When one ventures to explore an unfamiliar territory, it helps to find a knowledgeable companion, preferably homegrown, to clear a path through the thickets of confusing or unreliable information.

I will introduce you to the country of my birth in as clear and straight forward a fashion as possible. But be warned that this passage will be distinctly personal, colored by my personal experience of straddling several cultures.

Ethiopia conjures up different things to different people. There are frequent and intriguing mentions of Ethiopia in the Bible.There is the legendary Queen of Sheba, whose visit with the Israelites' King Solomon, lead to Ethiopia's royal line, which ended with Emperor Haile Selassie. Others associate the country with famine and civil war. Others think of Benito Mussolini, Ethiopian food, the Ark of the Covenant, Africa, or Bob Marley's reggae.

Older Westerners often associated Ethiopia with Emperor Haile Selassie. They remember his dark, striking countenance, and his grand title: King of Kings, the Lion of Judah.

They remember flickers of newsreel clips of his speech to the League of Nations in the 1930s in which he futilely warned the Westerns powers not to let Fascist Italy's invasion of his country stand. (Harlmites raised money for Ethiopia, but the members of the League ignored Haile Selassie's plea, a decision they later regretted when Mussolini collaborated with Hitler to put the world on fire.)

People remember Haile Selassie at John F. Kennedy's funeral, and they've seen pictures of his triumphant visit to Jamaica where thousands lined the streets of Kingston as if witnessing the Second Coming.

Haile Selassie was only the second man to receive two ticker tape parades down New York's Broadway (the other is astronaut-turned-senator-turned astronaut John Glenn.)

Haile Selassie reigned for nearly half a century, and in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, people from the Caribbean, the United States and from African countries still under colonial rule looked up to the emperor as a symbol of a true African leader. Haile Selassie helped found the Organization of African Unity and he was a stalwart of the nonaligned movement.

As Europeans carved up Africa, Ethiopia was the only country that had miraculously managed to remain independent, not for hundreds of years, but for three thousand years! Astounding when you compare it to America's 200 years as a nation. In 1896, Emperor Menelik beat back an Italian invasion at the Battle of Adwa, marking the first time an African army had defeated a European one.

As a child growing up in Ethiopia's capital, Janehoy,as we called the Emperor, was a beloved father figure. A picture of the monarch and Empress Menen graced our school exercise books. The country's currency, the birr, carried his image. At the age of 7, I remember asking my mother if a fly dared land on Janehoy.

Still, by the 1970s, the Emperor was not a popular figure among young people. We knew he was progressive compared to most of his predecessors, but as the world entered the 1970s, his one-man rule seemed quaintly antiquated. As a young boy, I devoured Amharic books, and I remember shaking with anger as I read novels that portrayed the unfairness of the feudal land system that confined millions to serfdom.

When unrest was triggered by rising gasoline prices in 1974, the end came breathlessly fast to the aging monarch. The man who had lived his 80-plus years in incredible splendor, was shuttled to his new quarters in a lowly Volkswagen.

Haile Selassie was undermined so gradually by junior army officers known as the Derg (the Committee) that when the end came, it seemed inevitable. It took another 17 years of Communist misrule to lead many Ethiopians to think of Haile Selassie's reign as, if not a golden age, at least a long stretch of relative peace.

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