It is no secret that life is full of challenges. Life has its rosy and fragile side. The challenges people face in life have been designed for them to become sagacious and strong as human beings. Unless they work by the sweat of their brow and sow the seeds of hard work every so often, they cannot reap the fruits of success. To the best of my knowledge, money, happiness and success rise and fall in life again and again.
By its very nature, all and sundry will not lead a meaningful life. Nobody can experience the same life style and resolve life-style differences at the stroke of a pen. Life will never be the same on its own behalf. Likewise, there is a growing gap in the midst of people all over the world. Unless one works unflaggingly, achieving the desired goal will be easier said than done.
According to religious texts, “…by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”
When some people fail to be victorious over life, they give up hope. More often than not, they close their eyes never to open them again saying farewell to the earthly life full of ups and downs. On the other hand, some of them work by the sweat of their brow and overcome life challenges giving the cold shoulder for other things.
Flipping back to the gist, the intended target of this writer is not talking about the dark and bright side of life but to familiarize the most challenging journey of a woman who goes by the name of Alem Amitataw.
She has passed through the acid test of life to reach where she is in the present day. Her life was full of obstacles. It is crystal clear that a rose possesses thorns and beautiful flowers. Her life is tantamount to thorny issues.
To begin with, Alem was born and raised in Addis Ababa in the area commonly known as Meshualikya. As a child, though she did not know what the future holds, she was dreaming of becoming a traffic policewoman over and over again. Nothing made her happier than being a traffic policewoman. She was in the habit of loving the profession seeing that traffic officers stop more than a few vehicles at a time with one hand.
When she was promoted to grade nine, she joined Felege Yordanos School. At that specific point, as her mother was partaking in putting up for sale second hand clothes, she was urging her daughter to join the business world without delay. This being the case, she ended up joining the business in a little while with five hundred Birr startup capital.
Afterward, by interrupting her studies, she set in motion putting up for sale second hand clothes in Addis Ababa buying from Dire Dawa. At that specific juncture, Alem did not get used to the business very fast with the job. It took her a long time. However, as time passed by, she got used to the business. She grew to be infinitely happy given that she embarked on making a profit. Day in and day out, she was thinking of designing a wide-spectrum of strategies how to be successful in the business.
At first, the whole thing went well but after sometime, something unexpected came to pass. The thing was, as always, she headed straight to Dire Dawa to buy second hand clothes for the customary business. When she returned to Addis Ababa, she faced off with custom officers. As ill luck would have it, they confiscated all her belongings worth three thousand five hundred Birr. As she was furious considering what had happened in her life, she made up her mind to distance herself from the business in the blink of an eye and get herself involved in another business.
With the passage of time, she got herself engaged in petty business in the area commonly known as Akaki Kaliti. However, the business was not that lucrative. At a loss what to do, she sold out the whole lot she had and opened a mini grocery. But the profit was relatively very good.
Most of her customers were making an effort to flirt with Alem. Most of them were getting off the track. She was a mother of two. When the situation kept on falling from the frying pan into the fire, she made up her mind to give up the grocery business. All things considered, after she had worked for two solid years, she sold out all the materials she was using for the love of smoothing the progress of the business.
After a long fight with her thought and taking council with alter egos she came to a decision to leave for one of the Arab countries through one of the agencies found in the capital. Everything turned out to be an uphill battle in the country where she went seeking for a better job and life. The challenges were too awful for words. She was earning two hundred five hundred Birr a month at that point.
Later than she worked for one year and a half, she stumbled upon people showering her with pieces of advice to work in diverse residential houses and to make good money. Thus, she started working in three places. Though the payment she used to get was good, the house rent was costing an arm and a leg. No matter what the challenges may be, she kept on working like a dog now and then.
However, after she had worked in this way for six months, she was caught by the police and sent to her motherland. Sadly, she did not have a penny at that juncture. No matter what happened she did not give up on hope for a fraction of a second. She simply kept on busying herself with various thoughts which could make her lead a better life. She did not have a penny.
After Alem stayed with her husband and children for a month, she left for Kuwait and jumpstarted working day and night. Unfortunately, after eight years of hard work, she was thrown into prison because of friction which took place with her employees. In the fullness of time, after five months in prison, she was sent to Ethiopia.
The instant she returned home, she turned out to be a housewife. She lived under the same roof with her family members for three solid years. Though she made up her mind to run her own business targeting at making ends meet and becoming a bread-winner mother, she could not achieve the intended target in next to no time.
Once up on a time, Alem made a decision to pay a visit to her relatives living in Jigjiga city. At some stage in her stay, she was advised to get herself engaged in Jebena Buna business. As the business was not that lucrative, she decided to run the business in Addis Ababa. As the whole thing was hand to mouth, she took training on garment manufacturing.
Then she bought a sewing machine at a cost of six thousand Birr and began the garment business in her family’s residential house.
As working with one sewing machine in an uncomfortable environment did not help materialize her dream, she decided to trouble pertinent bodies working in Kebele. As time went on, she was given a working place. Consequently, targeting at moving the business to new heights of success, she bought two additional sewing machines with a loan she got from Addis Capital.
Likewise, she embarked on manufacturing T-shirt, suits, beautiful clothes and other related aspects using her own attention-grabbing designs.
Alem said, “Though I am not a big manufacturer, I have reached where I am today after passing through quite a lot of ups and downs. I am making an effort to take the business to a new level of success down the road. The problem in the business is I cannot get a person who buys my products on a daily basis.”
The Ethiopian Herald July 14, 2019
BY ADDISALEM MULAT
