Chekole Menberu, now 27, is an angry man because his hope of getting a job soon after graduating with a degree in chemical engineering has not been met. Now he is full of regret that he invested his money in seeking an education.
It’s been two years now since he graduated and began looking for job, but there is very little hope in sight because everywhere he turns he is met with disappointment. Now he has resort to his old job of cleaning shoes for people just to survive.
From an early age, Mr. Chekole’s life has been that of struggling and toiling in order to eke out a living. His father died when he was still young, his mother remarried and he had moved in with his grandparents in Fogera in the Amhara region in Ethiopia.
His grandparents were poor and could not afford to send him to school, so he left to stay with an uncle. He began working as a shepherd. But he still continued to hope that his grandparents would help him out.
"I kept nagging my grandparents to send me to school," he told the BBC.’ Eventually they agreed and got him into elementary school. But they could not continue to pay for him to remain in school.
In his desperation, he met a friend who introduced him to shoemaker job. He managed to complete his lower education. From third grade until the time he enrolled in university, he supported himself using the money he earned while cleaning shoes after school.
Despite the challenges on his way, he managed to get admission in 2013 into University of Bahir Dar, in the Amhara state capital, where he studied chemical engineering. It was a dream come true for the local shoemaker.
"There was a rumour that the country needs many engineers in industries, and that is why I decided to study engineering. I hoped to get hired as soon as I graduated," he says.
Life was a bit easy for him during his five-year stay at university because with a letter from his home town stating that he had no-one to support him, the university was now paying him 200 birr (about $10; £8) a month.
He was also used to getting help from friends and his hostel-mates in campus. "Life was hard. But I was encouraged by stories of people who thought like me, and became doctors and engineers."
But the reality of life again dawned on him as soon as he graduated from university. He had bagged a BSc in Chemical Engineer, but it seems his problem became even bigger.
[But] as the day of my graduation approached, my anxiety increased, thinking of what I was going to do after graduation. “I was worried I would be unemployed," he says.
"I spent three months looking for a job in [the Ethiopian capital] Addis Ababa. I walked from one industrial park to another in the city looking for jobs, but wasn't lucky."
He travelled to different towns, even as far as Woldia, about 520km north of Addis Ababa, in search of employment.
"I even applied for jobs requiring no degrees. But my application has repeatedly been rejected by employers who think I might demand promotion."
He started working at a factory for 29 birr ($1) per day, but soon left because that was not enough to survive.
After months of searching and with nothing to show for his education, he returned to Bahir Dar - to the job he never thought he would go back to.
"When I had no option left, I decided to go back to clean shoes."
On whether he regrets going to school, he says he would not be this angry if he had not been educated.
"This education cost me a lot, and I didn't get a reward from it," he says. "I wouldn't have sacrificed that much for it," he told BBC.
