This is one of my earliest memories: I’m looking at the body of a dead soldier by the side of the road. The soldier is lying with his back to me near a burned tank.

This was in Ethiopia in the late 80’s, during the civil war. I was 7 or 8. My father worked at the Israeli embassy in Addis Ababa, and we “lived” in the city. I use scare quotes because when, every number of months, the rebels got close to the city, we would be evacuated to Israel. Then, when Mengistu’s army would push the rebels north, we would fly back. Until one day the rebels took the city. We returned to a liberated Ethiopia.

I think the time I saw the soldier was the only time my family left the city during the war. At least I don’t remember other trips.

So we spent our time In Addis. We lived in a large villa in a good part of time. A good part of time in Addis in the late 80’s meant that most of the other houses around us were villas. But the road outside our house was red dirt, not asphalt. And the neighborhood kids each had one item of clothing (a shirt or a pair of pants),t and used the wall surrounding our compound as a toilet (number 1 and number 2). In between bathroom brakes they played soccer in the street with a rag ball.

The main landmark in Addis was the city’s slaughterhouse. We passed it on the way from home to school everyday. You could smell the rotting flesh a few minutes before seeing the mountain of bones. After a few times we made sure our windows were closed before the aroma of dead ruminants and putrefied flesh hit us.

My brother and I went to the International Community School. I remember two friends from school. One was Nepalese and he claimed to have gotten tape worm from eating pork in the street in Katmandu. The other was an American kid called Michael. Our main pastime, for some reason, was playing with army surplus stuff. For example, we used to dine on US Army field rations. I thought they were the pinnacle of human technology – vacuum sealed, just add water.

Growing up in Addis was not easy I suppose. But I remember it fondly, even miss it in a homesick kind of way.

Today, we live in a suburb of Tel Aviv. 4 bedroom homes organized along shade covered col-de-sacs. My kids have never seen a dead body or a mountain of rotting bones.

I hope that means they turn out better than me.