I remember that the logs together formed a triangle that looked like the Egyptian pyramids supporting each other to make the cave warm and bright. I remember the little, thin sticks of wood coated with purple color on their heads in my old black jeans pocket. I remember the dried brown and white grasses and leaves that I picked under the big and trees. I remember the smells of those grasses and leaves and their lightness. I remember the times that I burned my fingers when I tried to burn those dried leaves and grasses using the tiny sticks, My matches. I remember the time that I slept with my friends in the dark cave without fire, water, food or a mattress. I remember the time that the matches refused to light and the times I tried different things to make fire but failed many times and I kept trying.

My friends and I would try anything possible to make fire when our matches were wet and not useful any more. We would try to hit stones to produce fire by friction. Even though, none of us had learned science or even heard about it before, we did our own science. The little lights produced by the friction of the stones gave us some hints. That was our only visual science knowledge. But we never gave up. We always kept trying. I think that is what  helped me to become the strong and hard working person I am today.

Life for a shepherd like us was always new and each day was a holiday and celebration. Not because of the fresh water in the river that we drank or the dance we danced with our animals nor the dried food we ate everyday or the milk we drank directly from the animals. It was just the feeling of living in the beautiful nature surrounded by the birds’ song and the sounds of hyenas’, wolves’, monkeys’ and baboons’. It was just the feeling that we felt while we watched those animals and birds jumping from one tree to the other and moving the trees back and forth and the leaves falling apart on our heads. I also remember the times that those animals dropped their poops on my head and made me wash my head over and over again using sand and soil to make it cleaner.
Our lives were mostly dependant on the green grasses. We were born on it. We slept on it. We played on it. We breathed and ate on it. Our lives were dependant on the animals and the animals’ lives were dependant on the green grasses. Either way round, Our lives were depend on the green grasses.   

It was Wednesday morning that I got mad at one of my sheep, Bora. I heard the sound of the water running in the river next to the cave while I was still laying on the dried grass inside the cave. The river was a couple of meters away from the big black cave. This river was bigger than any other rivers around that area. During the rainy season, it had a lot of water running in it. Sometimes it was even hard to cross the river as there were not any bridges, unless we made one by ourselves. Sometimes we built bridges anyway for fun or on purpose. We, the shepherds, would cut the big trees and carry them to the river and put each end of the trunk of the tree on both sides of the river. The more trees we used on making the bridges, the stronger it would be. So we did it often in the summer which is a rainy season in that particular area, Ethiopia, unlike most other places. This river was one of the main sources of the blue Nile river, which crosses the country from the north to the west. The river also crosses Sudan and Egypt until it gets to Victoria Lake. The river was not just water; It had something special in it. It had something miraculous and magical.

That morning, I pulled my legs to the front, stretched my hands to the sides, pushed the ground with my hands, and tried to picked myself up to see the water that had been bothering me from a sleep. Then I lay back on the grass. However, Misgan, one of my buddies, was snoring and didn’t let me take another nap. He snored often. I could tell that he had been bothering the sheep and other of our animals in the cave with his snoring as well.  And we were in the same cave as the animals, side by side. We usually slept by the opening of the cave to protect the animals from thieves and other wild animals who could eat them.

However, sometimes the animals would walk over us and got out of the cave in the middle of the night, if they felt hungry while we were asleep. Sometimes they ended up being taken by thieves or eaten by other animals. To overcome this problem, my friends and I came up with great ideas. We decided to sleep in shifts. While some of us were falling asleep, others would watch the animals. But sometimes we all would be tired and end up sleeping at the same time. Of course, the small and sharp rocks under the grasses didn’t help us sleep for a long time. We never had beds in the cave. We just cleaned the cave as much as we could and slept on it. Of course, no matter how much we cleaned it, there were always small rocks under the grasses we slept on. But we would put a lot of grass on those rocks to make it more comfortable and sleep on it anyways. Sometimes the animals ate the grasses and that made us to sleep on the rocks until we could find more grasses. Other times, the animals urinated and defecated on us as though we were their bathroom.

As Misgan's snore wouldn’t let me take another nap, I positioned myself and lay down on my back. I was staring at the sill of the cave, thinking what I was thinking off. I was thinking what I would be doing that morning. I was thinking which part of the forest I would be taking my animals to feed them well.

All of a sudden, one of my sheep, Bora,  moved her legs backward  towards my head. She moved her legs up and down like a truck in a movies moving backward in slow motion. Then she raised her tail up and let a hot liquid squirt out into my right eye. It was very hot, hotter than the hottest tea you ever had. It also smelt somewhat different. First, I thought it was water from the river, then I realized I was inside the cave. There was no way the river could fill up to that point during spring. But then, I realized that it was Bora’s urine. I wanted to kill her right there but she disappeared from where I was standing. My eye was killing me. My right eye was burnt like there was tons of spice on it. It hurt so much and I couldn’t blink. I placed my left palm on my right eye. But I couldn’t resist the pain in my eye. Then I switched my hands. I dropped my left hand to my thigh and held my eye with my right palm tight to my eyeball. I kept looking for Bora with one eye, my left eye screaming and shouting at the same time. But I couldn't  see Bora.
Of course, it was always hard to see her, particularly in that dark cave. Bora was a black sheep with white hairs only on her forehead. Every part of her body was as dark as the dark cave. Even her gums was black and she had no teeth on her upper jaw. Her lower gums was covered with her beautiful dark lips with teeth, white as snow. Generally, she was dark as the night. Her white hair on her forehead made her look like the sky at night with half moon in it. 
While I was screaming and shouting, Misgan was still snoring. I got so frustrated. I couldn’t handle it. I kicked him in the butt. But he didn’t move. He was laying on his right side. I kicked him right in the head. Then he woke up holding his right ear with both of his hands, one over the other. He started yelling and shouting at me. There were rocks where he was sleeping so I made him scratch his right ear on the rocks unintentionally. His ear was bleeding a little bit. We both keep shouting at each other. My black dog, Ambar, was sitting on the side moving his eyes between Misgan and me, which seemed like he was listening to a debate between us. Maybe he was just judging us. 
After a while, I apologized to Misgan and held his scratched long ear with my left hand. He showed me that he accepted my apology with his head. And then he raised his left hand parallel to my shoulder. He brought his middle finger close to my eyes and moved his finger on my right eye back and forth to wipe and clean my eye. However, the pain got even worse for me. My eyelashes fell down and water droplets were coming out from both of my eyes, passing over my cheeks. His big ear was getting much better now. I thought it was unfair, because even if his ear was cut in half, he would still have the ear of a normal person. His ears were so gigantic. I sometimes tried to compare his ears with Bora’s ears and they seemed exactly the same, maybe Misgan’s  ears were a couple of centimeters bigger.
Then we both went to the river. I washed my face and cleaned my eyes. Misgan did the same thing and he poured water in his ear while he was trying to clean it. He screamed very loudly; he screamed again and again as loud as he could. I had never heard him screaming that loud before. Of course, his snore was as loud as someone’s screaming. But that day was different. There were water droplets coming out from both of his eyes, passing over his cheeks, until the tears made his old white shirt wet. His hands were moving fast up and down and to the sides, waving as fast as they could. But no sooner had he laid down on his side, and the water came out of his ear and he felt better.
We both went back to the cave and saw Bora at the end of the cave. I didn’t want to kill or beat Bora anymore, because I love her even though she made me very angry on that day. I am still mad at Bora but I love her at the same time.
I will never forget what my animals and friends taught me in the cave. I will never forget the times we spent together laughing, playing, eating, and running. Of course, sometimes fighting. I will never forget everything that they taught me about life in the cave and the other parts of the world. They taught me how be the most strong, hardworking and confident person than I could ever be. They taught me how to be creative and positive all the time. They taught me how to survive in dangerous and uncomfortable situations. They taught me how to be a problem solver, instead of causing problems. They taught me how to make good relationships with animals and human beings and how to adapt to my environment and surroundings quick. They are the reason for my present life to be adventurous.  Now, I am walking in a very thin green line surrounded by yellow roads of warning and red roads of danger.