Padma
was an exceptionally self-made woman and did not like taking help from others.
Services of maids were very economical in Bahirdar, but still, she did not relent. She wanted to be left to herself and found maids to be bothersome and intrusive. The maids who were popular among the Indians in our Kable were Ebolu and Ethay Maskaram.
Ethay Maskaram was razor thin and
very quiet. She was a good worker but
more or less kept to herself. On the other side, Ebolu was a typical Ethiopian young girl. – Effervescent, friendly and full of beans. She was Tasleem and
Neelima’s maid. Dusky and quite pretty Ebolu
was our Kable’s very own BBC correspondent/Journalist (Bahirdar broadcasting
corporation!).
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| Maid-pecked and harassed house-wife |
A strange than fiction fact that will drop my readers dead in their tracks – In
Ethiopia at least in the period that I worked from 2002-2006, Ethiopian maids would
only work in a single house. Yes, don’t rub your eyes, you read it right, ONLY IN ONE HOUSE! This one single fact
I am sure will make all the harassed ‘maid-pecked’ Indian women readers/housewives to make a beeline to the Ethiopian embassy – “Can we get a work permit to work in Ethiopia. We
are willing to work as faculty/teachers.”
Ethiopian maids come from the
rural areas and are incredibly strong.
They can carry heavy weights and do all types of household jobs. Baking of Injira and bread, preparation of wats,
Cleaning the house, sweeping, mopping, washing the clothes, taking care of
children, feeding them, pounding coffee seeds and making coffee powder,
shopping, killing and cleaning the hens, ironing the clothes. Name any work
and they are adept at executing it.
They were paid 50- 60 birr (250 to 300
rupees). Most would happily stay in the Injira house.
The maids who worked in Indian
houses are quite different. They hail from Bahirdar city and are well educated.
Articulate, smart and English speaking, most maids could even manage to speak a smattering Hindi
and in some cases even understand some Telugu
phrases. They quickly learned preparation of Indian dishes and demanded up to
100 birrs (Rs 500/-) as salary for a
small family and up to 150 birr (Rs 750/-) if the family was big. They came once in the morning and again in
the evening.
By learning to speak English and
by learning special skills, the Ethiopian maids have elevated their salary
levels by 500%. Food for thought for my
Management students. I have had students coming from all parts of India to
study at Siva Sivani Institute of management. Most of them fail to even pick up
rudimentary skills in speaking and understanding the local language, Telugu.
Forget reading and writing. I am
referring to rudimentary skills of listening, understanding and speaking. Every
extra language learnt will enhance the
earning potential of a management graduate.
When asked as to why they did not
pick up the local language most would say “Oh, sir. Telugu is a very difficult
language to learn. We tried but could not get to learn”. “Is it so” I respond
“IAS officers get transferred from one place to another. When they are transferred to a new state, they have to
quickly learn to READ, WRITE and SPEAK the local language - Just like a local person.
An IAS officer is a public
servant and has to speak, read and write the way the locals do. They would have
to read and understand the petitions given by the local citizens which are inevitably written in the local language.
Do you know how much time is given for IAS officer to read, write and speak the local language?”
I would add, “Ninety days. That’s
all only ninety days. And you have studied here for two years, and you are saying you can’t even listen and
speak very rudimentary Telugu? Learn and
practice skills that are in demand. That way you would not chase jobs, rather
jobs would chase you”.
The maids who worked in the Indian houses were upwardly
mobile. They wanted to progress in life. They were continuously on the lookout to enhance their knowledge levels. Most
of them would take up courses in BDU on Saturdays and Sundays (popularly
referred to as extension classes). Initially,
these courses would lead to a certificate
and later lead to a degree. It was quite common to see maids working in Indian
houses appear as my students in my class of Introduction to management or even
in Introduction to Marketing. Initially,
I was blissfully unaware of this fact.
Once I had visited a fellow
Indian’s house, and I was served coffee. My friend beamed “Anil, I
believe that you teach my maid, Introduction to management. She likes your
lectures very much”. I thanked my student and could see the beads of
appreciation, happiness and gratefulness in her eyes.
After that whenever I got fast
service in any real outlet or a restaurant, Padma would tease me “you are
getting fast service as all these people are your students from your extension
classes”. I can’t vouch for the veracity of the claim, but the speed and the level of service went up dramatically after I
started taking extension classes.
Watching cricket in Ethiopia was a
very big deal. Indians worship cricket, and
we were stationed in a country where
football is a craze. Once I am told that somebody had written a prophetic
statement on the wall ‘Jesus is coming!!” somebody else had scribbled in
Amharic “In that case, we will ask Samuel
Eto to play as a mid-fielder”. To the
uninitiated Samuel Eto was a Cameroonian footballer who was very popular in
Ethiopia. Samuel Eto won an unprecedented four African player of the year
awards and also was part of back-to-back trebles wins with his European
football clubs. He was a forward and in case of the coming of Jesus, Jesus could play as a forward and Eto would drop back to a mid field position
 |
| Samuel Eto |
Indians would pay money to the
restaurant owners and watch live cricket beamed from the South African
satellite channel, Super Sports. One of the waiters in a hotel (incidentally my
extension student) once told me “your game cricket, is a crazy game. Why is that
in cricket most of the people are standing still? Why is that some people come
and go? Why are they wearing funny gear? Why are no goals being scored? Why is
the game so long?”
I could not take it any longer. I
told him “we were watching the shorter
format of the game that lasts for a day. The purest form of test cricket is played
over a period of five days”. “Five days” he was gasping for air. But I was
relentless, I thrust and twisted the mental (imaginary) sword deep into his anguished torso
and triumphantly added: “Till very
recently, there was a rest day too”.
The poor Ethiopian could not
comprehend how people could play and others watch a game that took almost a
week to finish. I didn’t have the guts to tell him that after playing it for
six days that it could still be a draw or a no result. I was dead scared that the annoyed Ethiopian student
would bodily throw me out of his restaurant!
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