My journey – Ethiopia to law graduation in my new home Australia

My journey – Ethiopia to law graduation in my new home Australia

30 Mar 2022

When I reflect upon my journey from Addis Ababa to graduation in law 13 years later, to learning English, financial control, office management, to bringing up a child, it has been a full on 13 years. This is my journey.

Shortly after my husband, Kim and I married in Addis I left Ethiopia for the antipodes in 2009. Kim proposed within a week of us meeting, after having obtained the consent of my mother for my hand in marriage (Ethiopian culture!). We tied the knot 5 weeks later.  Kim`s law firm was sponsoring a film on children orphaned by HIV. I met him on that trip in Addis at a venue where I was having a meeting to do with an event that I was organising.

I came to Australia via NZ where I lived with my late mother-in -law, Joy Lovegrove (in photo collage) for 3 months, who passed away from cancer 5 years ago in Melbourne. My mother -in-law who taught primary school pupils in Malawi and Zambia in the 1960s, although in her late seventies accelerated my grasp of English.

When I arrived in NZ, I was fluent in the Ethiopian Amharic language and was disadvantaged by a very limited grasp of English. My mother-in-law and I spent our mornings studying English in her lovely Auckland Remuera apartment but I was given the afternoons off to avoid overload. Typically we went out for an afternoon stroll up Mount Hobson and looked across the glorious Auckland Waitemata harbour.  It was fitting that I started my ‘down under’ journey in NZ as my husbands’ family are all New Zealanders and my husband spent his childhood in Africa.

It saddens me that my mother-in-law was not here to see my graduation. I miss her so, having been at her bedside witnessing her final breaths as she peacefully ascended to her father in heaven 5 years ago. I held her hand as her only child Kim said he didn`t have the courage to be there to feel the life warmth in her hand fading into cold. He said to her ‘I want my last memory of you Mum to be one of holding a warm hand’.

Joy Lovegrove was a remarkable woman, independent, strong, very beautiful and elegant, (as you can see in her photo in pink dress and blue hat) and a great teacher. She gave meaning to the word elan and the French term that certain je ne sais quoi with her exquisite, understated style.

And she knew she was beautiful, she once recounted to me that she was watching a concert in the park one day, and a young man said “would you mind moving as you are blocking the view, she replied, “young man when I was your age, I was the view” Most importantly, like my own mother and I, she shared the most extraordinary faith in *Christ.

I sometimes ‘tear up’ when I reflect upon our banter over biblical extracts and *Christs` teachings and remember the sight of her quietly playing patience or watching a languid BBC ‘who done it’.

My late, father was a teacher too. Alemayehu Gebrehana senior was a very good man, a wonderful father, known for his integrity which as it played out probably saved his life. He was a chair of a local government committee prior to his ill – fated arrest. When he was incarcerated during the time of the Derg government when Mengistou was in power, many fine people labelled as being on the wrong side of the political spectrum were jailed and tens of thousands of my countryfolk died.

Such was my fathers` reputation for integrity the Derg powers to be, released him as they realised that this incorruptable man served no purpose serving an eternity in jail. But it took a terrible toll, he died of unknown causes in his early forties when we were mere children.

Papa`s death was a rude and untimely shock to our very young family. The burden of bringing up 7 children then fell to my extraordinary mother (featured in the bottom right of the photo collage), who skimped and saved with the help of my late and beloved sister Emebet. We were blessed with a humble abode, roof over our head, food on table, clothing and we all finished school, and 3 of my siblings finished degrees.

By the mid – nineties Emebet was living in France and was the financial rock who ensured that we continued our education after my dad passed away. She lived for her family and her daughter Catherine, my niece, an extraordinary young woman who is studying law in Paris.

Emebet passed away in my final year of law, from unknown causes aged 40 in Kombolcha in 2021, she died in my mothers arms. It meant a great deal to my mum to have her daughter reconciled with her in Emebet`s final years, as her oldest daughter had lived abroad in Paris for a long time. When Emebet was young and stronger her narrow frame carried the family and when Emebet was tired and older, her mother carried her. It was however no burden, such was my mother`s love for this departed soul whose life was devoted to others.

So, at this graduation Emebet I look up to you in heaven, I know you will be proud of this achievement and I know you will be at peace with our father in heaven and I hope it serves as motivation to your daughter. I recognise your role in my journey from Kombolcha, Dire Dawa to Melbourne. But for your selfless toil and support I don’t know if any of us would have survived our adolescence, let alone 3 of your siblings graduating from university.  Ewedishalehu yene wibi ehit Emebet, ewedishalehu. (I love you my dear sister Emebet).

Having spent 3 months with my mum-in-law in NZ when I arrived in Melbourne, I was beginning to get an elementary grasp of English. I enrolled in the AMES course for migrants. It was a fantastic cultural acclimatisation course and helped advance my English, it was also wonderful to get together with other migrants and I forged some lasting friendships.

One thing I was taught at AMES was that in Australia the convention was that if someone shouts you, next time “it’s your shout mate” 😊. This belied a culture of reciprocity and fairness, part of the fabric of this wonderful country`s interpersonal dealings. In Australia we are all encouraged to pull our own weight and I hope my story gives credence to that ethos.

I completed a diploma in management, started to work in admin in Lovegrove and Cotton Lawyers and in 2011 had my darling little girl Joy, now 10, named in honour of my late mother -in-law. Joy has played a large part in my journey too; such were the hours of toil that had to be devoted to my studies I was not able to spend as much quality time with my one and only child as I would have liked. Thank you for your patience and encouragement my beloved child, Joy.

The law degree was incredibly challenging but by the grace of *God and a tremendous amount of hard work, the burning of the midnight oil I got through it; that along with being a mother, an office manager and financial controller was not without challenge. On a number of occasions it seemed all too hard, too overwhelming but my husband kept on saying ‘get back on the saddle’, you`ll get through it. And so I have.

He always said “there are two things on my bucket list, to see you graduate and to see our daughter qualified, and independent. Sentiments that are in keeping with his family`s intergenerational obsession (dating back to my late grandparents Norman and Evelyn Lovegrove, the former of which worked for the UN in Ethiopia in the fifties and sixties) with the capacitation of the Lovegrove women, to ensure that all our women could become independent and equipped to fulfill our destinies of choice.

This capacitation ethos was also something that my parents subscribed to. Maybe it was because there were educationalists and lawyers on both sides of the family, maybe it was because both families were gender and colour blind, (my husband always says “regardless of who we are we all bleed red”). Kim has played a large part in my journey too; it would have been almost impossible to complete my degree without his home duties back up. On many occasions when I faced exams and assignment due dates, Kim stepped up, not the least of which the looking after of our daughter and assistance with my managerial work responsibilities as we work together. So thank you so much my dear husband – I am so blessed to be married to you!

Regardless I am absolutely thrilled to have completed my law degree in this phenomenal country; this advanced democracy, where unlike some parts of the world political differences are not escalated into the shedding of blood.

Australia has given me, an African woman immigrant, an extraordinary opportunity to be given the gift of citizenship, to embrace your life, your lifestyle to start and complete my law degree at the Victorian University of Technology. And thank you VUT and my lecturers for the opportunities you give to aspirational Australian – Africans; it did not escape my attention that there were a great many African graduates looking marvellous in their graduation gowns, gleefully wandering into the Flemington racecourse grounds to attend their graduation ceremony. Your support for my community is so very, very much appreciated.

And know this my Ethiopian mother in Kombolcha Ethiopia, will be over the moon when I send her my graduation photo to her. Also to my dear late mother -in-law, Joy, who took me under her wing at age 77, you will be lightning up the heavens with the most radiant of smiles when you see me in my graduation gown! Happy days my mothers.

Tsigereda is currently working at Lovegrove & Cotton Lawyers – Construction and Planning Lawyers as a senior paralegal and office manager while she is undertaking her practical legal training at Leo Cussen in Victoria.