Alright, let’s have a chat. A real one. Not the kind we have over polite coffee where we only talk about the weather, but the kind we have over a strong, aromatic brew of bunna, where the truth spills out as freely as the coffee from the jebena.

I have a condition. It’s chronic, it’s incurable, and it’s wildly inconvenient. I am, by nature, a hopeful cynic. I see the fifty-seven reasons why something will fail, and then my stubborn heart zeroes in on the one, shimmering reason why it could, just maybe, absolutely soar. It’s like looking at a mountain and seeing not the brutal climb, but the utterly epic view from the top.

This condition flares up most violently when I think about Ethiopia. My brain, the cynical half, starts listing the hurdles: “Lensa, have you seen the news? Have you read the reports? It’s a mess!” But my soul, the optimistic architect, just starts sketching blueprints on the inside of my eyelids. It’s a whole thing.

I’ve been privileged or cursed, depending on the day to peer into the nation’s engine room. From the vibrant chaos of the Tourism Ministry to the hushed, strategic vaults of the Land Bank, I haven’t been a tourist. I’ve been a mechanic. And what I saw didn’t fill me with a fanatical, flag-waving fervor. It filled me with the calm, certain excitement of a poker player who’s just been dealt a royal flush.

We aren’t “chosen” or blessed by the gods. We’re just ridiculously, almost comically, resource rich. But here’s the secret no one tells you: a resource is just a pretty rock until it meets human ingenuity. Gold is a shiny paperweight until it becomes circuitry. Coffee is a bitter bean until it becomes a global ritual. Our landscapes are pretty pictures until they become sanctuaries for the world-weary soul.

That’s the moment that gets me. That’s the spark. That’s the well, the romance. It’s the vision of what happens when our raw, unedited gifts are touched by skilled hands and visionary hearts. It’s the hope that impregnates you with a mighty, world-altering aspiration.

And let me tell you, this pregnancy? It’s a glorious, all consuming, beautiful pain.

You walk around bursting with the beauty of what could be. You’re designing eco-lodges in the Bale mountains in your head while you’re stuck in traffic. You’re mapping out investment corridors for the Danakil Depression while you’re cooking dinner. You are, in a word, pregnant with potential.

But as anyone who’s ever been pregnant (with a baby, a business, or a national dream) will tell you, the morning sickness is real.

Suddenly, everyone is an obstetrician. The concerned voices surface, each offering a teacup of advice that’s been ever-so-slightly buttered with poison.

“That’s a nice idea, but have you considered how difficult that will be?” Translation: I gave up, so you should too.

“Oh, we tried that in 1995. It failed miserably.” Translation: My trauma is now your prognosis.

“You’re so idealistic! It’s cute.” (Translation: I will pat you on the head while I quietly root for your failure.

You quickly learn that some friendships arrive with baggage—and not the kind with fun souvenirs. The kind stuffed with negativity, envy, and conspiracy theories. You must protect the dream like it’s a flickering flame in a wind tunnel. The only thing that remains is the pure, solitary joy of the pregnancy itself. The dream, unsullied.

As the dream grows, the pain scales up. It becomes unbearable. There are moments 3 AM moments, lying awake in the silent darkness where you consider an abortion of the aspiration. To just let it go. End the pain. It would be so much easier. Until you remember that would be killing the very thing you love most. You can’t. You won’t.

What keeps you going is the crystal clear, HD quality vision of the finish line. The fruition of this dream is a peace so grand, so profound, it makes the current chaos look like a minor traffic jam on Bole Road. You can taste it.

And then, the second, humbling, slightly terrifying revelation hits you: Birthing the baby is your task. Raising it? That takes a village.

You go through nine months of nausea, back pain, and emotional turmoil, you push through the searing pain of delivery, and then you must hand this precious, fragile, perfect newborn over to a village of questionable uncles, opinionated aunts, and cousins who may or may not have its best interests at heart.

Societal norms, our socio-economic conditionalities, the grand, dizzying theater of socio-politics these are the babysitters. They will determine if your child thrives, becomes a Nobel laureate, and cures cancer, or if it’s stunted, underfed on a diet of bureaucracy and low expectations.

I know this because I tried to birth a dream of my own. I dreamed of a hospitality sector that was so much more than hotels and tour packages. I saw it as Ethiopia’s most accessible “quick win” a lightweight sector with a heavyweight impact. It would be the engine to create dignified jobs for our youth, to foster real dialogue, to finally root our political discourse in the authentic needs of the grassroots.

I spent long hours, long after the world had gone quiet, laboring over this blueprint. To others, my dedication was a curiosity. “Where’s the ribbon-cutting, Lensa? Where’s the photo op?” But the result wasn’t a document to be printed; it was a vision to be planted in our collective hearts.

And yet, my attempt to bring this vision to life failed. Not once, but twice.

Looking back, I see why. I offer these reflections not as blame, but as a cheat sheet for the next dreamer.

1. I Was a Personal Trainer for a Patient in ICU. I was shouting about marathon times to someone who just needed an IV drip and some oxygen. I saw the sector’s potential, but I hadn’t lived the decades of frustration of those who saw it perpetually benched.
2. I Tried to Change the National Playlist During a Tense Moment. Our story was historically and comfortably set to one tune. I waltzed in with a whole new soundtrack. In a fragile climate, that’s not seen as innovation; it’s seen as a threat. Narrative is politics.
3. I Forgot to Bribe the Bouncers. I was so focused on getting into the club of change, I didn’t befriend the bouncers—the bureaucracy. They were comfortable in their known struggles. My changes weren’t pragmatic reforms to them; they were disruptive revolutions that threatened their equilibrium.
4. I Was a Baytewar. An Amharic word for one who is inside the house, yet not truly of it. I believed, with idealistic fervor, that my work would speak for itself. I didn’t know that in the corridors of power, hard work often only speaks in whispers. You need a megaphone made of relationships, and I built none.
5. I Assumed. And You Know What They Say About That. My greatest error. I assumed the vision that burned so brightly in me was a shared light. I assumed that if others didn’t see it, they would once I explained my beautiful blueprint. I never paused to ask if we were even reading the same book, let alone on the same page.

My closure doesn’t lie in a success story. It lies in the purity of the attempt. I tried. I failed. Spectacularly. But my failures are not wounds to be licked; they are lessons, laid out on the table like a map for the next explorer.

So now, I’m turning the question that started it all over to you. Yes, you. The one reading this over your own cup of bunna.

What is your Ethiopia?

Is it a promise you whisper only to yourself, or a legacy we will shout from the rooftops, together? Is it a vision of fragmented interests, or a unified, glorious, messy, complicated, and breathtakingly beautiful dream?

The resources are there, scattered like diamonds across our soil. The blueprint exists, etched not in paper, but in the collective imagination of anyone who has ever dared to hope. The child is waiting, full of potential, ready to be born.

The only question that remains is this: what kind of parents will we be?

Yours, in stubborn, hopeful, and slightly caffeinated defiance,