Soccer to reunite Ethiopians who fled strife in homeland
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The game also has helped him fit in here in Seattle, where he was a star at Shoreline Community College and has been captain of the Seattle Dashen — a local amateur team made up almost entirely of Ethiopian immigrants — for most of the last 15 years.
And this weekend, the game will reunite him with old friends: Some 20,000 other Ethiopians from across North America are expected to converge on Seattle for a soccer and cultural blowout.
The party kicks off today in Qwest Field (formerly called Seahawks Stadium) with an opening ceremony at 9 p.m. Soccer games start earlier, at 11 a.m., and will last late into the night. Vendors will be selling all things Ethiopian.
Around 600 soccer players from 25 teams will take part, representing cities such as Washington, D.C., Houston and Toronto.
Beyond soccer, the 21st annual weeklong revelry — held in Seattle once before, in 1991 — is a major happening for the half-million or so Ethiopians now living in the United States.
"It's a huge mecca for Ethiopians in the diaspora," said Bisrat Desta, a local organizer of the tournament, which is put on by the Ethiopian Sports Federation in North America. "It's a place where you can find lost friends, people you grew up with and didn't even think were still alive."
For Beyene, one of an estimated 15,000 to 25,000 Ethiopians living in the Puget Sound area, the tournament offers a chance to catch up with — and compete against — the nine other players from his youth soccer team who defected with him and gained political asylum in the United States.
"Three of us came to Seattle, four went to Las Vegas, two to Chicago, and one to L.A.," said Beyene, 34, a photo technician. "Every year when we play we see each other."
Some of the Ethiopian visitors, who've booked about 500 rooms at the Doubletree Hotel Seattle Airport, will cheer on their soccer clubs, cruise on Elliott Bay, crowd into Ethiopian restaurants and party at nightclubs. The week wraps up on Saturday with an all-night bash for an expected 5,000 people in the exhibition center at Qwest Field.
The tournament, which will cost about $250,000 to put on, reflects the growing numbers and financial clout of Ethiopians in the Seattle area. Most local Ethiopians have arrived in the last 15 years, after the United States began granting visas in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seattle welcomed the first immigrants, Desta said, and the word spread.
"Those that settled here attracted their friends and relatives," Desta said. "A lot of Ethiopians feel comfortable here."
Desta estimated that this week's visitors will bring $2 million to the local economy, with car rentals, hotel and entertainment expenses.
At Lalibela Ethiopian Restaurant on East Cherry Street, manager Genut Thilun said staff members are prepared for a bump in numbers.
"We're ready for a mass of people," said Thilun, who is expecting relatives from Washington, D.C., and Ohio.
Solomon Tadesse, Ethiopia's honorary consul general in Seattle, said Ethiopians have shown an entrepreneurial spirit. The immigrants have opened some 19 local restaurants, he said, and 400 to 500 are taxi drivers who own their own vehicles.
Tadesse said that during the tournament he will try to tap into the swelling pocketbooks of Ethiopians by hosting a panel at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center with ministers from Ethiopia and the Ethiopian ambassador to the United States, Kassahun Ayele .
"We're trying to take advantage of having so many Ethiopians in town, to talk about Ethiopians investing back in Ethiopia," Tadesse said, noting that business ties to the Seattle area include a recent Ethiopian Airlines purchase of 12 Boeing jets.
Tadesse said the mere existence of his job shows the importance of the Seattle area to Ethiopians: The only other honorary Ethiopian consulate in the country is in Houston, he said.
On Thursday, Seattle team Dashen — named for the tallest mountain in Ethiopia — had a final tune-up on the practice fields at Ingraham High. As players in bright red and yellow practice jerseys hustled after the ball, Beyene — a short, wiry man with a shock of black hair sticking straight up off his head — yelled instructions in Amharic and English.
"We're under a lot of pressure to do well," said Beyene, adding that many Ethiopians from around the country follow the Dashen.
Will the Dashen please their fans this week at the tournament? Beyene — known to Ethiopian soccer fans as "Aspirin" for the soothing quality of his play — responded with a smile.
"You'll see on Sunday."
Doug Merlino: 206-464-2243 or dmerlino@seattletimes.com