Making the Best the Worst
A Short Story
By Mezemir Girma
We exchange short emails when the need arises. I know why things were getting busy by her side. But at this time she emails me on average once a week. She was one of my students of English literature at Emperor Minelik II University. After her graduation, she chose me as a co-advisor for her research on African storybook translations into Amharic.
The pace time flies! It was in those days of Facebook and Twitter. Now all seems history. Only Gmail is left among all those. Glad that only work emails are what I receive day by day instead of junk. It is a good initiative that our newly formed regional government took. I taught Yemariam-Work when Prime Minister Abiy fought the war with the TPLF. After five years now, he has established the East African Unity Government (EAUG) adopting a new constitution. The national reconciliation in Ethiopia, the unity with Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti and South Sudan, among others gave Abiy the name Mandela. The EAUG seems a promising start to unite Africa. And the rotating co-president position they introduced to accommodate all the former countries that merged to the unity government looks answering questions related to suspicion and marginalization.
I just met my former student and advisee who graduated in M.A. in Literature from the University of South Africa. She came here to sit for a test and to get interviewed for the lecturer position we advertised. How she is going a long way to compensate for what she lost in her own time! I met her and took her home where we talked.
I remembered the time I started paying special attention to her. She came to me as I sat administering my own exam. I thought she had a question or so. Would this story of finishing exams in half an hour when we give English as a common course repeat itself? One of the reasons I disagree with the conduct of students from the cities.
“What happened?” I whispered.
“I’’m done,” she replied her neck tense.
“You haven’t even used a quarter of the time!” I stared at her in astonishment.
“But I did what I know.”
I refused to take the paper and took her at the door and started talking halfheartedly because I was still gazing inside scanning the movement of the students.
“Please tell me. Are you sick?”
“No teacher. I read as much as I could and tried to answer what I know,” she started arguing stretching her hands out respectfully to give me the paper and to convince me and run to where she would go.
I took the paper hesitantly and started checking the answers she gave. “But look at this and how you skipped the lines. This one doesn’t even seem the answer,” I challenged her.
“Can I go now?” asked she.
“What do you mean? I’m talking to you. You are here to learn. Do you have an appointment with your boyfriend?” I went a step further. I had one of the boys who walked with her in mind. I feared she suspected that too.
“It is not about that.”
“What is it then? After the exam, come to my office and talk to me about this.”
“But could you make it another day? Is it something to talk about?”
“Yes, if not, you know the campus policy. Writing such silly answers is a breach of the code of conduct. I will not mark this paper. It will be submitted to the English Department.”
“Please let me come tomorrow morning?” she implored.
I agreed and she left.
Who believes that girl straitened up this much and ended up a graduate from a university in South Africa? Remembering her story even makes me laugh. I truly admire her. She looks very beautiful had it not been for her short stature. Beauty in our standard seems the face though. The rest seems to be compensated by mutual understanding. You understand one another once you love. I don’t know if she loved yet. How time flies.
It was right after the exam that I headed to the registrar office. There I met the Indian professor, Dr. Sharma. He was the university registrar. I asked him to show me the records of second year English majors. He gave me and I saw Yemariam-Work’s. Her high school transcript is good. Even the college entrance exam result is wonderful. She could have joined the college of Law with that result. I remember she spoke at the welcoming ceremony how she loved literature, but her performance keeps deteriorating that much. How do we bear it to tolerate this! The gifted ones among the multitude of weak students don’t exploit their potential. Only for her interest, I planned to help her. Since she is a little past midway, she may improve and even get employed as a graduate assistant here at the university. She could be an asset. While many a country man and woman teach English, this young mind from Addis could do well.
“Mrs Gebaynesh, why is it that you asked me for their documentation?” asked me Dr. Sharma with his funny Indian accent standing up from his workstation where he buried his face. Everyone here keeps judging him for his accent while theirs is far more unintelligible. How we judge! I did my little judgement in my mind and responded, “You know, Sir,” I started as I knew how that is a better form of address in India. “There are some issues with one student. I couldn’t straiten her up. She is from Addis Ababa and her English is excellent outsmarting even us teacher. When I see her past score in the records, it seems surprising to me. It is a total opposite of her current performance. This case is not specific to her. Most of the girls from Addis share this fate.”
The Indian professor nodded and invited me for tea at the staff lounge. People consider him a rather kindly Indian at least seeing the Indians working here. Sometimes he treats you hot drinks at the lounge which he prefers to call the canteen. We headed to the lounge and ordered in Amharic.
“Hulet buna” ordered him the waitress.
“Eshi” she responded and brought us two cups of coffee.
After I told him what happens during exams and the overall low performance of those who would otherwise be the brightest ones, Dr. Sharma narrated to me the nature of education in India. He told me how females are the brightest students in his country. I understood bearing in mind how females are expected to pay dowry. I know India and their culture because I did my Masters’ at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hydrabad. Why do I let myself nostalgic in my own time!
“Most of the college girls do not have boyfriends in my state India. There is no premarital sex. They are so much focused.”
I interrupted Dr. Sharma “Sir, couldn’t we balance both education and love?”
“You know, you can’t do both at a time. And what is the purpose of tasting that boy, this boy!” he stared.
He was unshakable because he was a firm believer of the Indian system. Be it cast, education, government, he appreciates everything the Indian founding fathers gave the generation.
“I kept telling you that everything you import from America keeps ruining your nation. Limit your children’s access to American movies. You saw how their politics was about to damage your country during the former president Biden. I think you are learning how to make your country safely away from American influence. If not, they will use you like toilet paper and throw you as they did in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” argued the professor straitening the horns of his mustache as his British colonizers did.
Does he know how Ethiopia is left a graveyard. A graveyard whose citizens’ hearts flew to the U.S. and only their remains are left here.
The professor encouraged me to keep doing the action research I told him about.
We were in the second round of coffee when we started talking about that time. It was me who raised it. Yemariam-Work seems to regret the time she wasted at the university here.
I asked her what she did afterwards. I advised her to work hard and focus on her lessons while she had the potential. As it was incorrigible, our efforts failed us. I remembered how the English Department called us Department Council members who are the representatives of Linguistics, Literature, TEFL and Journalism to his office. He informed us that the university permitted the department to hire a female graduate from its own students. I strongly opposed that no one was fit for that. He proposed Yemariam-Work, but I kept insisting that she was lazy and careless. He tried to convince me.
“I heard that her English is excellent even if I didn’t teach her.”
“I know that, but language by itself does nothing if you don’t make use of it! If she doesn’t read books and take notes, how could she teach?”
“If you don’t accept it, I report that the graduates lose the opportunity.”
No one sat for a test and the decision was binding. It was not the department head alone, but we all teachers regret that our students didn’t use the opportunity.
While we drank coffee I told her what the department head said about love and education. He compared the American style with ours. He knows it because he studied there. He believes that American students know and practice love starting form middle school and come to college with confidence and love wouldn’t be a trouble at all. “But look at me. I avoided love my whole age and I’m asking girls who would be my age for marriage. This hampers creativity and divides one’s attention,” he lamented.
“Mrs Gebeyanesh. Let me tell you my view. I think it is not love. Just to tell you my case, I think it is how the educational system is designed. If it were love, almost all students at the university had sexual partners,” she started trying to show me an angle I didn’t consider for many years.
“What is it then?”
“The background we came from is different from those who came from rural areas. I just told you how love is not the major factor. It is the educational system.”
“How?”
“If you take my case, when I was four years old I joined a kindergarten. It was a difficult time I spend at the kindergarten. I go to a place that was far from home past the traffic congestion and haste.”
“I see.”
“Yes, you know. For three years I did laborious tasks at the kindergarten depending my days with copying from the board and doing repeated drills.”
“Wasn’t that good to prepare you for school then?”
“It may be to a degree. But the handling was not correct. The disadvantages outweigh,” she lamented miserably.
“What disadvantages? Is it that much problematic?”
“There are a number of problems and it is a vicious circle. I don’t know if it can be corrected at all. No body knows such root causes. When I graduated from Kindergarten, I wished I could get respite from that hard work and got time to enjoy my childhood. But that was only wish.”
“Was there any such bitterness? Did your friends share it?”
“Sure! I think so. Primary level was more painful than that. We took the subjects both in Amharic and in English. Private schools taught more than a dozen subjects to outsmart the public ones and to be chosen by parents.”
“Don’t the authorities know this?”
“No body cares. Even our parents don’t care as long as we learn to speak in English.”
“Why do they teach you the same subject in English and Amharic?”
“You know the policy is that students learn in their mother-tongue. They know when the education office supervisors come and they show our Amharic exercise books when they come.”
“Don’t your parents feel the burden?”
“They don’t care as long as we spend our days at school. They say we learn the concept twice. Some say it is good to know English. If it were learning the concept twice, we would know Math.”
“Don’t you?”
“We really don’t. Most of us.”
“Wouldn’t your parents ask the schools why?”
“Most of the parents don’t know because the schools force Maths teachers to give us good results.”
“OK.”
“Most of us have tutors, yet we let them do our assignments and home works. We hate to have other teachers at home while we are bored with learning the whole day. It is that way we learned.”
“And the national exam?”
“It is as you know. Open to cheating. Schools encourage it. They bribe the invigilators and students get the best results. We join public universities and enjoy full scholarship. That may be what the students from the rural areas enjoy the most. Love they may enjoy. But we enjoy the relief.”
When you finish one life chapter, you forget the other.
Fast forward to this young woman. She looks very beautiful now because of the weather and the food I think. I couldn’t control my laughter when I saw a video she posted on her timeline last week. Was it my eyes? Not really! Gold Medalist! I think that high-school genius resurrected.
It reminisces me of those days we had spent at the university as a teacher and student. She would laugh if you ask her about me. How I make her laugh calling myself English cheater. Isn’t the student also cheating? Yes! Did she score any good grade except for creative writing which involved three fourth writing! If it is on the spot writing, she is wonderful. Give her homework, assignment or quiz, she is a failure. I bear it all in my heart until that day she made me very mad.
Even I know I am a victim as I came from a small town. The students at that small town were outsmarted by those from the countryside. Those from the small towns outsmart the ones from the metropolis. As Ethiopians study with those from developed countries, they achieve better grades. That must be how this Ethiopian failure outsmarted those from other countries.
She presented a paper in the national symposium the university hosted in June 2026. It was entitled “Students’ burden, tutorial services and quality of education nexus in the private schools of Addis Ababa” on the quality of English language teaching in private schools. The minister of education was so touched by the issues raised and he chose her to be the chair of primary quality of education in the unity government in their chat outside the conference. She has the potential to change the education of those students in the entire east African nation. Those urban students who didn’t anticipate anything new at university and in the life after should find schemes that make them eager to learn and achieve more. The teaching positions should be competitive and teachers should be better than their students. Who knows if this young scholar ascends in power and becomes Minister of Education or even the co-president of her country Those future positions could open the window to solve a multitude of problems among which the one she identified came out as a tip of an iceberg.
