WASHINGTON — On Whistling Duck Drive in Upper Marlboro, Md., resides Kofi Boateng, an Ashanti king of Ghana (there are many) who works as a CPA and whose palace is a sprawling McMansion with a football game on the flat-screen TV and pictures of West African royalty hanging over the fireplace.
"Sometimes, these suburbs are so quiet they remind me of my village in Ghana," Boateng says.
Kebede and Boateng are just two of the many lesser-known royals living in the Washington suburbs. They include King Kigeli Ndahindurwa V, who ruled Rwanda until his overthrow in 1961, and Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who runs an advocacy association targeting the need for democracy in his home country.
The petite, curly-haired princess of Ethiopia is a mortgage-loan officer who commutes 40 minutes a day, does her own dishes and shops for sales on twin sweater sets.
"I don't have bodyguards clearing traffic or tailors stitching my clothes. This is America," says Saba Kebede of McLean, Va., who laughed and looked at her husband, Prince Ermias Sahle Selassie, the grandson of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.
While Washington is traditionally a destination for those who seek power, it's also a refuge for those who no longer have it.
Many royals are in exile; others came because their grandparents or parents, who were deposed, thought the United States offered better opportunities and Washington offered the prestige and access of living in a world capital.
Many rub shoulders with World Bank officials, human-rights advocates and senators at embassy functions and fundraisers. Being royals, they preside over births, weddings and funerals in a ceremonial capacity. Being suburbanites, they get stuck in traffic, pick up dry cleaning and help their children with homework.
"In America, the title and $1.50 will get you a cup of coffee," jokes Gul Ahmed Zikria, an obstetric surgeon who hails from the Afghan royal family. "But if royals are at home anywhere, it's Washington, D.C."
They leave their castles and courts behind, but not their status among their countrymen or the duties that come with it.
Ethiopian gathering
At a suburban Ethiopian orthodox church, Prince Selassie and his wife, Princess Kebede, are wading through a crowd of women wearing gauzy cotton wraps over their hair and bowing in prayer. They take their seats around a table for a traditional Ethiopian meal.
"Wait! Please, don't sit there," the priest calls out. "Come to the front of the table. You can't just sit anywhere. You're very famous."
Outside the church, the Selassies seem like any other family. The prince works at the International Strategic Studies Association, a think tank focusing on issues such as water security in Africa. The princess approves mortgage loans for the Congressional Federal Credit Union.
But royals are becoming increasingly important to the Ethiopian community, which sees its history in the face of Prince Selassie. There is a growing movement among the younger generation to honor the controversial legacy of the prince's grandfather.
Prince Selassie heads the Crown Council of Ethiopia, which works to retain dynastic traditions and highlight the emperor's achievements. The council would like constitutional monarchy to return to Ethiopia, although there is no plan to restore that system.
"We never abdicated the throne," the prince points out.
"Maybe there are still fairy tales," says Kebede, taking hold of her husband's arm. "They just happen in lands far, far away, like Alexandria, Virginia."
Restaurant regular
Zoulaikha Zikria orders mushroom soup at a La Madeleine in Bethesda, Md., where she's a regular.
"Bonjour, madam. I have your favorite," a cashier from Gabon says, and the two women chat.
Zikria, known professionally by the last name Younoszai, looks like an Afghan Anna Wintour: slim, with a porcelain complexion, oversize sunglasses and a neat bob of thick chestnut hair. The retired Georgetown University French professor is a member of Afghanistan's royal family.
Most other Afghan royals say they don't want to be photographed or appear at embassy events. They'd like to weigh in on the problems in Afghanistan but say they shouldn't, in part because they fear for their safety. An Islamic extremist stabbed exiled Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah in 1991.
Zikria and her brother Gul Ahmed Zikria, the surgeon, live relatively quiet lives amid memories of a different age.
"We grew up during what I witnessed as Afghanistan's belle epoque," Zikria says. "We lived in Afghanistan during a time when I was so free. I would jump on trees, leap over brooks, ride my bicycle in the garden at night."
She's silent, then quietly says: "The freedom we had during that time — well, no Afghan woman has had it since. And I wonder if they will ever have it again."
Zikria shares a house with her sister, who owns a hair salon. They have a view of the Shenandoah mountains, which, she says, are a little like those of Afghanistan.
King at wedding
"Look, Daddy, the king is here!" calls out 6-year-old Frederick Oliver Quaye, dressed in a tuxedo with a purple vest and matching bow tie. It's a holiday weekend, libations are flowing, and fufu and fried fish are being served at a wedding party.
Kofi Boateng, the regional king of Ghana, represents the Washington area. He enters his basement with his counterpart, Queen Mother Nana Ama Achiaa, as if they were arriving at their palace.
Both are draped in bright orange, green and red kente cloth. Their arms are stacked with gold bracelets.
The royals take their seats on thrones asparkle with copper and animal skin to signify power and command authority. A receiving line of Ghanaian Americans forms to greet them. Some shake their hands; others stand at attention.
"It's like when an officer in the military comes in. You show respect," says Frederick Quaye, the boy's father and a Ghanaian American who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq. "This may be America, but they are our royals."
These royals, who are not husband and wife, are elected. The king and the queen mother hail from royal families, but this is America, so the Ashanti executive council held elections in the area's Ghanaian community.
Boateng and Achiaa won three-year terms and report directly to their boss: King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, who lives in Kumasi, Ghana.
"In the Western world, people believe in life insurance," Boateng says. "Well, in our culture, our insurance is our people, each other. If one person is in trouble, 10 people come to help. We don't want to lose that."
Then he and the queen mother shimmy onto the dance floor.
