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Kisho seemed not to like anything that did not
translate into fast food.
Some of
Kisho’s friends have become vendors of lottery tickets or other small items, and
others have become porters. But all of them converge in a back alley room where
they spend the night. About a dozen of them squeeze themselves into the little
room.
The
night is spent discussing how and when to settle their accounts. A few of them
go to evening classes and do their homework, while others, like Kisho, fall
asleep despite the noise of the chattering and teasing squad of boys. The
chattering stops when “the boss” comes late at night.
The boss
is a bully who must have assumed power from his physical might, Kisho told me.
Nobody dares to talk in his presence, for all intents and purposes. Although his
name is Getachew, members of the house prefer to call him “Gaucho” in his
absence.
Gaucho
collects rent from each individual dweller and shares the money with the
guardsman of the absentee landlords. Gaucho also helps to settle disagreements
that arise among the children out of the settlement of accounts.
Some of
the young kids borrow money to cover their food or something they need to buy.
Lenders tend to levy interest if the principal is not paid back in time. A loan
of one Birr, for instance, bears an interest of 25 cents a day.
Conflict
arises in the process of calculating interest and principal. Sometimes the
strife develops into a physical exchange of a few punches or head butts that
produce bleeding noses or mouths.
Gaucho
plays the role of an arbitrator or peacemaker by passing resolutions that have
to be obeyed, not just contemplated. The trouble with this kind of settlement is
that the peacemaker often comes late at night and prefers to sleep fast,
undisturbed by anybody.
They get
up at dawn and wrap up their rags using a plastic sheet before hanging them on
the wall. The main reason they get up so early is to “answer the call of nature”
some place where they can do it without being seen by others.
They
wash their faces at the teahouse where they take their breakfast, which is
getting more and more expensive. Gaucho has also instructed every member to go
to the Kebena River to take a bath as well as do some laundering. The
instructions are strictly observed.
In the
case of Kisho, both “pushing and pulling” factors seem to have been at work in
bringing him to the capital.
For
Kisho’s family, having him as the fifth child in the family was almost
redundant. For families with a small fragment of land, there are little or no
prospects for such children to be sustained. This was the push factor.
As for
the pull factor, for those who have never been here, the capital is glorified
beyond proportions and painted as heaven on earth. Kisho, therefore, had to
oblige himself to the whims of his friends and follow them at any cost.
They
gathered coffee beans from the jungle and sold them to cover their transport
costs as well as some additional travel expenses.
Kisho was excited by what he saw in Addis upon his
arrival. The high-rise buildings, the number and variety of vehicles, and the
crowds excited him. He would soon join this group of able bodied people, he
thought.
But that
was not to be. His disappointment started when he was not able to communicate
with people other than his friends. He could not speak Amharic. His friends had
little time to spare to teach him the language. They left him to fate.
He
followed them to the streets where they were vending and shoe shining. Kisho did
not need much time to learn the steps of the shoe shining process. Within a few
day’s time, he began earning money and paying his debts.
He now
saves coins by cutting down on his expenses. He chews sugarcane instead of
buying a meal of ooffa (leftovers), as he had just done today.
But
Kisho does not think about going back to his family, at least for now. Instead
he dreams of going to night school to improve his future lot. |
