Kes Alemu describes the structure of his family and talks about how he would help his short-sighted grandfather and listen to him telling stories. He describes the place he was born and his community’s relations with their Christian neighbors. He talks about a range of mountains names Moses, Aharon and Abraham, located close to the village.  On these mountains were holy sites which they would visit in order to pray and to be healed from medical ailments.

When he was twelve years old, Kes Senvate Yesak began to teach him in school. He had known from a young age that he wanted to become a Kes and was therefore very happy when his father sent him to study. He describes his experience his work at the school, the structure of religious studies, and his study of the Amharic and Ge’ez languages.

After three and a half years he moved to a school for Kesim, in which they only studied and did not engage in additional work. In order to be accepted to the new school, he had to purify himself and only eat chickpeas for an entire week. Kes Alemu talks about the acceptance ceremony to the school, during which a sheep was slaughtered in his honor. He describes what the place looked like and his social experience there. He discusses the unique customs of the place and the method of learning there. He also describes how he built ploughs to be used there.

After seven years of study. he returned to his parents’ house and his father arranged a match for him. He describes the traditional and religious customs at his wedding ceremony. He and his wife built a house and began to work as farmers, and concurrently he continued studying to be ordained as a Kes. He was finally ordained as a Kes at an inauguration ceremony.

Kes Alemu talks about his various roles as a Kes, such as prayer and eulogies upon death, blessings on festivals and celebratory occasions, prayers in the synagogue, blessings for planting, and so forth. Additionally, he talks about the way information was transferred to distant places.

Kes Alemu had six children, three of them died from illnesses called anklis and tiktika. He describes this period, as well as the prayers and manners of treatment.

The Kes talks about his sister who was widowed and was left alone with her four children. She decided that she didn’t want to remarry and had to go to a religious authority in her area to receive a certificate attesting that she is a Nazirite. This certificate gave her the right to refuse her suitors and provided her communal protection from cases of rape and kidnapping of women living alone.