She knew already what it was to be separated from the people you love whether that separation comes by virus or by war. And she knew, too, what it was to live with uncertainty and powerlessness because each is a refugee's emotional wallpaper. On that day, as Americans and much of the world awaited election results, civil war flared again in her family’s home country of Ethiopia and her grandmother and two aunts went missing in the shelling. She is experiencing what clinicians call “vicarious trauma.”But vicarious does not express how close it hits home, this civil war in a country where she has never officially lived, yet has defined so much of her life. From the comfort of her home in Denver, she says, she cannot pretend she isn’t caught in this war.

Source: Ethiopian News February 08, 2021 23:48 UTC