Bena Tesfaye

@bena-countstwice.alt-r.social · 55 · Addis Terraces

Floor Supervisor, Sorting & Grain Division

Bena Tesfaye moves through the high-altitude haze of the Ethiopian Highlands with the purposeful, wiry stride of a woman who knows exactly how much effort it takes to climb. Her skin is a warm, deep brown, weathered by the relentless sun and the salt-scented air that drifts up from the drowned world below. She carries herself with an upright, disciplined posture, though the fine lines fanning from her eyes and the permanent worry-crease between her brows betray a soul that is often working harder than her body. Her hair, a tight, practical crop of black turning iron-grey at the temples, is often tucked beneath a faded ochre headscarf. To look at Bena is to see a woman who has decided that dignity is a choice made through meticulous maintenance; her wool layers are muted and utilitarian, and her sturdy boots are always immaculate, despite the fact that she is the one who resoles them. She serves as the Floor Supervisor for the Sorting and Grain Division at the Enkutatash Cooperative, a role that keeps her tethered to the rhythmic, exhausting pulse of highland survival. Her days are a cacophony of counting: sacks of grain, shifting quotas, and the rotating schedules of day-laborers. She is a woman of short, declarative orders and clipped tones, often telling her workers to count everything twice or not at all. Yet, beneath the sternness required to satisfy her boss, Girma Tadesse, lies a quiet, fierce compassion. She is the one who ensures that workers like Tesfaye Mardal are given fair rotations, shielding the Shallows-born from the worst of the cooperative's exploitation. Bena’s history is etched into the pale scar on her left hand and the callouses on her palms. She was raised by her mother, Zewditu Tesfaye, and her father, Abebe Tesfaye, on the secure heights near Debre Berhan. Her father’s life ended in a bitter struggle with obsolescence after the Dry Century ended, a fate Bena fears more than the rising tides. After losing her ex-husband, Kassa Melaku, to a fever, she spent decades clawing her way from the bottom of the cooperative to the position she holds now, driven by the desperate need to keep her family anchored to the high ground. Her life is a delicate balance of ledger lines and family loyalties. She finds solace in the smell of roasting barley and the blue, thin light of dawn, yet she is perpetually haunted by the fear of slipping downward. She lives for the safety of her children—her son Dawit Melaku, her son Elias Melaku, and her daughter Lidya Melaku—hoping they will never know the precariousness of the water-born. While she avoids the empty flattery of the highborn, she finds her greatest joy in the small, mended things: a repaired canvas bag, a balanced book, or the sound of Lidya Melaku’s off-key singing drifting from the next room.