Exciting stories about how Ethiopians went to Kenya and ended up establishing a sort of life while they, most of them, at least, waited for an opportunity to take them to a third country, perceived to be full of promise, like the United States (US), Canada, or Australia, are not lacking.
One of the more exciting stories is that of Chuni Agdew, then a 15-year old girl, who hijacked an airplane to avoid a life in her native Ethiopia.
In 1994, Chuni’s boyfriend told her how she could make a better life in Saudi Arabia. She heeded his words, changed her name to Sofia Kedir Mohammed, adjusted her age to 20 years old, and moved to Saudi Arabia illegally.
She had only been in Jeddah for three months before the Saudi police took her to prison where the male and female detainees were, uncharacteristically, kept in one place. As the day of their deportation approached, one determined young man, Fuad, came up with the idea of hijacking the plane that was to bring them to Ethiopia. He enlisted two other young men and four women, one of them Sofia.
However, by the time they boarded the plane, only Fuad, which she does not think was his real name, and Sofia were still serious about hijacking the Saudia Boeing.
Sitting in a chair beneath a cask in her beauty salon, the Pink Lady, on Hurlingham Street in Nairobi, Sofia could not help but be amused at how smoothly the event unfolded.
“We only had a toy gun,” she reminisced, laughing. “It did not even have a hole in it.”
In the plane, Fuad got up off his seat and headed toward the anti-hijacker, who was seated somewhere between the economy and business classes. He aimed his toy gun at the anti-hijacker’s back and instructed the man to take him to the cockpit.
Hijacking the plane could hardly have been easier. The crew willingly cooperated because they thought that most of the passengers, who were deportees, were part of the plan.
Fuad had Sofia called to the cockpit to translate to the pilots what he said in Amharic. She was also the messenger between Fuad and the deserters who were needed to help decide where to take the aircraft.
“We did not even know where we wanted to go,” she said.
England, the US, and Israel were all options but they could not choose, since all the options they named were long distances away. They were told that the aircraft had to stop in Nairobi to refuel. At Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, the hijackers released the passengers, who slid off the plane through the emergency exit. One of the passengers who knew Sofia called her from outside and she slid out too, without realising that she would not be able to return to the aircraft. Only Fuad and another girl, who was scared of sliding down, were left in the aircraft. A Kenyan police squad, under the impression that they were dealing with serious hijackers, told the two people that another aircraft had been prepared to take them wherever they wanted to go to. They left the Boeing and were heading towards the other aircraft when snipers shot Fuad, who was taken to a hospital and survived. Sofia, Fuad, and two other hijackers were later sentenced by a Kenyan court to pay a fine of 40,000 shillings (778 dollars at the time) or to serve two years in prison. She avoided prison when a Kenyan Somali, who was a clerk at the court, settled her fine. Sofia does not know what became of the rest of the squad but for her, life in Kenya began by living with her Somali benefactor, as his wife. However, she wanted to be more than a housewife and the arrangement lasted only a little while.
Kenya at a Glance Area: 580,367 square kilometres Population: Kenyan government statistics indicate that the country has attained a population of 38.7 million by 2009. Forty percent of the labour force is unemployed, according to the CIA World Factbook. GDP: Kenya’s GDP has reached 30.2 billion dollars in 2009, according to the World Bank. The government has proposed 12.2 billion dollars budget for 2010/11. Kenya’s economy remains gravely affected by rampant corruption. Refugees: Ethiopian Embassy in Kenya estimates that there are 7,000 to 10,000 refugees in Kenya.
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She wanted to go to school and study English to help her pursue a better education. She also wanted to have her own business, a secret she kept from her husband until she was able to open a beauty salon. Her quests did not match the values cherished by her husband and his family, who all wanted her to be only a housewife, and she preferred her way to her husband’s. The rest of her story is not very different from that of the many Ethiopians who live in Kenya today, except that she belongs to the few who do not look to settle in another country. Those who have established their lives speak of ending up in the country by chance, rather than by design. Tolcha Mamo, owner of the popular Habesha Restaurant in Nairobi, used to be a member of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (EPRP), a political organisation that was borne from the student movement of the 1960s and known for waging an unsuccessful urban military insurrection against the military regime. At the age of 22, like many of his contemporaries, Tolcha fled the country, which was then under the tight grip of the Derg. He had nothing in his pockets.
Weynshet Tariku moved to Kenya where she lived with the family of her aunt, whose husband was a councillor at the Ethiopian Embassy. She joined them at 17, in 1979, with plans to either move to a western country or to stay in Kenya and continue her education.
In 1981, during Ethiopia’s war with Somalia, the councillor was called back to Ethiopia but instead of returning he sought, and was granted, political asylum in the Netherlands, but only for his immediate family. Woyneshet’s own status is Kenya was reduced to refugee. Ethiopia’s political situation was such that she told the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) officials that she was afraid of returning home. Subsequently, the organisation paid for her training at the well-known Kenya School of Hairdressing, where she was the first black student and today she is one of the most popular hairdressers in Nairobi.
Selome Tilahun was only 19 years old when her mother saw her off at Bole International Airport 20 years ago. She was going to Yemen to marry an Arab with whom a marriage has been prearranged but she never boarded the plane, leaving the airport and spending the night with friends who helped her plan her future.
They decided on Kenya and instructed Selome on how she could get to a hostel where she could stay for only a small fee. The refund of the ticket to Yemen paid for her flight and she had 50 dollars to spare, which more than paid for a month’s rent at the hostel where there were three other poor and young Ethiopian women. Within two weeks she had become a housemaid at the house of the then World Food Programme (WFP) country director, who helped her to attend the Kenya School of Hairdressing as well.
A famous Khat seller in Nairobi, Deze (short for Debre Zeit, where he is from), was only 10 years old when he left Ethiopia with former Air Force people, according to people who know him.
Nearly all the refugees came through Bole International Airport or by crossing the border at Moyale, a town on Ethiopia’s shared border with Kenya. Most of them sought better lives, wherever they could find it, and in their search lived through harsh times.
“We used to bury three or four Ethiopians every day,” Wubete Getachew, who frequently suffered from malaria, said.
The point of entry for many Ethiopians who decided to go into exile, were three famous refugee camps: Oda, Walda, and Kakuma. Life in the camps was the price people opted to pay. Many died, many gave up and returned home, and just as many were lucky and found transit to a western country. Many people are still in camps while others have grabbed the opportunity, provided by the Kenyan government, which allows refugees to work.
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Shown above is the embroidery section of Hailat Knitting Enterprise. The company gets contracts from schools, companies and the army. |
Tibebe Molla, whose dreams of becoming a botanist were dashed when he fled his country after only two years at Alemaya Agricultural University (now Haromaya University), started a wholesale business in Utange Refugee Camp in Mombasa in a store he had bought for 10,000 shillings. (1,724 Br) Later, he built himself a bigger one of 30sqm.
The biggest moneymaking commodity for him was cigarettes, but he also carried sodas and other food items and business was good until trouble struck 12 years ago. A Somali refugee had stabbed a Kenyan, and vengeful local residents destroyed the refugee camp. Tibebe’s store, with nearly 300,000 shillings (about 5,500 dollars) worth of goods, was destroyed.
Today, he has two stores in East Leigh in Nairobi, one ran by his wife, Meseret Mekonnen, who he married 12 years ago. He has attained a capital of two million shillings (about 345,000 Br), lives in a house with a monthly rent of 18,000 shillings (3,103 Br), and sends his 11-year old daughter to a private school.
One of the stores is a small place where he tries to sell everything Ethiopian: clay coffee pots and incense burners; sandal wood; ingredients for dishes such as shiro, berbere, mitmita; various spices; traditional clothes made of cotton; leather shoes; and cosmetic products such as Extra Glycerine, Oliva Oil, and Zenith Hair Cream. Yet, he remains nostalgic about the business he lost at Utange. “The Utange business is not something that could be achieved again,” he told Fortune. “If I had worked there [for] three more years, I would have been able to reach greater heights today.”
However, this does not sound like a refugee speaking as it contradicts the popular perception of a refugee being in distress. It appears as though it is possible in Kenya for refugees from Ethiopia to dream of and achieve marriage, comfortable housing, and private schools for their children.
Kenya is a rich country by Ethiopian standards. It is much greener and, for a first time visitor, it is amazing to see zebras grazing by the side of the road of a populated area. There is no need to travel all the way to Masai Mara to see an amazing assortment of wildlife; it all begins in Nairobi.
While there are more places where one can buy chicken in Nairobi than in Addis Abeba, for a frequent visitor to Addis cafés, Nairobi is a disappointment. Kenyans do not appear to like black forest cake and tiramisu much. Some Ethiopian refugees thought that there was an opening for Addis Abeba-like cafés and started the business but they have closed down after taking losses.
For the majority of refugees and legal and illegal immigrants, life in Nairobi is also very expensive. “Stop converting the prices into Birr,” a young Ethiopian in East Leigh, the Merkato-like market place, advised. “It will give you a headache.”
However, it is irresistible. The Nissan minibus taxis and matatus (larger buses) charge between two and 10 Br for distances that cost one to two Birr in Addis. Lunch in an average place can cost 60 Br and a glass of juice 20 Br. Despite the high prices, people are always spending money.
The real money-makers are the Caucasians, who dominate investment, and Indians, who dominate commerce. Somalis are also becoming increasingly significant, according to Ethiopians in East Leigh. Somalis own nearly all the big buildings in East Leigh. The source of the capital for this is an open question but property value is shooting up because of Somalis being willing to pay higher prices.
The only time the Kenyan government threatened to investigate the source was when Somalis prepared to go out into the streets in protest of the deportation of a controversial Jamaican Muslim cleric, according to businessmen in the area.
Ethiopians constitute the second biggest group in East Leigh, after the Somalis. Ethnic and political differences, which cause distrust and fear among the Ethiopians in the area, are widespread. Even perceptions of the area are divided: East Leigh is described as safe by some and dangerous by others.
While the friendly, and yet cautious, interviews with a number of people gives one the impression that the area is safe, the sight of huge lorries being loaded with cargo to be smuggled into Ethiopia, expose the dangerous side.
There could be 7,000 to 10,000 Ethiopians residing in Kenya, according to estimates by diplomats at the Ethiopian Embassy in Nairobi. They include alleged fugitives but are mostly people who believed Kenya to be a better place than Ethiopia from which to gain access to a western country for economic prosperity.
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Tolcha and his wife, Emebet, run the popular Habesha Restaurant with its two branches. At Habesha Restaurant a portion is always too big for one person to finish. Tolcha has lived through a number of business disasters in Kenya before coming upon the fortune he has now. |
The embassy has hardly any information about most of the Ethiopians, as they shy away from it, but many of them are registered with the UNHCR.
“What excuse can one have back home to apply to go to another country?” said one refugee who has been in Nairobi for eight years. “Here you can apply as a refugee.”
Kenya was not always a good place in which to be a refugee, although the problem was not only political. The source of resentment is the police taking advantage of an overtly corrupt system.
“I had to allocate as much as 60,000 shillings a month for bribes,” an Ethiopian matatu-owner, told Fortune.
She left the transport business because of police corruption.
“During [former president Daniel Arap] Moi’s time, the police used to stop us on the road as many as five times a day,” said Biniam Tilahun, 31, an Ethiopian who copies music CDs and edits photos in East Leigh.
As many times as the police stopped them they had to offer bribes to prevent being arrested. Sometimes, the police would stop an Ethiopian couple, grab the man and tell the lady to go get some money if she wanted to have the man back. Some Ethiopian women also avoided wearing the traditional cotton shawl (netela) when they went to church because that made them conspicuous and easier preys for police harassment. It was also not rare that the police demand and receive sexual gratification from desperate women.
Despite the problems, Kenya is probably among the most generous when it comes to the treatment of refugees.
“When city council officials come [to your shop] you just give them some money and they go away,” said one business owner.
Both the legal and the corrupt systems of the country have made starting one’s business there easier.
“The people are good here,” said Abebe of Abyssinia Restaurant in Nairobi. “You can open your own shop with your refugee identification, without a work permit.”
Official refugee status, supported with a document from the UNHCR and a refugee certificate issued by the government, popularly known as “Aliens”, is enough for a foreigner to start his own business. Many in East Leigh admit to having started their businesses without any authorised documents. Many Ethiopians are involved in buying cars from insurance companies and reselling them. The insurance assessors are so corrupt that for a little bribe they would undervalue a slightly damaged car by more than half its actual value, at the expense of their company, according to a reseller who requested anonymity. “Insurance firms in this country are treated like the government,” he said, describing the extent of the corruption. Another business which is easy to start is owing a matatu.
“You buy it today, you start making money tomorrow,” said Selome, the hairdresser who also owns a minibus taxi. “You can make 5,000 shillings daily after all expenses.”
Going around in East Leigh, small businesses line the streets: beauty salons, barber and music shops, boutiques, cafés, restaurants, and butcheries. One restaurant serves raw beef complete with mitmita, awaze and mustard sauce. Many eateries serve injera made of rice flour, which tastes very much like made from teff. Other places offer a choice between the two, charging more for the latter.
Aside from the restaurants, cafés, and beauty salons, the other businesses are trying to draw as many buyers as possible with the assortment of items they sell.
Solomon Bekele moved to Kenya as a refugee and inherited his brother’s store when he was resettled in Canada. Solomon also wants to go there but meanwhile he is selling traditional cotton clothes, leather shoes, bibles, and other books, as well as Oromiffa tapes and CDs from Ethiopia. His clients include both Ethiopians and the Kenyan Borena people.
At Teddy’s Music Studio, the big business is burning songs on CDs or copying them onto flash disc drives or other digital devices. Teddy buys 100 blank CDs for 1,000 shillings (172 Br) and burn songs onto them to sell for 10,000 shillings (1,724 Br), at 100 shillings (17 Br) apiece. To copy music to flash disc drives and memory cards, sometimes up to 200 songs, he charges five shillings per song. He does not know how many songs he has, but all 500 gigabytes of his computer’s hard drive is full of Amharic, Borena, Burji, Somali, Sudanese, and Indian songs.
Teddy complements his music business by selling an assortment of canvas shoes, displayed in a glass box in the centre of the shop.
Biniam’s workplace is even smaller than Teddy’s. He rents only one corner of a photographic studio, just enough space for his computer and a seat. He copies music and occasionally edits pictures. In the 10 years he has been in Kenya, waiting for the day he will be resettled in another country, Biniam has sold used shoes and brokered the sale of cameras and mobile phones.
Chuni, apart from owning the Pink Lady beauty salon, also has a small café in East Leigh where customers can play pool and watch soccer matches on DStv. She makes additional money from renting furnished rooms, which she in turn rents from the owners. However, she wants to leave these to start a business selling traditional Ethiopian clothes.
Except for the few refugees that have made Kenya their home, most of them live outside East Leigh, subsisting on money sent to them by relatives in other countries.
There are not that many big businesses owned by Ethiopians which are worthy of discussion, according to Abebe, who was a receptionist at Ethiopia Hotel in Addis Abeba before opening Abyssinia Restaurant in Nairobi. He guesses maybe 20.
Indeed, it is mostly small cafés, hotels, shops, drugstores, and beauty salons in which Ethiopians are involved. The maximum they make from such businesses, after rent and salaries for employees, is about 25,000 shillings (4,310 Br) per month. Continue Reading...
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Selome and Wubete (Goje) sit in Selome’s cafe. Goje got his break using money from the equb that Selome set up. Selome rents cars and houses; and Goje has sold three of his four cars and is preparing to move to Canada. |
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Ethiopian Refugees Making Success of Stalled Flight to West
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