Being queer in Ethiopia is the most depressing and loneliest feeling that any human can possibly feel. I wholeheartedly believe that we queer Ethiopians are alone in this. The small Muslim majority Southeast Asian nation Brunei enacted the punishment of death by stoning if found guilty of being gay and everyone knew about it and celebrities started boycotting hotels owned by the king of Brunei. It got covered in major news stations and it was trending on Twitter. But in Ethiopia people gather in the name of God to insight hate, bigotry, discrimination … so on and no one seems to talk about it at a bigger platform and this is why I say we are fucking alone in this. And so we need each other.
I am an Ethiopian woman dating another Ethiopian woman. We have been together for more than two years and we’re planning to move in together this year.
We met on the lgbt dating site One Scene which is so much better than Facebook. It’s rare to find fake accounts with vulgar profile names. We met two years ago. At first it was just chatting on One Scene. I gave her my number hoping that she was not some sick dude pretending to be someone else. We started chatting on Telegram and then calling each other. After getting comfortable with each other, we met two weeks later for the first time at a lounge around the Hayahulet area in Addis Ababa. We were so nervous but we hit it off really quick, we really clicked and we stayed for a while drinking. One thing led to another and we kissed out in the open. We weren’t caught or anything since no one saw us but it was the best moment of my life.
We spend our days in Addis like we are not a couple. We keep our distance from each other, we try to hide the way we look at each other, although I know for a fact that we have failed at that so many times. It’s hard, especially when we meet one of her best friends and they ask about how we seem to be connected on a different level and how they have never heard of me before. She always says it’s hard on her that she can’t be honest with them. And I think one of her friends knows that we are more than friends. But I don’t care.
