Enyish describes her family and her neighborhood, “Beta Israel,” on the outskirts of the city of Azazo. Enyish notes that residents usually had good relations with their Christian neighbors. Nevertheless, she would sometimes encounter expressions of racism from Christians who would cover their faces when passing by Jews, curse at them, or attribute superstitions to the Jews such as cannibalism and forces of the “evil eye”.

As the oldest daughter, Enyish helped her father with his farming work and her mother with the housework – sewing, grinding and looking after the herd. She would play various games with her friends, such as five stones, jabeta, sewing dolls and playing house.

Enyish’s father was a traditional doctor who saw patients from the entire area. Enyish describes the traditional medicines she remembers, such as medicine against infections, and preparations for healing open sores and snakebites.

At the age of six, Enyish began to learn to read and write in the village school. She describes the school, the oral manner of study and her social experience there. When she returned home from school, her father would help with her homework and motivate her to succeed in her studies. After two years she moved to an elementary school named “Etshe Pasil”. The school was a two-hour walk from her house – a distance she walked twice a day, accompanied by her cousins. Enyish describes the daily routine in the school at length: the day began with singing the national anthem, checking cleanliness and personal hygiene, and giving out soap; during the day there were two breaks and a cup of milk was given out. Each pupil had to bring his own food from home. At the end of each day, the pupils had to clean the classroom. The syllabus included math, science, and agriculture, as well as the New Testament. During vacations, Enyish would help her father with the agricultural work and sell dresses she sewed to buy herself school supplies.

Enyish continued her studies in the middle school in the center of the city of Azozo, over two hours walk from her house. As a Jewish girl, she always made sure to walk with other friends, in order to avoid racially motivated harassment or sexual attacks. Enyish talks about the racist atmosphere toward Jews at school. She also describes how she and her friends from the neighborhood would meet up in the evenings, on seats they had made from piles of straw, in order to study in pairs by moonlight or torchlight.

She continued her studies in high school at a school named “Pasil Ledes” in the city of Gondar. Due to the distance from her house, Enyish and a cousin rented a room from relatives in the city. She supported herself financially. The studies were conducted in shifts – one week she learned in the morning and the following week in the evening. On weekends, she returned home to visit her parents.

At that time, the Derg party deposed Emperor Haile Selassie and took control of the country. Enyish was in the middle of eleventh grade when the new regime ceased studies and closed the schools, and she had to return to her familial home.

Enyish registered for a teaching course of the ORT network in Ambover. The teachers in the course were Israelis and Ethiopian Jews who had been sent to study at the boarding school in Kfar Batya. The syllabus included Hebrew and Jewish studies as well. During the course, she met Fareda Yazazoa Aklum (who later played a central role in immigration of Ethiopian Jewry to Israel) and they married. After completing the teaching course, she was stationed as a teacher in the Jewish school in the village of Teda. She taught various subjects there for six years.

When they thought they had a chance to immigrate to Israel, the couple left their home and work, and they moved to Addis Ababa in an attempt to immigrate from there to Israel. However, their plans were unsuccessful and, after a short period of time, they decided to return to the Gondar region. On their way back, Enyish, who was heavily pregnant, went into labor and gave birth in a small village on the side of the road named Pitshe. When they finally reached her parents’ house they were received enthusiastically. Enyish and the baby stayed with her family. Her husband, who was wanted by the authorities due to his pro-aliyah activity, hid in various places in the country and was eventually forced to escape to Sudan. As part of the hunt after Enyish’s husband, her father and cousin were also imprisoned for a year, after being accused of having helped him.

When the Derg regime stopped the ORT organization’s activity in the country and closed the school Enyish taught in, she decided to complete her 12 years of studies in order to work as a teacher in the education system. After completing her studies, she was appointed as a teacher in the city of Debretabor. In addition to being a teacher, she was the deputy manager of a choir, and she was also active as a representative on the women’s council and the young people’s council.