It is the little things that give you the biggest headaches, don’t you think? You think changing light bulbs is easy! “You just pull a chair get up on it; unscrew the damaged bulb and screw in the new one. Finished!” Well, that’s what you think. Believe me even changing the light bulbs, something you would have thought any child can do a child could do would be a daunting task if it’s a first time for you. There should be a ‘first time’ for everything!!”
Fixing things isn’t as easy or a simple as we would want them to be. There is an Amharic pun which says, “Kebero besew ejj yamer; siyezut yadenager.” It is something about drums being delightful when someone plays them but confusing when we try to do so. It is probably the same with watching others fixing the smaller things and thinking “I could do that! And I always thought it could be difficult.” It is! I tell you most of the time it is really difficult. Somehow the smaller and simple looking things give us the fiercest headaches. “All you need is to hold the screwdriver correct and screw. Voila! Your damaged chair is fixed! That’s all there is to it!”
Don’t you wonder about the lengths we go trying to make things much simpler than they actually are when others are dong them? It just doesn’t make sense. And this comes not only from those who make very minimal use of their thinking apparatus but others you would have expected would measure twice and thrice before cutting once.
That is the rather disheartening part of such stories. Many of us, unless we have gone through our fair share of false starts and learned from repeated trial and error could find it even hard to change a light bulb, something we probably thought is so simple a task even a child would do it given a chair tall enough. There was a friend who now has been across the oceans for a little more than a decade who finds it hard to change light bulbs. I’m not kidding! He never tried and failed because he has concluded the task wasn’t for him. I wonder if he finally has learned his lesson over there.
We are in times when it is not easy to look for some helping hand for everything good or bad. I can tell you that still to this day many Ethiopian men don’t know the inside of the kitchen though it can’t be denied there have been significant changes over the years. Of course the traditional kitchen with all the smoke and other in convinces is not a place anyone would want to be in.
To a certain extent it might be understandable. In those days a man in the kitchen would have been the ‘Breaking Story’ for the whole town. Growing up everyone had their mothers to feed them even into their adult years. Then there might be the better half or in the absence of a spouse a domestic helper. So men could argue there was no reason for them to invade the kitchen!
Well that is then and now is now. Many outstanding factors in our daily lives demand men actually look after themselves. Even in the presence of the spouse she might be all day at the office and expecting her to dive into the kitchen after work might be inconsiderate of hubbies. Those who can afford might employ domestic helpers. Well, one very difficult thing about the times we’re in is that it is not at all easy finding domestic helpers due to their fast rising monthly pay and also trustworthiness which are both crucial issues.
A twenty-thousand-birr-a month person might have to set a quarter of that for the domestic helper’s salary! That coming on top of all the house rent, monthly groceries, transportation, phone bills and the like you can imagine the financial straightjacket one finds oneself in. pressure. So, a fellow who can’t even fry a couple of eggs properly and couldn’t also afford a domestic helper can blame no one but himself.
Speaking of domestic helpers a fellow we know was looking for a domestic helper a few months back. He was willing to pay a sum he would have never dreamt he would… a whooping five thousand! Anyway he was told a trustworthy helper with all the culinary skills and the discipline has been located. So one Sunday they bring her to his house and he liked what he saw. She was probably in her late twenties or early thirties tidy and everything about her was likeable. After some all the preliminaries about all of which they agreed she had one question to wrap it all up.
“Isn’t there a washing machine in the house?” What! A washing machine? The fellow was so startled he was all eyes. It was one question he thought he would never ever confront. He was financially clawing through life by the tips of his fingers and she asks if there was a washing machine! “No, I don’t have a washing machine.” That does it. The deal was off right there. Things could be that bad. I have heard of domestic helpers demanding fifty-five, and sixty-five-inch flat screen TV sets to be in the living rooms! Tough! Very tough times!
The guy we talked about is mulling the idea of bringing a domestic helper from the countryside with the help of relatives over there. He says while they might not live up to all his expectations he would have no worry of losing things in the hose. Even in the event of finding domestic helpers the issue of the issue trustworthiness is a very crucial one. And there is the vile intentions and actions of those notorious and hardly accountable brokers in the middle. Even the very broker who brought you the domestic helper wouldn’t wait for more than a couple of months before trying to whisk her away to another employer with the promise of higher salary. It is that bad. And the domestic helpers trying to make life for themselves aren’t blamed if they are tempted to pack up and go which they do more than a few times.
You, the innocent employer asks,
“Did I hurt you in any way? Is there anything you’re not satisfied about?”
She would tell you it was nothing about you and it was that some relative in the countryside was critically ill and she has to rush. Such reasons are difficult to counter because the humane element. You ask her when she would be back, she says she might stay ether for long and that does it for you.
So guys throw the neckties shorts and what have into the cosset and into the kitchen! Is the kitchen that scary!
The Ethiopian Herald December 15/2014