BY ALEM HAILU
While I was walking down to Kazanchis a girl who rented a traditional coffee corner on the veranda of a restaurant round Meneharia Photo House loudly said
“ Hello Alex, we don’t see much of you these days. Why don’t you get in and have a cup of coffee?”
“I’m in a hurry but I can spare five minutes if you can fix the coffee fast!” I looked my watch.
“I will see to it,” she projected a sunny face.
I took a wooden stool beside another client with a hoary head.
Soon this short and stout girl started fanning the charcoal stove still talking to me. She has a bent of explaining things with her hand.
“Haven’t you heard that the girl, whose bill you liked to foot, has passed away?”
“Do you mean the tall and elegant one with aquiline nose?”
“Right you are! She had also dimples on her cheeks.”
I nodded yes.
“What happened? I remember she liked boozing.”
“As if she were a fish she often drank round the clock,” she giggled and added
“Yes. Sorrowfully one sad morning in her parent’s house she was found dead in her bed.”
“What a tragedy! She did tell me she was a mother of two,” I projected pity-stamped face.
“I think she was either separated or divorced. Once, riding a car her mother and sister came to take her away reminding her she had a court appointment on the morrow. Presenting them coffee I overhead their talk about inheritance. You see she was from a well-to-do family.”
“How come she loved this house?”
“It has a spare room for ‘Chat’ chewers, addicts and gamblers that chitchat day long.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes!”
“ I have observed that when the addict trespass the limit they spiral out of the orbit that binds them to the community.”
“Those who are hardcore addicts of “Chat” end up half normal.”
The hoary-headed man cut in
“A friend of mine that helped me a lot while I was assigned a teacher at Dolomena School in the then Bale province gradually became a chat addict. You see a diploma holder of school administration, this gentleman that used to neatly dress, was the director of the school.
Fifteen years later after I settled in Addis I found him a shabby job-seeking loafer. Out of pity, I allowed him to stay with me till he got a job. For three months he stayed with me. But at last I had to browbeat him to leave of his accord.”
“Why?” The chubby girl asked.
“He simply wants me to buy Chat at least twice a day. He couldn’t tell whether it is sun up or sun down leave alone it is Monday or Sunday. He forgot he had to take a shower.
Also, he was not washing his clothes and shocks. His nails turned filthy. He was inured to filthiness. Though I advised him to change the sad episode ‘Okay! Sorry!’ he used to say.”
“He became inured to his repellent condition. I have no alternative than being harsh for our own good! I forced him to leave.”
“Have you heard from him since then?”
“No. He disappeared into a thin air.”
“ I have observed addicts resort to thievery when they stop short of money for Chat and alcohol. Such a girl did steal me a cellphone I bought deducting money from my two-year saving,” the stout girl poured coffee into two cups and handed it to us.
“That is why some service giving government employees become corrupt. Also the girl addicts will willy-nilly resort to commercial sex work,” the man added.
“Sure,”I said.
“On top of ‘Chat’ most of them smoke cigarettes. I often shudder when I reflect how the combined effect of ‘Chat’, cigarette and alcohol could change the aroma of their mouths. I wonder why men fail to shun such girls,” the girl put her hand on her head.
“Their likes could like them! As the Amharic adage goes ‘Filthy with filthy trek together’ (Birds of the same feather fly together.) A revolting thing! ” the man laughed accompanied by us.
“By the way how is my coffee?” the girl asked.
“As usual excellent,” said the man.
“One Christmas morning when I went to a church for a prayer an emaciated man got up among a large circle of the destitute being fed by Sunday school students who were offering them special dishes killing sheep pooling resources from the faithful. First I didn’t recognize him. But when he drew closer saying ‘Alex’ Oh Getahun is that you?” I proffered him my hand.
“It was long since I saw you last he said.”
His unkempt hair and tattered clothes were telling that he is out of job as he can’t hold down one gradually turning a ‘Chat’ addict. Around Piaza, he used to invest his salary on a roomful of chat chewers that do the same when they get money.
Before he knows it this sought-for teacher of Commercial Mathematics in one of the High Schools of Addis tragically turned into a hard-core addict. He was missing classes and as such frequently receiving warning letters. He had almost lost all of his dark brown teeth practically fully chiseled down.
“Via corrupt officials involved in the export and sale of ‘Chat’ the unreformed government had deliberately promoted ‘Chat’ addiction. Don’t you remember the long line of gentlemen and cars by that shop? ”he pointed his finger across the road.
When my phone rang I stood up and said “It is from my friend waiting for me around Total Petroleum Station. I have to hurry up. Have a nice time! I handed the stout girl 15 birr saying “For three cups of coffee including you!”
“Thank you!” Said the man.
Of all addicts I know, I feel pity to Bethesda a tall attractive girl, a graduate of sociology from Addis Ababa University. Attracted I had put her under my radar. Once, in the same taxi from Arat Kilo to Kazanchis I did get a chance to talk to her. Stunned by the profound knowledge she has about socioeconomic and philosophical issues I asked her a favor to invite her a cup of tea under the pretext of continuing the discussion.
Winning her consent over a cup of tea we deliberated for hours on end.
“Men chauvinists’ line of reasoning is embedded in the logo centrism which talks about the presence and absence of the reproductive organs in the three dimensional space. They relate it with the biblical saying ‘There was light at the beginning!’ ”
“I see the presence of male’s reproductive organ in the three dimensional space allows him the upper hand! What reasoning!” I said.
“Sigmund Freud also asserts male’s superiority claiming ‘Males are active while females are passive in conjugal felicity,’ ”she unzipped her lips.
“So funny!” I said.
“But feminists slam the idea with women’s power of giving birth capitalizing on the ability of bringing forth something new.”
“A better reasoning!” I said happily.
“Are you supporter of feminism?” she laughed.
“Yes I have translated the short stories of Maxim Gorky in Amharic. If you read his works you will be surprised how with word pictures he paints women.”
“ Yes he uses brighter hues for women. I know Gorky, the figurehead of Socialist Realism,” she said.
Though unwilling to give me her cellphone number I managed to receive her e-mail address. Even if I wrote to her three letters she failed to respond. Once I met her pale. She could not identify me as she was imaginatively transported to another world. She was nonstop squeezing her nose with her fingers.
When I told a girl collogue about Bethesada a she said “She might have sniffed a weed (a drug)!”
I used to meet her at least once in a three month. Unfortunately, three years have elapsed since I saw her last. She was a girl of a well off family in Bole. I’m afraid we might have lost her to addiction.
The Ethiopian Herald February 7/2021
