Can You Teach Me the Art of Saying "NO" ?

This year I have some odd time with one of my room mates. For a number of reasons I don't like him and I don't feel convinent in his presence. It is difficult when you live in the same house and share the same living room and kitchen. Both of us are aware of the tension between us. At some point, he started to be real rude to my guests and I was mad with it. One day, One of my Eritrean friend came to visit me and I was in my room. My friend knocked the front door of the house and this room mate was in the living room which is where the front door is. He didn't opened him- Worse, when I came and opened the door, my friend greeted him, but he ignored him. I was pieced off with that and from that day on, I started to ignore him in every thing. When he realized that I am ignoring him, he started to be very nice- making all kinds of offer. The odd thing of human being that I have now learned many times. But it was too late- I have already decided I will be better off by ignoring him and I don't intend to change my mind. The problem now to me is, he continued making all sorts of offer when ever he gets the chance, although I have declined almost all of them. Of course, as long as we are living in the same house and share the same living room and kitchen, I don't want to be too rude. At least I want to keep some sort of balance, but certainly I don't want his offer. I can do that with out his offer. All I want him to do now is stop making all sorts of offer. But I am not sure how to tell him I don't want any offer from him, because it sounds too rude also. Actually, this is an example of a problem I have for long time now. Now and then, I found my self the difficulty of saying "NO" to offers made to me by people. This is specially difficult when the offer is made by people who are close to you such as close friends, close relatives, class mates and office mates. In such cases, it is a big dilemma for me. You don't want to accept the offer( you may feel very uncomfortable to accept the offer for your own reasons) and at the same time, you don't want to offend the people making the offer by declining their offer. It is difficult when you know they made the offer in the expectation that you will get exited and happy with their offer.
It turns out that the art of saying "NO" is important and difficult art of communication for me. It really needs time and practice to learn it. How do you handle such circumstances? What is your experience?

Michael ~ Ze Skuff!

The Post Cards in My Room

It was late afternoon. In my small room, I was sitting on the bed. Had it been a school time, I couldn’t afford such time, but now I am still in semester break and I don’t have pressing things to do. I have decided not to read any thing related to school till class starts. So I was sitting on my bed. It looks as if I am in deep thinking- although I am not sure about what I was thinking. Suddenly my eyes fall on the well in front of me. In that very small wall, there are some post cards hanging- all of them from friends in Eritrea. Many thanks to those who send me the cards! They are beautiful postcards and I always get surprised whenever I get one. That is why I hang them in my wall. It is also interesting to see how fast the idea of using post card greeting is becoming part of our culture. 15 years ago, it was probably only very few people using it. Some ten years ago, almost all the post cards you can get in the stationary where imported ones with foreign idea and language on them. Now the shelves of the stationary are stocked with home made post cards, like the ones in my wall. To me, it is great development- every thing is process and it takes time.

But still there are things to improve. As I look one by one to the post cards hanging on my wall- they all speak about one topic- Me’Adi(meal)!! From left to right, except one, all the postcards have a picture on the cover that shows food and food related staff-A beautiful meal though(like the one on the pic above). Looking at them, my mouth would fill with saliva. But if an outsider would try to learn about Eritrea from the post cards, all he would learn is we are obsessed with food. Wouldn’t it be nice if we have more variety? – a variety of post cards that reflect the treasures of our culture. Don’t assume it is because that all my friends happened to select the same kind from the market. It is the market that doesn’t provide the variety. As far as I know, there were very few variety that started, but because they didn’t get enough demand, they couldn’t survive another year. There was one post card that successfully penetrated into the market - a tigre girl by one of the people in this group ( I hope if he has it, we will share us here).

This concentration of post cards around Me’seb Werki is not unique to the post card business. There is the same trend in the film industry. Although at this time many films are being produced in Eritrea(large number in fact), almost all of them revolve around one topic- LOVE. Similarly trends is also reflected in the main stream business. In the early 1990’s when Foto Zula made a remarkeable progress in the photo business, many businessmen rush to share that profit and as a result dozens of Photo centers were accumulated in the same street as FoTo Zula. When 1998/99 ASMARA Sweet Café revolutionized the business of Pastry and fast food in Asmara, quickly the same business was established every where in Asmara.

The motive is clear- business always moves to the market where there is potential profit. Those who succeed in the process are those who come up with the creative idea in identifying what the customer wants.