Leading a meaningful life is not as easy as apple pie. Unless one works every so often with the purpose of making ends meet and standing on one’s own feet, life will be difficult.
When the lives of some people embark on skidding off the track, they curse their luck and get angry at God. They associate everything with God.
According to some sources, if four things are followed – having a great aim, acquiring knowledge, working hard and perseverance – then anything can be achieved. More to the point, the price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether one wins or loses, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.
In the same way, some religious texts pertaining to work say, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.
In fact, unless people work by the sweat of their brow, achieving the desired goal would be like nailing jelly to the wall. The key to success is hard work and failure is ascribable to laziness. If people leave their doors ajar for laziness, they will remain poor until they depart this life. Therefore, whatever one’s background is, one should attach importance to hard work by giving the cold shoulder to laziness and ignorance.
To get back to the point, the desired goal of this writer is not talking about the nitty-gritty of laziness but to familiarize esteemed readers of The Ethiopian Herald with the success story of Habtamu who had passed through thick and thin to reach where he is today.
To begin with, Habtamu Enawgaw was born and raised in Chiro. As a child he was leading a life which was above the dead and the below the living. At that point, he was living under the same roof with his parents. When he was a child, he could not get a chance to play with his age mates. Life was an uphill battle for him. As his dad’s was earning a small salary on a monthly basis, he had to get himself involved in various works.
More often than not, he was suffering from thirst and hunger from time to time. Even worse, he had nothing to wear. To the surprise of all, no matter what happened in his life, he did not refrain from facing life challenges by making use of broad range of techniques. However, after so many struggles, he was able to pull himself out of the quagmire of poverty, which was shackling his hands and feet.
At the time Habtamu’s parents were in trouble, he did not want to be a bystander. He had to do something for their daily bread. They did not have to die of hunger. There was even a time that his parents went to bed on an empty stomach over and over again.
He said pertaining to his childhood days, “During dinner time, after my mother shared the meal among the family members, she was in the habit of going to bed on an empty stomach. In fact, before going straight to bed, she was drinking a cup of coffee. At a loss what to do, I started selling eggs and other similar activities. I was getting myself engaged in various businesses which I thought could make a difference in my parents’ life. No matter how hard I tried, all my efforts kept on going for nothing now and then.”
Once Habtamu had opened a small shop for the sake of helping his parents. But as his mother was putting on the market everything she had on credit, she went bankrupt within the shortest time possible. No matter what happened, he did not give up hope except fighting with life challenges and getting himself involved in various works.
As a child Habtamu was an obedient boy. Whenever he got money he did not spend a penny seeing his parents’ poverty.
Though he made an effort day in and day out with the intention of standing on his own feet and improving his family life, he could not materialize his dream. One fine day, after a long fight with his thoughts, he made up his mind to leave his place of birth and try his luck in another country.
In due course, Habtamu started the inevitable journey. But he did not know what the future holds for him in store. As he did not have any options, he had to look square in the eye.
He was ready to accept any challenges. On his way to Djibouti, he had been robbed off and beaten severely. He was between death and life. As destiny would have it, after seven days of tiresome journey, he arrived in Djibouti refugee camp along with his friends. There was nothing to eat and wear there. The biting cold was giving him a bad time. The situation in the camp was beyond everybody’s imagination.
One day something unexpected came to happen. The thing was, he came out of the camp and sat on a certain stone. In this interval, he saw two people passing in the area and waved his hands. As his body status was heartrending, they came closer and asked him politely what he wanted. He narrated his story in black and white. Thus, they gave him seven thousand birr in cash. He turned out to be very happy and felt as if a huge weight was off his body.
In the blink of an eye, he headed straight to his friends and narrated the entire story. They arrived at a conclusion to eat a kind of food which is commonly known as Arzuqar. After they ate until their hearts content, they saved the remaining money for a rain day. They wanted the money to leave for another country.
Be that as time may, one day while he was sitting by the door of the refugee camp at midnight, he came across a certain Muslim organization. After they took council with Habtamu, they provided him 24 saucepans and 200 mats made of palm trees. At that specific juncture, he got furious given that their problem was food but not materials.
On the morrow, he went out of the camp with his friends to put up for sale the materials. After they ate till their hearts content, they returned to the camp safe and sound and kept the money safely. In fact, he divided the 100 mats amongst the refugees.
In the fullness of time, he headed straight to Djibouti. The instant he went there, Habtamu could not embark on leading a meaningful life. Life turned out to be meaningless. He kept on passing the night in the biting cold. Though he got himself involved in different works, he could not achieve the desired goal.
One day unexpected thing happened in his life. While working as a bearer, he came across a Somali woman. He was carrying vegetables for different people to their respective residential houses.
Though Habtamu was in the habit of spending his time with street children, he was obedient and respectful. Following his behavior, he won the hearts and minds of everyone in the shortest time possible. Be that as it may, the Somali woman took council with her husband and facilitated a visa and passport which enabled him to leave for Italy. As chance would have it, he left for Italy.
In Italy, he found life to be very difficult. As he got different life experiences from different people, he was constantly broadening the horizon of his knowledge. He kept on getting himself in different works. One day he got hired as a caregiver for a certain person with a mental illness on the pretext that he had learnt about care giving for a person with a mental illness. He was earning 100 dollar a day. As time went by he saved 30,000 dollars and left for Canada and embarked on working by the sweat of his brow.
When the situation of his life kept on improving he took five of his brothers and sisters to Canada and other countries and helped them attend school. After seventeen years of work in Canada, he returned to Ethiopia. He was working for sixteen hours a day.
He started his job by renting a wide spectrum of machines. But nothing made him happy given that the business could not help him create many job opportunities. This being the case, in the name of his mother he opened a lodge called Kebush International in a place he was born. He had created a lot of job opportunities for different people.
As Habtamu has learnt important life lessons, he does not belittle anyone under the sun except sharing what he has with others. In the eyes of him everyone is impossible to tell apart.
The Ethiopian Herald July 21, 2019
BY ADDISALEM MULAT
