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The present escalation in the price of food and the
assertions made by the authorities, in unequivocal
terms, that there is no going back to previous price
gauges of some of the basic food items has become a
saddening cause for despair for a labourer, Abrar,
and thousands of other job seekers who depend on
selling their manual labour for their living. The
price of a quintal of cement has soared to an all
time record high and has become prohibitive in minor
construction and repair activities. Consequently,
many labourers have been laid off.
A father of three small children, aged between two
and six years, Abrar has to work very hard to make
ends meet. The daily increase in the price of food
has become a nightmare for him, destroying the gleam
of hope in the family. Abrar and his wife, Rahima,
are very concerned for their children who weep every
now and then of late, for no specific reason, but
one may assume it is because they are feeling
hungry, as they have not eaten a decent meal in
quite a while.
Abrar took a young girl from his home town, about 35
kilometres west of Addis to baby sit for the family
on a part-time basis and made arrangements for his
wife, Rahima, to sell tea, coffee and some cookies
at the vegetable market in Mercato. Abrar has been
adversely affected by the recent power rationing
schedule as the flourmill where he unloads and
carries flour for his customers now closes for at
least for three days a week, including Sundays. For
people like Abrar, the electric power shortage and
the subsequent rationing schedule have become
detrimental to their livelihoods.
Of late, Abrar has had to develop dodging skills as
he tries to avoid the danger of his children
starving by trying all means to put food on the
table. At times, he roams around looking for
ISUZU trucks that come from the rural towns
laden with produce and jostles among the pestering
mob in a bid to get a contract to unload the goods.
He uses the intimidating ‘—— your mother’ language
and pushes and shoves veteran porters who attempt to
complain about his intrusion. He does not only
posses the machismo required for such acts, but he
is driven by his responsibility to the three
children waiting at home in anticipation of the meal
their father will bring home.
Whenever he feels hungry, he buys some chat
and sits under a shade to chew the green leaves that
he feels serves as a stimulant, at a cheap price. He
keeps watching for the slightest motion that may
suggest the demand for labour. Sometimes, he feels
lucky when, all of a sudden, a vehicle parks nearby
and the driver takes out a certain package from
under the hood, calling Abrar and passing orders to
him to carry the load from the truck to whatever
destination. This time his “boss” pays him something
like ten Birr for his labour and this surprises
Abrar.
These days Mercato, unlike other times, seems to be
partially deserted as though the only souls running
around are only creditors chasing debtors who might
be taking refuge in some hideouts around the corner
for very understandable reasons. Business has
obviously plummeted despite the cosmetic changes
taking place in the middle of the market.
The area opposite the Asfaw Wossen Hotel and beyond,
which, until recently, accommodated old, large shops
stocked with textiles and footwear, is now being
replaced by multi-storey buildings that are
disarming the glory and fame of the largest open
market in the continent. The lines of the new
buildings at “Ihil Verandah”, the grain
stall, stand there ironically as though mocking the
market at a time when there is not much stock of
grain. These sprouting structures are anything but
open markets of the kind that we were used to in the
good old days when a customer used to bargain for
prices at ease, strolling from door to door or from
stall to stall and taking advantage of the benefit
of the doubt.
Abrar wonders when will these buildings will see the
light of day and when he will have the opportunity
to see people carrying goods and merchandize up and
down their stairs. When will he carry loads of goods
to and from delivery vans or private cars?
Incidentally, do these new shops have enough space
for parking? These shops have never had any shape or
architectural design so far. Nor did they have any
parking lot before. Why should they have them now?
In a recent bid to be elected, Abrar recalls what
some candidates promised and vowed in terms of
development in making Mercato a better place to run
business in a modern and computerized way. He had
also heard on the media how the ruling party had put
an end to the civil war and how it came to power at
the wake of the demise of the Dergue regime.
Abrar is not interested in what happened yesterday
or who won what civil war, or the promises that
never materialized under any form of governance,
whether good or bad. He does not understand why the
authorities spend so much money on an election
business for a foregone conclusion? What consumes
his mind is what to feed his children now, not
tomorrow. That is why he has sort of developed an
attitude of imposing himself, by force, to have a
share of any kind of manual work outside his usual
operational domain.
He has also started to attend funeral ceremonies in
his village, not so much out of a concern to console
the bereaved families as such, although we cannot
rule out such possibility, but more out of the
prospect of having free lunch and dinner.
A friend of Abrar cracked a joke about Abrar the
other day, when he met him at a mourning house. “So,
I see that you have started feeding yourself on a
shift basis, just like the electric power, eh? One
day here, the next day there…kikikikiki… That
is smart of you. Why confront death squarely when
you can dodge and escape it by swinging from one
funeral to the next? That fellow is also here for
the same purpose——free lunch!”
The culprit referred to, however, adopts a different
veneer. He takes on the role of a security guard,
wearing an old uniform similar to those genuine
security men. He chases vendors with his baton
stick, claiming that they are trespassing on
prohibited territory. In the process, he gets often
gets paid in kind, perhaps with a flask or two of
tej.
One day, he engaged Abrar in a chat and while they
gossiped, he said: “Do you know what they are doing?
They are reducing us to poverty in the most
efficient way…getting rid of the poor the rudest
possible way.” Abrar did not miss the point, after
all, employment is life, and anything that
tampers around with that surely brings about dire
consequences.
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