By Eden Habtamu | Ezega.com
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia — I am not good at joking. I don’t even remember most of the jokes I hear, nor do I have the habit of memorizing them to tell others. But I cannot forget the jokes I have heard about “Cherkos” – the slum known for its poor and overpopulation. May be because the stories are touching, or they have great relevance to life for most of our population. In that sense, I don’t believe the jokes are only about “Cherkos” but, rather, about the majority of us.
Whenever the name “Cherkos” is mentioned on any casual talk, I expect scary jokes. One day, I was thinking about these jokes and started wondering what part of our city (Addis Ababa) does not have such places? I could not find any. Semien, Debube, Misrak and Meirab – all have something in common. You will find all kinds of people: millionaires, rich, upper middle class, middle class, average, below average, poor, very poor, and the homeless.
I don’t hate seeing the rich live near the poor, or the co-existence of the palace with the slum. In fact it’s good thing that at least we share the same place and air, although we use it differently.
I assume sometimes we become blinded by names regardless of what is behind them. When we hear about Bole and Cherkos, we see the stereotypical images we have of them. We just feel Bole is a place only for those who can afford the expensive supermarkets, pricey cars, and those who live in the “palaces”. Of course, the opposite is true for Cherkos and the other slums in our town.
But, in reality, I find that it is just a matter of degree but all have various types of people in different proportions. Recently, I visited the big slum in the Bole area (the so-called high class “sefer”) around 2Km from Bole International Airport. Bole, as we all know, is the place that everyone wishes to reside. Although there are pockets of Bole where we find slums, I focused mainly on the one slum that is commonly called “Wollo Sefer” – the one that is hidden from Bole Road (Africa Avenue) by the colorful wall.
They proudly call it Bole!, with a stress on ‘e’. Many people think of Bole as a “Sefer” with full of abundance, stability, tranquility, and a place reserved for only those who can afford to be Bole residents. I wondered what makes the slum in “Wollo Sefer” different from the slum in “Cherkos” that people joke about so often? Is there any difference with being homeless and needy regardless of where you live? Do the residents of these two slums live differently? I wondered if the people at the Cherkos slum look at people at the Bole slum with envy. It is difficult to see any difference in being poor and homeless in any part of the city.
Anyway, I went to check out for myself into the smaller slum at the beginning of Wollo Sefer, just behind the colorful and greenish wall, which I believe divides the slum residents from the stereotypical Bole.
I headed into the village right away and unplanned (of course, you cannot plan to visit a slum – you just go) to see the messy and very destitute “houses” there.
I was looking at households with 3-10 occupants. I started looking for someone who was willing to take part in my interview. I met girls who were eager to show me their compound and to get me someone for my interview. When I reached their compound, I noticed three houses irregularly placed – houses that cannot really be called houses. I was expecting the girl to take me to one of the houses but, instead, she invited me to follow her to the back of the houses. I didn’t hesitate. She took me over a drainage covered by 60 cm wide fragile “bridge” made with sticks, in between the two walls. I should have been careful not to break my legs if I missed the sticks. I tried to see the running flood; it was a mix of toilet and other waste substances.
The girl happily took me to the lady that she thought may accept strangers for an interview. At the back side of the compound (which has no particular fence but has territory marks), I noticed single room “houses” that were placed arbitrarily, which I doubt most people can get in standing straight. The houses seem to be shrinking and sinking to the ground, since almost all of them are less than 2 meter high. In the very small open area, there were red pepper and grains left to dry by the sun. One must be careful not to walk over these items along the passage between houses.
My guide introduced me to W/o Etalem Worku, a mother of four. I asked her permission to talk to her for few minutes. She nicely welcomed me to share her life experience. She has been living here for 30 years, 18 years of which in the single room that she is living now. Etalem, her husband, the four children and her mother live in this single room. Etalem washes clothes at various places for a living, and her husband is a laborer at different construction sites. She told me that they are trying to fulfill the need of their family, although it has been very difficult to attain any of their goals.
I have asked Etalem what is their most important need. She did not even complain about living in a single room with a family of seven. She just told me how hard it is to live in a place where there is no sanitation facility. “Sometimes the lavatory overflow comes right into our door. Usually our children are playing and we are cooking outside; you can imagine how difficult it is” Etalem said.
I asked here if she feels their life will improve if they resettle somewhere else. Etalem said exhaustedly, “I believe so.” She continued, “The government told us many times that they will give us a place to settle, something like a condominium. That would have been much better for us, but we got nothing so far. We don’t have anything to live a decent life here.”
I asked her for her picture at the side of her door. She was positive and agreed to be photographed. Fortunately her mother was also nearby and was included in the picture. As I was taking her picture, I noticed that she stood just right on her door near the open drainage that I walked over so carefully.
I thanked Etalem and left their “compound”. As I walked out of the slum, I noticed a “Kuralee’w” (a person who buys old commodities – metals, plastics, glass, etc., going door to door). He was counting items excitedly and forecasting his profits. I assumed he brought it from the so-called high class Bole Sefer.
So, this is life at the Wollo Sefer slum in short. There is little difference from what I saw in Cherkos, Abenet, Sebatega, or even at “egna sefer”, the place I live in right now. In the end, it is all the same – a slum is a slum.
4 thoughts on “The slum behind the colorful wall”
Selam Eden,
Thank you for enlightening the officials who are responsible for not taking actions to improve the situation (if they read this article!). If we do not want to deny it, we most of us grew up in that similar type of environment. This is not a problem in Addis alone. It is all over the country’s urban centers even if it is not to the extent you wrote about. There are many resons for that- needs a different forum! This is an issue to be researched and discussed at a National level. The strong demand should come from the residents themselves. Our job should be to create awareness not to talk about condos, that is another story. We should not wait until the Swedes, the Danes, the Finns, the Norwegians to come and clean our shit as they did before. We all should be responsible for not doing what we can.The Woyanes have been in power for the last 18 years. And Meles is boasting about the the economy, the roads, the buildings, …but not about the basic necessity-shelter, clean water, sanitary disposal, health… The Woyanes are accountable for not doing enough to alleviate the problem. In the name of the people who lack the basic ammenities of life, many are making fat salaries at the so called Habitat for Humanities center.
Melkam Ken
Selam Eden,
Thanks for your interesting story about Addis, the city millions of us call home. Mixture of slums and palaces is very common in many African cities. I wish one day we will have government who will spend millions of dollars in fixing this issue in our capital city instead of spending million or billions in war with our neighboring countries such as a little dusty town of BADME. What the Weyanes spend in the war for BADME could have uses in removing all the slums in Addis and building new buildings at affordable price for the low income people.
Life in filth is not limited to our homeland. It is a common site and living condition now in almost every country in Africa. Just go to Cairo, Soweto, Lagos and many other African cities and you will find same filthy living environment as if the people have decided that it is to their likings. Most of these major African cities used to be in pristine condition or I may say, in showcase condition even during the colonial days. And then came the independence drive, which was a blessing and historical right. It was downhill since then with an exception of Botswana (may be). Regimes that followed colonialism were busy feeding their people empty words and leftist jargons while in the meantime lining their personal pockets. Now, some of you may try to cry foul at me for saying this. That it was an era of cold war, super powers did this and that…ohhh Africans were taken in by the schemes of the superpowers etc… etc… I told you before not to try to throw this excuse at me. It makes me reasonably upset and mad as hell. Weren’t the superpowers around Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand? Yes they were there hutching every conspiracy to sway these countries to their spheres. And these countries were very very poor. They had dictators and juntas. They had natural disasters such as typhoons, floods, killer flu’s and many times uprisings. In the middle of these intolerable situations, the people there, the average Joe, wised up and started doing some thing for themselves. They educated themselves in Academics and technological skills. Then we in our large slumbering Africa started seeing ‘ Made in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and later Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Do you remember the Eveready batteries made in Singapore in the early 60’s? Hello!!!!! And look at these countries now? Just look at them? They are given a rewarding name – Tiger Economies. Remember these countries used to have filthy living conditions of the same level or worse of what is mentioned in the article above. Did anyone have a geography class during his/her elementary years in the late 50’s, and 60’s? I remember pictures of Hong Kong, Taiwan cities, Singapore, Bangkok and a few other such cities. How filthy were the living quarters of millions of urban dwellers. They took discontinued buses from here and used them as public transportation; they realized that many of those leftist jargons would not create means to feed themselves and their family. They never gave up in working hard. And they worked long hours at anything that is worth for a living and more. It was not that easy for them, not a cake walk. What did we do? Accra, Lagos, Freetown, Harare, Nairobi, Kampala and many other African cities were clean and pristine. But look at them now? Just look at them and see what was done to them? Don’t you dare try to pull that ‘super powers’ ‘cold war era’ garbage on me? I remember right there in our own country of a story I was told by one of my cousins. It was in the middle 70’s when all the leftist goons had a field day doing whatever they wanted to do to others. They lined up and shot 60 innocent people in cold blood without even a second in court. Most of those people were former patriots who valiantly fought the fascist occupiers in the 1930’s. And they bragged about their heinous crimes in public. And then they confiscated private industries including small modern farms. One of my close relatives owned one of these farmers. He bought an unoccupied land thick with brush but close to a major river. He was not a civil servant and never had any monetary benefit from a government. He was a small business man all his life. So, he started this modern farm and worked his tail off to clear the land. He equipped it with few modern machinery including tractors from John Deere and Fiat. Later on he added one of those Russian ‘junk’ tractors. I still have the picture he sent me of those tractors. He started producing vegetables and some fruits. Then, came these leftist goons out the woodworks and started confiscating almost every private property including his small modern farm. But to confiscate personal property is one thing but to let the work continue unabated is another thing. See that is the problem with leftist goons. They have no idea about the consequences of their action. That is why they turn dangerously violent when they did not get what they wanted. He was writing me how his farm was neglected and weeds and grass started overtaking the land and even the tractors. He was not allowed to continue to work on the land because his ownership was stripped of with a just of mere proclamation. His years of hard work went down the drain in a heartbeat. He did not live too long after. They were constantly harassing him even after they took his farm. He passed away a man of a broken heart. We had Mengistu, Meisone, EPRP and many faceless goons who started running the country and ran it down with them. Others in the continent had Mobutu, Omar Bongo, Banda, Mugabe, Nkrumah, Ould Dadah, Seku Toure, Bokasa, Amin, Santos, Savimbi and many brickhead leftists who misguided their peoples to much worse destitution. Some of them have even taught a substantial section of their population how to steal. Just look at Nigeria now!!!
The bottom line of my message to all protagonists is this: You must also teach the people how to be self reliant and also about sanitation. Show them how they educate themselves in many ways of modern living. Do not listen to leftist agitators!!! And when you the chance do not hesitate to rise up against tyrannies!!!!
I happen to grow up in a middle class family. While we were growing up my brothers prefered to spend their spare times around high class areas. They hanged around expensive hotels and pretended like millionaires while me on the other hand was a slum guru. I went from cherkos to wello sefer to merkato you name it I went ,sometimes all in one day.That’s how my childhood and teen age times were. I finally landed in the US ,it took me quiet sometime to learn that I cann’t be like my brothers even in US. The expensive things (bling bling) that happen to be the center of their thought don’t interest me at all. They call me Black sheep of the family but guess what I wouldn’t change a second of my childhood if get the chance to relive it again.Slums thought me about what really matters in life.