Why, why would a school encourage it? ‘It’s all about money, honey,’ would be their answer. If most or all of the students pass in flying colours in a National Exam, every parent wants to send their kids to this school. So, it’s a performance-based marketing strategy. And these kids hardly put an effort and they cope with the pressures of college education by copying – because that is all they know!

I don’t want to sound a hell-fire-preacher, but this will certainly push the quality of education further down the abyss. And cheating is encouraged because people believe that educational success is key to success. But they are missing the point here, only true education will be the key to success and the long term consequences of producing cheats and ‘copy-ers’ are far reaching. What is the point of having anti-corruption campaigns when tomorrow’s workforce is being encouraged and pressured to cheat by the very institutions – schools and families – that were supposed to teach proper moral values? It worries me. And I hope you agree with me when I say it should worry everybody.

I mean, one might blame the powers-that-be for the state of the quality of education but what can the government do when parents and private schools (mind you – some of them are run by religious institutions) contribute heavily to the downfall of education?

I don’t know!

I read a poem by one of the budding poets in Addis about Pastors and Posters. It was in Amharic and the message was in short ‘being a pastor has become equivalent to being a poster’. Yes, the folly that surrounds the whole affair of evangelical (self) appointments and positions is too great. I’m aware that there are genuine servants of the Gospel, who I believe are the majority, and who serve quietly. And the ones who make the noises are in the minority; nonetheless, they still make enough noise for us to think seriously about them. In this country where titles are assumed at liberty (Engineer so-and so, Artist so-and-so, Journalist so-and-so, etc), these so-called servants of the Gospel rush to confer on themselves titles such as Pastor, Prophet, Apostle, etc. I mean what makes a Pastor a Pastor? Or what kind of religious/academic qualifications are needed? Or what kind of quality? The questions are numerous and nobody dares to ask the questions in public as such kind of questions are considered taboos.(These self appointed ‘Men of God’ have made sure that nobody dares to question them by saying nobody should lay his/her hand on the ‘anointed’ which shows their inept understanding of the Gospel and their lack of theological qualification.)

But what worries more than this whole affair of self appointments is the fact that nobody dares to question the financial accountability part. These self appointed people lead or ‘own’ congregations whose members are encouraged to give and give….. Where does all the money go? The people who collect the money – do they give proper account of the incomes and expenses to the people whose money they collected? Is there anything such as monthly financial report? Quarterly? Annual? My worry grows especially when I see these people drive Mercedes, BMW or the latest Toyota cars. I mean, should a pastor earn considerably more than the average income of the congregation he leads or ‘owns’?

I think these people should learn to use posters to post the financial report! If not on Bole Road, at least in the Church compound!

A lot has happened since then; books of different and more serious genre have been published. Auto biographies and biographies by and of the military commanders of the Dergue era especially proved to be popular. Writers such as Adam Reta published books which also caught the public’s attention. Poetry books have become abundant as well. All these have contributed to the growing market. And I would say that the vendors are benefiting.

I was talking to one of these vendors the other day; he had sold me a book the day before and checked to see if I wanted another book. I told him I cannot afford a book a day and then we started talking about the market. He was positive about the market; he sells 20 books on a good day and on average he earns a profit of Br. 70 per day. That is huge for a book vendor – well, life has become so expensive, one would add. Yet, that was huge.

The book vendors are a smart bunch; they take one look at a person and guess (most of the time correctly) if he/she would buy a book. If you wear spectacles and have a beard or long hair, you will be ‘targeted’. They also know which books are ‘hot’. And once they know what kind of books you want, they will try to sell you the type of book which they think are in the same genre if you pass by them the next day. They are polite too. They serve you much better than the waiters/ waitresses at the expensive cafes that are now so common in Addis. A cup of macchiato and a cake at one of the posh cafes with ‘unposh’ service will cost you anything between Br. 20 and Br. 30. For this price, you can buy a decent book and get a better service!!

Well, one might as well tell me this: a man went out to the market to buy a sheep and he was told the price was Br. 70 (the good old days!!) and the man remarked, “I would buy a sturdy donkey for this price”.  “Sir, you know which one tastes better for you!” the seller snapped.

I know! The books do.

This caught my attention the other day when I was scanning through the papers: Yaregal Aysheshum, Family Assets Frozen over Allegation of Corruption.

I had to buy some stationary for my office the other day and I was looking for a particular type of envelope in a certain colour. Knowing that it would be difficult to find what I wanted in the small stationary shops found everywhere, I went to Kazanchis – the stationary Mecca of Addis. I visited nearly 20 shops and half of them do not know what an A5 envelope is. That was shocking as I thought it was an elementary thing for stationary people to know. So much for knowing one’s stuff. I, though, found 2 or 3 people who knew their stuff well. And it was kind of refreshing.

And I encounter this when I try to buy things in Addis. Even while I’m typing this, I ordered for Tea and the waitress brought a choice of tea bags and asked me which one I preferred. I said I wanted ‘Lipton’ and she gave me an ‘Addis Tea’ tea bag. When I pointed out to het that it was not Lipton, she was a bit surprised, thought for a while and she said it was not available. It is not an ordinary hotel and the lady looks trained and yet she does not know her stuff.

I do not want to be negative and see things in a rather stained glass. However, I have to acknowledge certain things and call a spade a spade (hope that is not a cliché). Knowing one’s stuff, being thorough, etc are not qualities to be easily found among service providers in Addis. And quite a lot of people get offended if you try to correct them and they become defensive about what they do not know.

This happened a few months ago: I was trying to withdraw some money from a bank and this guy came with a credit card and informed the lady at the counter that he wanted to withdraw some amount of money. She took the credit card she was not sure what to do with it. The guy tried to explain that he withdraws money from that particular bank frequently using the credit card and then she started scanning the credit card. He interrupted her and informed her that it should not be scanned that way and she should use a different scanner as it was not the ordinary debit card found in Addis. She did not listen to him, finished her scanning and told him that there was some problem. The guy was pissed off. Then her boss came and corrected the problem. AND there was no shame or emotion on her face!!

My observation was that:

• She did not know her stuff.
• What she knew was what was regular.
• She was not willing to listen.
• She became defensive in her actions when her wrong was pointed out to her.
• She was not ashamed of her ignorance.

And I am sure my observation can be applied to a wide range of service providers in Addis

• People, when they’re hired, are given a job description. And they have (say) ten things that they should know and do.
• But after a while, they see that only (say) two of the things – and which are in most cases the easiest – are common and as long as they focus their attention on that, everything would be fine.
• They do not put any extra effort in knowing the other 8 and in short they do not know their stuff.
• If and when a customer comes asking for things that are not in the scope of their knowledge, they show little or no interest in serving him/her. They annoy the customer by being defensive or by being arrogant.
• They’re not ashamed of their ignorance (Ignorance is bliss, Mate, isn’t it?).
• When they see a colleague who wants to know his/her stuff and starts asking questions, they ridicule their colleague. But they listen to their bosses, but do not care to remember it when the next ‘difficult’ customer comes.

It is not about education either. One can observe this among people who are ‘educated’ and ‘well trained’.

I’m about to finish drinking my ‘Addis Tea’. It was not bad, yet what I would have preferred was ‘Lipton’. I could accept that ‘Lipton’ is not served here; what I could not accept, however, is that I was given a temporary false hope that it was available.

The golden horizon during sunset is breathtaking; the wind is soothing and the temperature is just perfect. This is something we the locals take for granted; but for those who always suffer weather extremities (too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter), I’m sure Addis in November is something close to heaven.

One of the reason why I choose to live in Ethiopia is the pleasant weather we have on the highlands. I remember reading the UN Human Development Index  a while back and one of the things Ethiopia scored high is the climate. Yes, I know, inflation is high; life is difficult for most of us who live in the city; the quality of education is going down; we don’t have decent recreation centres; the parks are not well maintained; housing – despite the government’s mammoth effort to build conods – is still scarce; one cannot dream of owning a house in Addis unless one is filthy rich; so on and so forth.

I believe that all these problems have solutions, at least theoretically. But what can you do about the climate? You can make all your indoors air conditioned like Dubai, but, you cannot always live indoors, can you? Despite my friends mocking my stance, I love Addis mainly because of the climate and that is the main deciding factor in my choosing to live here.

And November is just perfect. I love October, December and Jan. Yet, November beats all of them. I wonder why I never heard a song about this beautiful month. October has ‘Yetiqimit Abeba Nesh’ – tanslated as ‘you’re a flower of October; September has countless songs owing to the fact that the New year starts in this month; etc, etc.

Well, enjoy November.

I, however, see a little hope whenever I think of the condominium buildings being constructed by the government. I see them everywhere. They are not as posh as the older government owned apartment buildings we see in Bole, Arat Kilo, Piassa, etc. Just a look at them and one would understand what I mean by this. These buildings are thought to curb the housing problem in Addis. I’m sure they will – no matter how much irregular the distribution system is. People often complain that the condos are not well built. Well, it’s a low cost housing project and should not be expected to be as good as the workmanship displayed in the older apartments. Moreover, they’re much better than the houses found in the slums.

The condos will contribute to effectively reducing the housing problems in Addis; they are changing the landscape of Addis that’s filled with rusty corrugated sheet roofs reinforced with pieces of basalt rocks.

I went out and requested the people surrounding the thief not to beat him. I told them to call a cop. Nobody would listen to me. They almost started shouting at me; some of them even said I was an accomplice to the guy. One of them proposed the ‘thief’ should have his hands cut (we’re not in Saudi, dude!). I told them that they should call the police for an investigation and then it’s the court’s job to hand down a punishment. They said the ‘thief’ was caught red handed and no need to prove his guilt in a court. Finally the crowd dispersed leaving the ‘thief’ in the custody of the security personnel.

I felt like asking everybody present if they have never stolen anything in their life. I’m sure most of them have. Stationary from their office, misusing the phones in their office, avoiding taxes, over invoicing, etc. The list can go on.

I would say that what I saw there shows how ignorant we are in matters of individual rights and the savage in us comes up with the slightest of excuse. I abhorred the self righteous (holier-than-thou) attitude displayed in the crowd (who by the way may have stolen many things from their bosses, business partners, the state, etc).

I hope one day the age old adage will be changed to ‘leba teyizo polis yiteral’. ( If you catch a thief, call the police).

For us the natives, it’s true that we see a lot of problems in Addis: housing, unemployment, abject poverty, molestation, the semi finished roads, etc. More over, with the rising inflation, it’s hard to dwell on the good things this city can offer.

I’ve often heard people say the millennium celebrations will give Addis (for that matter the whole country) an opportunity to get rid of the famine/ poverty and related images that have been associated with the country for many decades now. I may have my misgivings to the hype surrounding the new millennium; however, I believe that Addis has a better side to offer to the visitors, which we, the residents, have been enjoying this every day.