Learning perseverance in the mountains of Ethiopia

Not too often do we encounter students so eager to attend a school that they’ll travel over 100km to pay for their education. It’s common to find university students looking for a means to pay for their education but how often do we encounter high school, or even middle school, students seeking employment to pay for their classes? To add to that, how many of them would leave their families to do so? Building a strong work ethic can take years, but some people develop that drive early on depending on their needs.

Standing outside of my friend’s shop, as I did every Sunday when the store gets busy, I watched a young boy wiping down a car. I watched him for some time, periodically peaking out of the shop to see what else he was up to. From one in the afternoon to around five, he would wash around 4-5 cars and carry several bags for people. His day's net income, a meager 150 birr (the equivalent to 5 dollars). That’s actually not a bad day when you consider he’s working on a day when most people are off of work.

I talked with him for over an hour to find out a little more about him. Again, seeing someone his age working so late into the afternoon, on a Sunday, isn’t too common for me. I live in an area where you can find young boys, young as 8, working in the streets, but Sunday is still a sacred day around here. The boy’s name is Samuel and he is one of the hardest-working kids I’ve ever met. His family resides in a village 100km north of the city I live in, closer to Lalibela, and he’s here alone. He made the long journey two months ago and sleeps in the streets to avoid having to pay for rent (assuming any landlords would be willing to rent to a teenage boy).

Samuel says he’s 15, but his underdeveloped body initially made me assume he was no older than 12. He stands under five feet tall and weighs no more than 100 pounds. The obvious question starts springing into my head, “Has anyone ever stolen from you?”. He answered no and that he keeps his money in a secure place. The kid has things locked down. He’s young and small but wise for his age. I’ve helped him with his English and math a few times and I now look for him every time I head into town. I work as a teacher in a small village nearby, so using an hour or two of my day to help someone who wants to learn is sort of an unusual high.

I remember a specific day where he and one of his friends came to me to practice English. He was so excited that he rejected the work offered to him. He knew there was a low chance he’d be able to learn English from an American, so he decided to stick around. After some time, his friend wanted to do the math. Samuel quickly got bored and wanted to give up. I had a bag of mangoes with me that day and I used it to bribe him to stick around and learn a little longer. He almost hesitated, he knew I would give him a mango since I have in the past, but he took it anyway.

He has no family close by, rarely sees consistent income, eats once or twice a day, and yet his need for money, to pay for his school, has driven him to make decisions many wouldn’t be keen to make. Many young boys and men I meet have a difficult time managing work, school, and anything apart from their social lives.

Not everyone is a Samuel and not all Samuels make it that far, but we all can find something, similar to Samuel, to drive us to want and expect more. We can all find it in ourselves to put a little more into the things we want and need when we act with motive and strive for more. His story is a great testimony to one of the various paths young men his age are burned with choosing.

Since writing the above, he returned back home, to where I hope he was able to afford to pay for school. With COVID19 looming in Ethiopia, I fear that young boys, similar to Samuel, will be at greater risk for exposure and potential hesitance from community members due to the stigma of street kids. I get this feeling in my stomach that hits hard, knowing that at some point in my life as a child my mom could have sent me away to do exactly what Samuel is doing. Thinking about that makes me extremely grateful that certain chips stacked perfectly to orient my life differently.