Be! Be!

An Amharic word I have come to know well is "be," which means eat, as in "you, eat that now." One surprising thing about Ethiopians is how much food these people can put away and how upset they can get if you don't appear to be eating the same amount. These people are not fat and they don't really exercise, so I'm having a hard time figuring out where it goes. Whoever said that American portions are much bigger than portions in the rest of the world has never been to Ethiopia. It is rare that I am not confronted about my food intake during at least one meal each day. If I pause to take a breath while eating, they will say "Kristin. Be." If I eat all the food on my plate, but don't go back for seconds, they will say "You didn't like it?" or my personal favorite…"What? You aren't eating dinner (or whatever meal it is)?" A few weeks ago I went to dinner at someone's house and it was kind of a potluck, so there were a dozen or so different dishes. I start going through the line of food but I didn't take everything, and halfway through this woman, who is just observing people/me going through the line stops me and she's like "so, I noticed you didn't get very much meat. Are you are vegetarian?" I'm not sure if she was offended because I skipped the dish that she brought or if her husband is a butcher, but even after I pointed out the beef on my plate, she was really not happy with me. Later, she gets up from the dining room table and brings some of the dishes from the kitchen into the dining room and starts handing them to me. And I stubbornly, yet politely, continued passing them on. And still later, we were sitting around the table, almost everyone is finished eating, including me and the man across from me, who looks at me and asks "you're not going to eat?" I still don't have a good response for that. Suggestions are welcome.

While I'm at it, some of you have asked about what I'm eating here. All in all, it's pretty similar to what I expected. I'm eating a lot of injera, which is the traditional Ethiopian meal. It's a slightly sour, moist, pancake-like bread on which they scoop different meat or vegetable concoctions. My favorite of said concoctions is shiro, which is made from chickpeas and spices. My least favorite so far is called firfir. It's kind of like a spicy beef jerky that they made into a sauce that kind of looks like garbage. I know it can get much worse than that, but I've been pretty lucky. It's pretty easy to find a decent pizza, but some of the pasta sauces can get weird. i.e. one night at home we had pasta with a marinara-esque sauce that also had carrots, potatoes and sardines. That's not a recipe I'll be asking to take home.

...Coincidentally, after I finished writing this, I went to eat the lunch that the housekeeper Abebech packed for me (since I would be out all day by myself). It was not one, but two thick cheese and mayonnaise sandwiches and two bananas. All I need now is to find a friend who wants to eat the other half of my food so I can take home an empty lunch bag without feeling guilty.