Ethiopian couple discovers the ‘Best Way’ to live

Hard-working pair revitalize Main and Mountain

Good things come to those who wait.

Just ask Amare Shershero.

After 16 years in Canada, he and his wife, Eskador Eshete, have finally realized their dream of owning their own grocery store.

The road to owning their new business – Best Way Food Market and laundromat at the corner of Main Street and Mountain Avenue – was certainly more challenging than the average Canadian’s.

Forced to flee the military dictatorship in their native Ethiopia in 1988, Shershero and Eshete spent three years as refugees in neighbouring Sudan before a cousin in Winnipeg could sponsor them for immigration to Canada.

“We would have ended up in jail or been killed,” Shershero said of what his family faced in Ethiopia as political opponents of the ruling party.

When the couple arrived in Winnipeg in the winter of 1991, it was 80 degrees Celsius colder than the day they left Africa, Shershero reminisced.

Both had been teachers in Ethiopia, but because of the language and cultural differences in Canada Shershero worked as a janitor to support himself and his wife, who was pregnant when they arrived.

One of the first people to meet Shershero and Eshete was Linda Metcalfe, a public health nurse, who they say played a major role in their new life. They have been close friends ever since.

“She understood what we were going through in a new country,” Eshete said. “She went the extra mile to show us love and respect.”

One of Metcalfe’s many extra miles came in 1998 when Shershero and Eshete had an opportunity to buy a convenience store franchise, but didn’t have the $7,000 they needed. With no questions asked, she handed over a cheque.

After several successful years running a Mac’s store in Transcona, Shershero slowly started to think about owning his own business outright instead of merely being a franchise operator.

“It’s better to have your own business instead of doing it for someone else,” he said.

As he began to research possible locations more seriously, he came across Best Way. At the time, the store wasn’t for sale, but Shershero checked again with the owner last December and managed to make a deal.

Sixteen years after arriving in Winnipeg, the couple finally felt like they had made it.

“It was our vision to have a store like this,” said Eshete.

Customers who frequented the store in the past will notice some new products, including freshly-brewed coffee, slush drinks, popcorn and nachos.

Shershero has also started selling DVDs and greeting cards, and has installed an ATM in the vault left behind by the bank that used to be in the building.

“The best thing we’ve done is the cleanliness,” he said. “I get a lot of compliments from customers saying, ‘Where is all the clutter?’”

Nine-year-old Yacob and 16-year-old Yewbnesh both help their parents out at the store, as do four of the five siblings Shershero helped bring to Canada.

“When you start anything you’re scared. You work hard and try to be successful,” said Shershero, who is president of the Ethiopian Society of Winnipeg.

Shershero has never been back to his homeland, but Eshete finally returned to see her family in April and May.

“It’s all different now,” she said. “It was the same feeling as when I got here.”

The highlight of the trip was when she took her mother for the first time to Lalibela, a town in northern Ethiopia that was constructed as a “New Jerusalem” and features a dozen churches cut out of rock.

Eshete said the trip was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and is doubtful she’ll ever get another chance to return.

“If I win a lottery,” she joked.

In some ways, you’d think they already have.