2 Quotes by Nega Mezlekia

Land was to the nomads what a deity is to the initiated: one may draw on its might, but not lay claim to it. Amma herdsmen roamed the vast steppe at will in search of a green pasture and watering hole, with little regard for man-made boundaries. They questioned why a settled society should behave any differently, why one man should toil in the service of another merely because the stronger had staked out something that had never belonged to him in the first place.

Suddenly, it seemed to me an eternity since I had last seen Mam, and I cried."What is wrong with the boy?" the monk asked."It is his first day out," Dad fumbled. "Cheer up," the monk said to me. "You are becoming a man.""I am hungry," I told him."That is one way of becoming a man," he concluded.