn saved me a few thousand dollars! As he punched in the numbers, he asked why I had a grant from the government, just making small talk. When I explained the English Language Fellowship and that I taught in Israel last year, he got a faraway look and said how much Ethiopian Christians like him long to visit Jerusalem. This is one of the smallest best gifts you can ever give a person I’ve found: to say sincerely, “I want to go where you’ve come from.” We both lit up when I reciprocated with how much I long to visit Ethiopia. He added that there is an Ethiopian Orthodox portion of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the supposed site of the cross and the tomb. I said I know and showed him this photo of pilgrims I snapped there. I only intuited they were Ethiopian though—having never been or really had an Ethiopian friend and not having asked their story. We both burst into smiles under our masks as Desalegn confirmed, “Yep, definitely. Based on the clothing I can tell.” Now we’re going to meet for coffee and I can’t wait to tell this story whenever I finally visit Ethiopia and I just love pulling threads over the world and how having traveled infuses the most mundane act—like paying your taxes—with wonder.
