Free Of Beetles and Angels by Mawi Asgedom Page B

walk part of it, if necessary, but he always finished all eight laps.
    Y OU SEE , I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO DO SOMETHING THAT I WOULD NOT DO MYSELF.
    He pressed on. Before school, after school, on the week ends, at night, he never rested.
    YOU NEED TO GET USED TO WORKING HARD, SO WE ARE GOING TO CLEAN THE WHOLE HOUSE TONIGHT. W ATCH ME AS I SWEEP AND MOP. W HEN I MOP, NOTICE THAT THE FIRST TIME THROUGH, I DO A PURE WATER MOP TO GET ALL OF THE DIRT OFF, AND THEN AFTER THAT, I MOP EVERYTHING AGAIN WITH DISINFECTANT.
    S ELAMAWI, WHY ARE YOU PUSHING SO HARD WITH THE BROOM ? Y OU ARE SCATTERING THE DUST EVERYWHERE. I WONDER SOMETIMES: W HO ARE YOU GOING TO SAY TAUGHT YOU LATER ON WHEN PEOPLE SEE YOU SWEEPING ?
    We learned how to sweep, mop, dust. We even learned how to make beds hospital-style, and after that, we were put to work outside.
    Among other tasks, we had to rake the long driveway that we shared with our neighbors. By the time we had finished clearing the leaves, we would look back to where we had begun and see a new collection of leaves building up. We would start again, going even faster, praying that we could beat the leaves and rush inside before they piled up again.
    “Babay, why are you making us do this? Our neighbors don’t even care, and none of their kids have to do it.”
    L ISTEN TO ME, MY CHILDREN. I T IS PAINFUL FOR YOU NOW, BUT BELIEVE ME, THE DAY WILL COME WHEN YOU WILL THANK ME . F OR I AM TEACHING YOU HOW TO WORK AND HOW TO LIVE WELL WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS.
    T HE DAY COMES IN EACH OF OUR LIVES WHEN THOSE AROUND US ARE ASKED TO TESTIFY AND TO TELL WHAT KIND OF CHARACTER WE HAVE DEMONSTRATED IN OUR PAST.
    I guess my father knew what he was talking about. When I was in eighth grade, our landlord raised the rent and we were evicted from our home on College Avenue. It looked like we would have to leave Wheaton.
    But the folks at the Marian Park housing development moved us up several years on the waiting list. Before they could do us this special favor, though, they had to ask our neighbors on College Avenue what kind of people we were. The day of character examination had come!
    Our wonderful neighbors, Linda Panther, Linda Slinger, and Peggy Hackett, said good things about us, and we moved to Marian Park.
    Not too long after we moved, my father decided to rake the many leaves next to Marian Park’s lake. This time, his desire to help his neighbors would get him in trouble.
    None of us kids were around, so my father tried to clean the entire lakefront by himself. He raked and raked and raked until the day had departed and evening had dawned. He finally finished raking and gathered the leaves into a huge, lightbrown mountain.
    Then he got his big boots. Wading into the water, circling slowly, gathering litter, debris, and fallen branches as he went, he cleaned Marian Park’s lake. By the time he finished, night had arrived and he had encountered his first major problem.
    He had created a mountain of leaves, litter, and sticks, but he could not figure out how to get rid of it. The mountain dwarfed the nearby Dumpster, so he could not throw away the leaves.
    He came up with a plan: He would burn the leaves down to nothing. He had started and managed many fires back in Adi, so keeping this one under control would pose no challenge.
    He started the fire and watched the leaves burn slowly.
    Suddenly, he heard sirens. Firemen rushed to extinguish my father’s blaze, and a policeman ran toward him.
    My father could not have been more confused.
    X CUES ME. I RAKE AND TRY TO FIX LEAVES. X CUES ME. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. N O, I AM POOR MAN, I AM DISABILITY. P LEASE, DO NOT TAKE ME TO THE HOUSE OF IMPRISONMENT. P LEASE DO NOT STAIN MY RECORD.
    The firemen had arrived so quickly because there was a fire station across from the main Marian Park entrance. They were stunned by my father’s explanation: that he thought he was doing his neighbors a favor by burning all the leaves for them.
    The law compelled the officers to