Still high on SATC

It used to be a sitcom. A six-season sitcom my husband carried all the way from the states after I got a glimpse of it at the end of another sitcom (F.R.I.E.N.D.S., which got boring and forced after Monica and Chandler got married; although I’m still Matthew Perry’s biggest fan). A sitcome an online friend of mine referred to being about “ugly Jew broads” & features “that horsy-faced Sarah Jessica Parker”. And one I always felt pressured to explain why and what I liked about in gentle company. To the extent of defending my self, sometimes!

You get to hear about blow-jobs, eating-in and up-the-butt over Sunday brunch. You see the kind of fabulous people who makes you wonder if this is the world you’d like to belong to. And lines after lines of Manolo Blahnik strappy sandals you know you’ll probably never get to wear. You witness Carrie and friends go “ick” when hearing a love poem (save the kind you see on Cosmo, regarding dresses); see them dumping a guy for a “short-coming” (not literal) he has no control over or failed to give them the “zsa zsa zsu” when they first look at him! You hear them explain how giving & receiving head can be an enjoyable experience ‘with the right guy’, never to knock it before trying it and all that stuff that made critiques comment they were acting, I heard, “like gay men”. Their biggest worries, next to where their next orgasm is coming from, probably is “a little substance abuse in the form of expensive footware”. A glimpse, in short, that tempts you to dismiss them & it (if you haven’t already) as shallow, offensive and down right dirty the first time around.

Imagine, therefore,

Finally..a good news!

I am aware I have been doing a bit of complaining against the government lately, abesheet loves her neck, so I’m proud to be the bearer of good tidings for a change. As it is written, “How lovely on the mountains Are the feet of him who brings good news, Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness..” etcetra on Isaiah 52:7. Ok, I’m so happy I’ve started tripping. So……..herebelow is an evidence to the truth in our Premier’s reply to one of those Pre-Ginbot 20 “hiZbawi” questions that are being aired on ETV and Radio.

The question was: do you feel you have achieved your promise to have Ethiopians eat three times a day of about 10 years ago?. The premier has answered how, although much progress has been made towards achieving the goal, the result hasn’t exactly been 100%. How the country has shown a constant 5% economic growth in the last so & so years and the farming sector (which comprises about 85% of the population) has been it’s leading beneficiary. And how, with the exeption of some areas that keep being hit by draught & a couple of “Arbto Ader” akababiwoch, the farmer has not only started eating 3 times a day, but has created opportunities for others to eat three times a day!

Now, I’m not sure how precisly true this statement is. Statistically, at least! It’s all about statistics, folks!! That’s what you discover about politics and death-tolls. But WorQe, a family member with roots in the countryside, has confirmed there has indeed been a change to the lives of the farmers in her old neighborhood. They are earning, she said, thousands of birr a month these days. And not just from the sale of their plots of land to investors! No! They have learned how to take their goods to the market, how to deal without the needs of middle men, and how to keep their goods home until such time they could get more for less. They are buying mobile phones, building houses and/or “maTering” their “gibi” with expensive ornaments (sometimes to the neighbour’s ridicule). The real change, however, is with where these farmers are spending their days and evenings. “AreQe bet!”, she said bitterly, “getting drunk”!! But not with Areqe, mind you, but with Beer & sometimes even whisky!!

Yep!! Their kids may not have gotten the kind of education they need. Their wives may not see a new dress, or have a straw of their burden lifted, until they fled to their parent’s and an “amalaj” (or “Jarssa”) is sent to entreat them back. But get drunk they do, these farmers, more than three times a day! She’s gone so far as joking farmers have become the new teachers. To whom “Areke bets” belonged in time past.

Now, I don’t know if that’s the reality for all the 14 regions of the country and 85% of the population. But such seems to be the case in WorQe’s old neighbourhood atleast. More work needs to be done, ofcourse, in the way of extending these priviledges to the “Arbto Ader” Kebeles and the few areas that are usually hit by draught. Still… leWt aynaQim. Aydel? 😉