The people we employed were local people and if we needed someone to work on the farm or in the house, the people we already employed would produce someone. We always insisted on two or three people to back this up. Of course, we could not be sure that they were not related but at least we had two or three guarantors to vouch for them.
We trained the people who worked for us ourselves with our older employees backing this up.
However, Gadisi was a real pain to employ. She was only interested in herself and what she wanted to do. She was happy to stay with us for a while to get herself trained by us in the basic needs of being a maid. She was almost certainly related to one of our staff who told us she could do everything we wanted her to do.
Well, that was a major lie. She only wanted to do what she wanted to do, which was to earn enough money to please herself. She became a prostitute and had affairs with all sorts of men (including local lorry drivers) Some of our most senior staff came to tell us that she was NOT a suitable person to look after our kids, so we had to get rid of her.
Eshete was quite different. He was a hard worker and did all sorts of things on the farm and in the house. His fellow workers did not like him much. However, he did what we wanted him to do and as we were young and not really in charge of the people who worked for us we got on well with him. He was always willing to do things for our parents, (Daniel and Christine Sandford)
However, many years later when we were evicted by the Dergue (communists) they asked where my father’s revolver was. We said we did not know but someone around us said Eshete had it and sure enough he did have it.