Most traditional is that each build day we break for coffee prepared by the residents of our build area. It`s a shortened version of the well-known traditional coffee ceremony (which you can sample in a tourist setting taking several hours). Our ladies bring out the coffee, first having swept the porch, put sweet grass on the ground, set the incense burning on the brazier, and pouring out tiny cups of very sugary and dark coffee, which is surprisingly smooth and not very strong. A few of our gals got picked to get their `Coffee Badge` as they were tapped to dress up in traditional garb to be the server. The usual accompaniments are popcorn, `kolo` - toasted seeds and grains like barley, garbanzos and a few peanuts; a hand snack - and a few days we also had bananas and cake. How do we get any work done?
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| The Local Tim's |
We did have a regular Ethiopian meal one night so far, which starts with injera topped with various stews of meats and vegetables. Injera is the bread staple. It`s a large crepe-like pancake about the size of an extra-large pizza, and, with a little bit of table ceremony, topped with the stews - lamb, beef, chicken; beans, spinach, sometimes pumpkin (not is season here, I guess). The pancake is made from a grass grain called teff, akin to millet or quinoa. The teff flour is mixed into a batter and sits for a few days to ferment, bringing out the protein and minerals in the grain. It`s this fermented quality that gives it a sour-like taste, and so far it was not a big hit with the group, although the toppings were hungrily scarfed down.
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| Tastes a bit better than it looks |
What to wash it all down with? Well, you know we are trying to drink our way through the beer menu. There`s St. George, Harar, Bedele, Meta, Dashen, Hakim Stout and one bottle at the bottom of the menu, Harar Sofi, which turned out to be `a non-alcoholic malt beverage`. Tasted like a sweet tasting beery soda pop - Hoo boy!
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| St. George - Ethiopia's Finest Beer |
But the surprising thing is we are eating 90% international food. We`ve been eating either in the hotel dining room or at various lunch cafes and evening restaurants every day. Because of the history with Italians, we`ve been joking with the locals that we come to sample the fine Ethiopian cuisine: spaghetti, lasagne, pizza. A menu will typically have beef brochettes, minestrone, burgers and fries, vegetable stir-fry, chicken parmesan, etc. The hotel even offers room-service. What`s this all cost? Spaghetti, $4; soup $2, pizza $5; burger & fries, $4; bottle of beer, $1! All at full-service restaurant/hotel prices.
On previous builds we usually alternated between wide-open ordering from the menu mixed in with a set, family style menu. But here it is always wide-open - people are getting exactly what they want from the menu, but it ends up taking a long time for 13 of us to be served, and some of our lunches have been two-hour affairs. How do we get any work done?
