Oliver Benjamin
The man laughed loudly, displaying unusually perfect teeth. “Ye
egzi’abehear buna.” God’s coffee.
Roy smiled broadly. Yes. This was it. And funny: here he was in
the worst of all possible situations—injured, in a small Ethiopian
village with no clothes, no money, no credit cards, no passport and
virtually no Amharic. But of course it had to happen this way. God’s
coffee would not come easy.
Again he started to weep. Sobs of release bubbled up from the
center of his beaten frame. The man patted him on his shoulder,
kindly and uncomprehending. He must have thought Roy’s a merely
physical agony. He helped him lie back down on the straw bed and
barked once more for his daughter to return. She quickly shuffled in
and after her father was gone Roy felt her reach out and take hold of
his hand. Distant sounds of water moving by provided the
soundtrack for the dancing of the shadows against the mud huts of
the encircling wall. The pain receded and he slept.
Roy expressed such enthusiasm about the coffee that once he was
able to walk again, the man took him to meet the person who brought
the magical beverage to their village. They strolled by the side of the
river to the home of the village elder, an exalted former priest. This
Abba lived in an old wooden church, painted inside with scenes from
Ethiopian biblical folklore. Roy was overjoyed to discover that he
spoke English. They sat down and waited as the Abba prepared more
of the extraordinary beverage, then explained how he discovered it.
A group of supplicants were gathered around, paying obeisance
to the man, yet he looked youngish for someone of such status. This
was because he had been chosen by the highest church in Ethiopia to
perform a sacred duty intended to last a lifetime. This was no average
Abba.
The man, Tesfa Maryam, was one of the former guardians of the
Ark of the Covenant in Axum. It was the most honored job an
Ethiopian priest could ever hope to hold. Though meant to be a
permanent position, he explained that it was one in which he could
not have survived very long.
“Very lonely,” he explained, “Very very lonely. You sit in room all
day. Cannot leave. They tell you God is there with you. You will feel
him, they say. I did not feel him. I feel sad. I miss my friends. My
wife. My children. I tell them I must leave. They say I can not. I say I
will. They give me this to drink. I drink it. I feel God. I feel God in my
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