Ephrem Endale Contributer
If you’re a guy who chose to keep your distance from childhood chums these days you must have a very good reason. I mean childhood chums are supposed to be those creatures that pop into your life and rekindle those innocent nostalgic smiles of yesteryears. Especially since every other guy seems to have turned into some sort of a politician these days you crave for some real unadulterated oxygen; that’s what many enjoy doing to you, interfere with ‘quality’ oxygen.
The chat with childhood chums usually starts with those humorous stories.
“Do you remember in sixth grade when we fantasized about our biology teacher?”
“How can I forget that?”
“She was a pretty woman.”
“She could have been our grandmother!”
“Isn’t that what makes it adventurous?”
“And we didn’t even know the additional purposes of some body parts!” And the hilarious laughter!
Isn’t it wonderful? Laughing at the expense of particularly no one else!
But then as you dive deeper into those yesteryears well without you knowing it, how do I put this, you end up in enemy territory! Didn’t I say the guy was a childhood chum? Yes, I did. Isn’t that what the whole story is about? Your chum of yesterday turning into the foe of today! If you think the word foe should have been edited and tossed all the way to the waste basket you are a member of a species facing the danger of extinction…a nice guy. There are things you prefer to be untouched! Look nostalgia or not there are certain things you don’t want to recall or anybody else to know. You’re in a different age, among a hopelessly different crowd and a hell lot has changed! The cat comes out of the box a paw at a time when issues not so nostalgic come into play.
“So what do you do for a living?”
“I’m an electrical engineer.”
“What!” It was as if he was told he won the twenty-million Birr jackpot. “You, an electrical engineer! That is breaking news!” That wipes away every sprinkle of a smile from your face.
“What’s so breaking about it? What did you expect me to be, a hairdresser or something?”
“That would have sounded more plausible.” The guy’s going too far. He’s no more your classmate. No classmate acts like he does after all those years, even decades! What the hell is he trying to prove!
“I just couldn’t understand what is so surprising about my being an engineer?”
“You were the lousiest student in math and the sciences! You barely made it through!” In the times we’re in such a statement could mean, “Unless you bought the paper, which every third guy seems to be doing these days, there is no way you could be an electrical engineer!” God save you from the heartache! The guy tries to act funny and fails miserably, “Did you by any chance have a brain transplant?”
It is time to go on the offensive;
“Sorry, but where do you work? I mean in what field are you working?” (The second part is for lack of a better way to put the question!)
“You mean no one told you what I’m involved in?”
“What are you involved in?”
“I am an activist.” Time to respond with a louder… “What!”
“Sorry, can you say that again…”
“I’m an activist. What’s wrong with you? Don’t you watch television?”
“No, I don’t. Exactly what kind of an activist are you?”
“Politics, what else? But I focus on human rights.” What! Get out of here! A guy who’s known for having almost everyone beaten up by his village friends, a guy who in senior high was famous for beating his girlfriends, now an activist focusing on human rights! No wonder this country is in the mess it’s in. Some weeks back a guy we know got himself in almost similar situation where too intimate issues were raised; And in the presence of others! He was offended he told his childhood formed he never wants to see him away.
It’s a little saddening when in times friendship has turned into some sort of a commercial undertaking your childhood chums acting this way. While we’re at it we used to think that when diplomats talked of things like, “The decades old friendship between our two nations…” it was “Hip! Hip! Hurray!” what better news is there than two nations having stayed chummy, chummy for decades! And then when tough times sets in and a nation is in need of shoulders to cry on, the fairy tale comes crushing down. All of a sudden the roses in their hands are replaced with knives Conan the Barbarian would have envied.
But they were our friends all those years! They have been here for close to a century and how could they do this to us? But then it’s us who said so.
You know, it’s like ‘We wish you all the best. We want the best for your country.’ Ok; that sounds friendly! We can go with it. Mind you, we’re the ones who thought so. But then there’s the unsaid part which is the gem of the story. Sooner or later we realize we were hoodwinked by diplomatic shenanigans all those years. Yes we were shocked initially. You know when all of a sudden since we refused to play second fiddle as the music wasn’t for us the mask of ‘We wish you all the best,” is laid bare. Friends for life turned into those who openly and unashamedly seem to work for our demise.
What about that girl in junior high. Remember her brother giving you that ‘Mother of all beatings!’
“That guy almost beat you to death!”
“You know at that time I could have responded in kind and he would have ended up in hospital.”
“HA! Ha! Ha!! Where did that come from? Your entire village invaded the school to complain to the headmaster?”
“If I beat him up his sister wouldn’t have seen my face ever again.” But she never wanted to see you in the first place. That’s why she told her brother you were harassing her and he made good work of you.
“What! She hated you!”
Yes she hated you like anything, but then like the typical ‘us’ you still refuse to acknowledge it. That’s one cancerous sore in our society; we never seem to be tough enough to keep our heads high “Yes. I lost! “Yes, it was my mistake; I messed the whole thing up!”
And as the chat continues things take somehow not-very-nice direction. Politics sets in. That was the one thing you wanted to avoid talking with old friends. I mean you don’t know what kind of life they’ have been leading or things like that. You have stumbled more than your share.
The childhood friend wants to know ‘your identity.’ We’ve raised this point a couple of times. But there’s far more of it around than we would have imagined! You’re not that old chum who could have come from anywhere. You aren’t the guy who was beaten up for a girl who didn’t like the very site of you; you aren’t the guy who was the lousiest student when it comes to math and the sciences; you are none of the above. You are “Ato so and so from such and such part of the country.” Primitive as primitive comes!
The Ethiopian Herald August 29/2021