Meeting Aster Aweke

I was speaking to a friend of mine, Dawit, about meeting the extraordinary songstress Aster Aweke. It inspired me to write about my encounter with her. It must have been about ten years ago. I had no idea how popular she was.

At that time her manager was an uncle of my husband. She had a concert in Atlanta, the same time as the Ethiopian Soccer event. Of course, we got in free, scouted out our front row area for our dancing and listening pleasure. The hall was beautiful but empty. Earlier, we went to the soccer event and stayed for hours enjoying the food, vendors, and the game.

As we waited, out came my husband's uncle and a very beautiful woman who I assumed was Aster. Sure enough she came to meet us as his uncle told her we were eager to meet her. She is the kindest person and soft spoken. We shook hands and made small talk. She was very gracious and seemed to almost bare an angelic, quiet spirit.

The concert started at 11:30pm. Only my husband and I was on the dance floor for about an hour. I started getting nervous for Aster as there was almost no one in the hall except a hand full of people. She sang powerfully and we kept dancing. I felt she was singing for just me so I kept dancing ; ) People started trickling in about 12:30am and the hall was jammed packed. Everyone was doing the eskista and we joined in.

YES, I am pretty good at dancing the eskista. I have had a lot of practice from all the weddings over the decade. lol. Anyway, Aster took a break and addressed the crowd. She said,(my husband translated) "I was waiting for you and thought you had forgotten about me due to the soccer game." The crowd went wild and said "Nooo. Aster, Aster." They started jumping up and the energy was electric. The band started playing and she sang again.

We danced until 4 in the morning. I found a couch downstairs near the ladies room and fell asleep. My husband and his uncle played catch up while checking on me. The music went on until 5:30am. I was too tired to go home to my bed. On our trip back I bragged about what a great time I had and how I had met THE Aster Aweke.