Every Thursday, we had Yeroo Walaloo (Poetry Hour). We’d sit in a circle under the giant odaa tree whose roots had cracked the school’s back courtyard. Barsiisaa Girma, with his patched jacket and eyes like embers, would begin: “ Mana barumsaa, mana ifaa — School, house of light.” Then he’d point to a student. You had to finish the verse.
It wasn’t a grand school. No marble floors, no smartboards, no green field for football. Mana Barumsaa koo — my school — was a tired, weather-beaten building with chipped blue paint and windows that never fully closed. But to me, it was a universe.
“ Bakka hawwiin coomaa dhabe, Bakka rakkoon darbe… ” (Where hunger loses its fat, Where suffering passes by…) walaloo mana barumsaa koo
I stood there a long time. Then I took a piece of chalk from my pocket — I always carry one — and beneath those words, I wrote:
“ Mana barumsaa, mana ifaa, Bakka hubanni biqilaa… ” (School, house of light, Where understanding sprouts…) Every Thursday, we had Yeroo Walaloo (Poetry Hour)
Silence. Then the whole class clapped. Even Chaltu, the girl who always sat at the back and never smiled, looked at me with something like respect. That day, I learned: walaloo isn’t just poetry. It’s the truth your tongue finds when your heart is too full.
One day, he pointed at me. My face burned. I stood slowly. You had to finish the verse
But on the wall of my old classroom, someone had scribbled new words in Oromo:
And I smiled, because mana barumsaa is never just a building. It’s the first place someone told you that your voice matters.
One boy sang of the broken bell that rang late. A girl sang of the well where we washed our feet before class. I sang of the window near my desk, where a lizard always watched me solve math.