There are places where relationships are savored and agendas drop away.
My family’s visit early last Saturday morning to the Blue Nile Restaurant in Seattle, Washington was about more than finding a place to eat. After all, it was only 10:30 in the morning and not really time for lunch. It was about more than getting a chance to enjoy habesha food—the traditional food from East Africa—that our family has come to love since I journeyed some decades ago from Eritrea to the U.S. The Blue Nile Restaurant is, by American middle class standards, a ‘hole-in-the-wall’ gathering place. There is nothing fancy about it. What we knew we would find there was a relational richness that characterizes few public gathering places.
A chime on the door announces our entry. There are a few tables with Eritreans and Ethiopians huddled over cups of sweet spicy tea (Shahee) defying the cold wet Seattle wind that sweeps bits of debris down the street. In an act reminiscent of communion, some are breaking off chunks of thick pan-baked bread called ambasha and dipping these into their hot tea. As we push the door shut behind us, our family with blond, blue-eyed daughters attracts more than a few gazes. What brings this white family to a clearly East African gathering place?
I greet the room collectively with one of the few Amharic words I knew. Teanaste’lle’n. The phrase translates roughly to ‘May God give you health.’The greeting brings welcoming smiles. An Ethiopian lady who carries some aura of dignity and authority rises to greet us. She seats us in the center of the room, pulling two tables together to give us room to spread out. On the wall above us is a picture of the “waters that roar”—a crashing waterfall in the Blue Nile. The waters of the Blue Nile are a sacred place in Ethiopia that evoke a sense of magic and mystery. After all, this is considered the birthplace of civilization.
Respecting my weak efforts at Amharic, this lady who speaks perfect English responds to my one word greeting with a string of Amharic phrases that I am unable to translate. She is conveying her clear willingness to accept us without question as part of this gathered community. When she learns that I am from Eritrea she announces that finding in Amharic to the men gathered in the restaurant. An Eritrean man comes forward to affirm that he was also born in Asmara, my birth-town. My few words of Tigrinya are quickly exhausted. But we find a common bond from our shared journey to this place from an East African nation half way around the world.
Our family requests coffee as it is traditionally prepared in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Tina (the American name for the Ethiopian lady who is our server) conveys the request to the kitchen to get approval from the matriarch who is in charge of this domain. We know that our request is an involved one. Habesha coffee is not even on the menu. Preparing and serving this coffee is a ceremony of sharing that cannot be rushed. A traditional coffee service involves green beans that are roasted then brought to the guests to enjoy the fragrance of the freshly roasted beans. What is to follow, about 45 minutes later is the presentation of a jebena—the traditional blackened pottery coffee pot with a thin neck—filled with strong delicious coffee. This is poured into small handless cups arranged on a tray with a dish of burning incense. Tina serves each of us, and then pulls up a chair to join us.
Tina is more than a waitress in this restaurant. She shares a bit of her story as she sips coffee with us. She is the owner of the next door retail business that sells spices from East Africa along with an assortment of grocery items and packages of injera, the traditional bread of Eritrea and Ethiopia. There is little hierarchy in the tiny space of the Blue Nile restaurant. From the taxi cab drivers drinking tea on their break to the occasional homeless person who wonders in to get warm, each person finds a respectful welcome.
A TV cable channel broadcasts in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, a news story on the relationship between Ethiopia and South Korea. Pictures flash from boys herding cattle out to pasture in rural villages to urban development in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The cable TV story chronicles the mixture of old world and new. It reflects the recent engagement of Asian and Western nations with the nations of the Horn of Africa. It blends into the mixture of languages, cultures, religions and social classes so present in this little room with blue walls called the Blue Nile Restaurant.
As they sip tea together, the Eritrean and Ethiopian men engage easily with each other slipping freely from Amharic (the language of Ethiopia to Tigrinya (the language of Eritrea). This might seem surprising only because the two countries fought a brutal extended war with each other that cost tens of thousands of lives. Many of those in this room are refugees from that war. Most have lost loved ones to this terrible conflict. While the two countries maintain an uneasy peace with each other and Eritrea continues to be guarded about its territorial rights, there is no evidence or mention of that conflict in this place.
Several hours later, we emerge from the Blue Nile restaurant into the now sunny day in Seattle Washington. We leave full– not so much from the amazing spicy vegetarian and meat dishes, but from the rich relationships. This is truly a place where differences that divide people around the world fall apart as a meal is shared from a common dish. It is a place where immigrants and refugees readily welcome the stranger in their midst.
The experience leaves me wondering how finding peace between nations can be so difficult. Do we need more of these gathering places where we can eat together from a common dish? Where are the places where we can share the richness of relationship and our diverse cultures, where hierarchical boundaries melt away and where stories are not on the menu but very much part of every meal and every cup of hot tea or coffee? Where are the places where we can come as strangers and leave as friends? How might diaspora communities like those from Eritrea and Ethiopia–that seem to meet so easily in urban Western cities–make some contribution to peace in their countries of origin?
Our world slowed down while we were in the Blue Nile Restaurant. Our agenda for the day was set aside for a few rich hours of engaged relationships. We savor today those relationships and the special time we shared together, long after the leftovers from our meal have disappeared from our fridge and we have returned to our busy routines that cause us to grab some food ‘on the fly.’
Our experience in the Blue Nile Restaurant reminds me of a conversation with Dr. John Rijsman who leads the Ph.D. program I graduated from at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He noted that Brussels, Belgium has been the host of numerous gatherings that have resulted in peace treaties among nations and that very many times those peace agreements were hammered out over shared meals in the diverse dining establishments in Brussels.
What can we learn about the importance of place, of shared meals in peacemaking? How are relationships changed when we eat from a common dish? Might we intentionally co-construct meeting and eating environments that support peace and reconciliation? Where and how can we value relationships that raise us above differences compelling us to set aside agendas that bring us to war with each other?
How does just slowing down and taking time for each other foster peacemaking? I want to explore these questions more deeply by spending time in places like the Blue Nile Restaurant in Seattle, Washington or in the dining establishments in Brussels, Belgium where peace treaties have been forged. Like the waters of the Blue Nile River, these are sacred places where we find communion with each other. They are places where we set aside our differences. Let us share together in this relational banquet. Won’t you join me at this table of exploration?
Shortly after dusk, the hyenas emerge from the mountains and creep toward the edge of the village of Senafe, Eritrea. They announce their presence with a distinctive yipping call. It is an eerie sound that has been compared to the laugh of a demented person. These are the laughing hyenas of East Africa.
I recall that, as a child, I walked with my friends to the furthest extreme of the dim village lights of Senafe at dusk to engage with the hyenas. We moved cautiously hoping to maintain a safe distance. We did so with some amount of trepidation. The howling cry of the hyenas ceased as we grew closer. We knew they were present by the dark hulking shadows darting forward then dropping back into the dark African night. Our search to spot them in the darkness was met with a row of luminescent eyes staring back at us.
The hyenas leave the mountains because they are hungry. They can be intimidating creatures. The spotted hyena (scientific name of crocuta crocuta) lumbers on stiff hind legs that support heavy shoulders and a large head with powerful jaws. These are jaws that can snap a spinal cord in two. The hyenas are scavengers but also might attack livestock or even small children.
The relationship between the hyenas and the diverse peoples of East Africa is complex. It is informative because it is more multi-faceted than the simple conflict between the hyenas seeking food and the villagers needing to protect their village. The hyenas and the people of East Africa have co-existed for centuries. Together with the peoples of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and other countries, the hyenas are survivors of armed conflicts, plagues, drought and famine. The hyenas have been scavengers in the brutal armed conflicts that have sadly beset this region. Sometimes they have fed on bodies left behind on battlefields or have dug up shallow graves.
Both the people of this region and the hyenas have survived because of great resiliency and adaptability. The hyena has come to occupy a place of respect in the cultural and narrative traditions of the region. They are woven into the fabric of the legends and the life rhythms of East Africa. Hyena stories have an important place in local narratives. These narratives often draw on lessons from the animal kingdom to inform human behavior.
East Africa has found its own way to make peace with the hyenas. The legendary Hyena Man of Harar (in Ethiopia) is designated by the villagers to engage with the hyenas on their behalf. He travels to their habitat in the mountains, meeting them in their own territory. He meets them at night when the hyenas are most emboldened. The Hyena Man comes in peace to feed the hyenas and convince them to leave the village unharmed. It is an intimate engagement. The Hyena Man holds chunks of raw meat in his mouth and invites the hyenas to come and eat. He is willing to be vulnerable. He is the host of a meal and a facilitator of a conversation. This is peaceful engagement with a potentially dangerous party for the purpose of finding common ground.
The tradition of feeding the hyenas to placate them grew from indigenous spiritual wisdom that sought out a way of peacemaking with these creatures as an alternative to attempting to eradicate them. There are narrative accounts that efforts to poison the hyenas only incurred the wrath of the hyena packs. It also had unfavorable environmental impacts as poison found its way into the food chain. The Hyena Man represents an alternative response. Through the Hyena Man, the villagers engage in a reflective conversationwith the situation of the hyenas encroaching on the safety of their village.
The hyena is an icon for the intrusive neighbor with whom we must inevitably find some peace. Feeding the aggressor may be more effective than attacking them. This is a simple and profound truth from engagement with the hyenas: feeding those who are hungry goes a long way toward peacemaking! The hyenas come into the village simply because they are hungry. They leave because they are satisfied. The resolution is more than a full stomach. It comes through a relational engagement. The Hyena Man calls the hyenas by name as he feeds them. This is a communal conversation that engages the entire village in discourse with the pack of hyenas. It is a conversation not only with the hyenas, but with the situation itself.
The notion of a conversation with the situation stretches us beyond our individualistic and dualistic thinking. It involves more than a subject and an object. It requires a more relational perspective. It involves dialogue as reflective process of listeningtogether. This is more than even listening to each other. It is what I call, relational listening. The notion builds on Schön’s writing in The Reflective Practitioner. It suggests that any conflict involves more than two parties—us vs. them.
What can we, in the West, learn from the East African experience of making peace with the hyenas? Many of us who have journeyed from Africa to the U.S. are struck by the impulse here to respond immediately to a perceived threat with dominance and force. If there is a conversation before a violent response to an act of violence, it is often restricted to a war room. It may be debated by television pundits entertaining the public with ‘debate’ on the issue. It is rarely brought into the public square of dialogue and deliberation. When is the collective wisdom of the villagers trusted? Does the propensity toward powering-over any threat preempt and avoid the deeper conversations with the situation that need to happen?
There is a perception in the predominant media and culture in the U.S that any administration responding to violence with dialogue and deliberation is showing weakness. Despite this, there is some growing perspective that military threats or a show of power should be a last resort, instead of a first response. Perhaps, on the level of international engagement, we are beginning to learn the wisdom of the Hyena Man of Harar.
The ‘war on terror’ has preoccupied resources and cost so many lives in many parts of the world over the past decade. Might it have run a different course if our response had been less about military counter-aggression and more about engaging conversations that needed to happen? This might have included a conversation about how and why the West has come to be despised in portions of the non-western world. It might have included an effort to reach some understanding of more peaceful ways to react to deep clashes of religious and cultural values.
There are perhaps conversations with the situation that need to happen whether the threat is the encroachment of hyenas on the village or the threat of terror attacks on an urban center. Deep conversations do not diminish us or our standing in the world. They may in fact enhance our ability to respond to real and perceived threats. The more reflective and measured response may have merit. Yes, the West has wisdom to learn from Africa.
Samuel Mahaffy was born in Asmara, Eritrea and grew up in Senafe, a village in Eritrea close to the border with Ethiopia. He has assisted more than five hundred nonprofits and NGO’s around the world. His work supports nonprofits in the Seattle, Washington area working with refugee families and immigrants from East Africa. He earned his Ph.D. from Tilburg University in the Netherlands through the Taos Institute.
‘Gursha’: The East African Ceremony of Feeding One Another
The East African ceremony of Gursha is the practice of feeding another by placing, with one’s hand, a bite of sumptuous, spicy food–wrapped in the East African bread called injera–gently in the mouth of another. It is an intimate act of friendship or of love practiced in Eritrea and Ethiopia, East Africa. The practice is a bit of a culture shock for Westerners accustomed to eating from separate plates with sterile forks and spoons. The ceremony defies every social norm in the West around personal space, eating with one’s hands, and much more, placing food in the mouth of another—touching both the food and the one being served.
The practice of Gursha—in defying Western conventions around sharing a meal—speaks to a different way of engaging with the food we eat, engaging with each other around shared meals. It is instructive of a different way of being in relationship. It enhances the notion of relational presence as a way of bringing the sacred into ordinary life and ceremony as a rich exemplifier of relational being (Gergen, 2009).
If you have ever dined in an Eritrean or Ethiopian restaurant or been blessed to have shared a meal in the home of a family from one of these countries, you likely will have observed the ceremony. It is strikingly different from western conventions, first, because the food is shared and eaten from a common dish. A proverb from this part of the world states that “those who eat from the same plate will not betray each other.”
There is a story told of heaven that, it is a place of banquets of food where participants in the heavenly feast feed the person seated next to them. There is a divine aspect to feeding one another. It is also an intimate act. What is more intimate than the picture of a mother breastfeeding a newborn infant?
What would it mean if we were to practice the act of Gursha in our relational life? Ken Gergen articulates beautifully the sacredness of being relational beings. He notes that what we hold as most precious cannot be owned or possessed. But, perhaps it can be touched in the act of feeding one another—nurturing the relationships that not only make life rich, but are what constitutes life. My take-away from the notion of relational being is the practice of relational presence. Relational presence is about really showing up to the relationships we hold most dear. It is about feeding these relationships, valuing these relationships above personal agenda and nurturing these relationships in love and intimacy.
Do you remember a time when you have experienced great intimacy in a shared meal? Perhaps it was around a communion table where communicants place bread and wine on each other’s lips affirming unity as one body. Perhaps it was around a shared meal. In my home or in the East African community I work with in Seattle, Washington, it is often around a shared platter of habesha food—the food of the peoples of the Horn of Africa. How do you nurture and feed the relationships in your own life?
I think of the many global peace conversations that have evolved around a shared meal. How might sharing a meal together be an act of peacemaking and conflict transformation? Let’s explore breaking bread together as a way of deepening and restoring relationships!
Thank you to my Oromo friend Waco and my Eritrean friend Amanuel for reflecting with me on the ceremony of Gursha. Thank you to all who have shared injera with me and held our relationships in tenderness and love.
It was with great sadness that I left my home town of Senafe, Eritrea in East Africa, at the tender age of sixteen. As I began the journey on the windy mountain road to the capital city of Asmara that led to the port City of Massawa and a long boat ride to New York City, I gazed back at the beautiful mountainous valley that cradled the village of Senafe. It was a village that I might never see again. I wanted to tuck into my being every memory, every sight and smell, all the relationships I was leaving behind. I wanted to preserve all I had learned from time alone on the mountain peaks and the wisdom of this culture.
I learned the art of African bread-making as a young child squatting at the feet of a wise Eritrean woman, Abrahet. Abrahet always sang quietly in her native language of Tigrinya as she went through every step of making injera—the thin flat bread that was a central part of nearly every Eritrean meal. The mogogo oven, built from mud and cow dung, had a smooth flat black surface that needed to be rubbed with castor beans. The oil from the beans lubricated the surface. Tiny solid pieces of this bean, which is highly poisonous if ingested, needed to be carefully wiped away once the oil from the bean was used.
The injera batter of teff flour is mixed and allowed to ferment for days before injera is made. Now, Abrahet pours it with care and great concentration from a bent tin can onto the surface of the oven. The pouring process begins at the outside of the surface and moves inward to the center. As the batter hits the warm surface, it forms bubbles that look like hundreds of tiny eyes.
It took nearly twenty years of living in the fast-paced Western world that is now my home, before I found the courage to try making injera on my own. There were many failed tries. First, I had to slow down! I had to let go of my thinking in terms of measuring both ingredients and baking times. I had to let go of expecting there to be a script to follow or a ‘right’ way and a ‘wrong’ way. Injera-making is less about teaching and more about transmission.
This is an ancient art passed down through generations of Eritrean women who have fed their children, their families, their villages and the liberation fighters in the mountains fighting to win the independence of their country from occupying forces from Ethiopia. Injera—made from this simple mixture of teff flour, a little leavening and water—nurtured life in Eritrea through wars, adversity and famines. It fed communities celebrating together a marriage or the birth of a child. Somehow, there was always enough of this thin batter to make another stack of soft, aromatic injera for another meal of spicy African meat and vegetable dishes served from a shared platter.
Injera making is work. It is also ritual and a prayerful practice. It is the relational practice of Eritrean women connecting a village together around a shared meal that is physical sustenance. It is also sustaining of the rich conversations and stories that enhance identity across generations and are sense-making of life in the village.
I step into this this ancient tradition of making injera fully aware that I come as an outsider and a novice. In the Eritrean community I work with in Seattle, Washington, my claim-to-fame is not my published Ph.D. dissertation, but that I am “one of the only white guys in North America who makes injera.”
The practice of making injera, as I learned it from Abrahet, in Senafe, Eritrea years ago, has been a treasure to me. It gives me one way to nurture my family and my circle of friends. But, it also deepens my work as a facilitator and consultant. The motion of pouring batter from the outside of the circle in toward the center—slowly and purposefully—is a discipline for me in ‘centering in’—finding my own center in this sometimes frenetic world. I still use the tin can, bent to form a spout, to pour injera onto the griddle. It reminds me that the most profound acts require only the simplest of instruments. There is deep faith in trusting that a shared meal, made from simple ingredients, can be extended to feed a village. Injera-making touches the wisdom that measurements and recipes contribute little to defining acts of immeasurable kindness.
Making injera as a white male, tutored by an African woman, reminds me of how much our still male-dominated leadership culture has to learn from the indigenous wisdom of women who have birthed, woven and sustained the web of life throughout human history.
The slow fermenting process of injera-making, reminds me to be patient with community conversations and visioning processes—to allow these processes to ferment and to allow the wisdom of participants to bubble up to the surface forming the ‘many eyes’ of shared perspectives that grow from deep dialogue.
Injera is never eaten alone. It is broken and passed around and shared with family and friends. It is shared with the stranger who may be passing by in the custom of generosity so inherent in Eritrean culture. Sharing injera is an act of communion—it is breaking bread together—participating together in the relational practices that sustain life. I will bear the side-ways glances of fellow congregants in my church when I change the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer from “give us this day our daily bread” to “give us today our daily injera”! This is a prayer, not only for food, but for all that is sustaining of life and relationship.
My injera-making is far from perfect. Still, it is an art I pass on to both my son and my daughters knowing their skills already far exceed my own. As they feed and nourish the villages they will take their place in as adults, I pray that they will experience the depth of sharing and nurturing of relationships that is forged from the simple act of serving others and from eating together as a community from a common dish.
Sharing a meal together is a deeply relational practice. It can be an intimate event, with even a sacramental quality. Breaking bread together is an act of communion, a celebration of our one-ness. It is the most beautiful of affirmations that we are first of all, relational beings. Growing up in Eritrea, East Africa, I experienced the intimacy of eating from a shared dish. The round platter of spicy, delicious meats and vegetables is enjoyed by young and old, gathered close together. It is scooped up with injera—a soft, flat bread made from teff flour and other grains. It is a leisurely, un-rushed process. It is a celebratory act. This is a time for sharing stories, experiencing the richness of the life we have together, and appreciating the abundance of flavors and textures that we are dipping into together.
If you come as a stranger, to a group of Eritreans sharing a meal, you will, without a doubt, be invited in to this feast. There is always room for one more person. There is always room for the stranger. Eritreans are not the only community that shares food in this way. Much of the world does. I remember passing through an airport on the west coast of the United States. Close to the baggage claim area, where I was waiting to retrieve my bag, a small circle of men from Somalia were clustered around a large bowl, dipping chunks of bread together, into a rich stew. It took only my passing greeting to them, to garner me an invitation to join their circle. For a moment, the hurried life of North America stopped. I became immersed in a community of men, sharing together and welcoming me, as a stranger passing by.
I have come to see meeting processes and decision making in this light of a banquet, shared from a common dish. Decision making is first, about relationships, and not about agendas. If we are attentive to the relationships, the agendas will take care of themselves! Perhaps, here is a place where the Western world, has something to learn from Africa. On my way to giving a presentation at a Taos Institute conference on conflict transformation in San Diego, I caught a shuttle bus to the airport in Seattle, Washington. The driver was an immigrant from a region of Ethiopia. In the short ride to the airport, we found a place of deep conversation about differences between living in Africa and living in the United States. Stepping down from the shuttle bus, I set my suitcase down to thank him for the ride. As we parted, I asked: “What do you think North America has to learn from African culture?” He paused for only a minute, and then said quietly: “We eat from the same dish.”
As I pursued my PhD dissertation with the Taos Institute through Tilburg University in the Netherlands, I reflected much on this metaphor as I wrestled with understanding the spatiality of decision making from a relational constructionist frame. Dr. Harlene Anderson, one of the founders of the Taos Institute, describes therapists (and facilitators) as invited ‘guests’ to a process. I found the notion of welcoming the stranger to a rich banquet of ideas, as a rich way of describing decision making as a relational process. When we welcome the stranger, we welcome in new ideas and perspectives. When we view decision making processes as a rich banquet feast, we move out of limiting, problem-solving models, which become about dividing up a limited fare and identifying winners and losers.
Might decision making processes in community groups, universities, agencies, churches, mosques, and synagogues, be enriched with this notion of a banquet feast? This is the place where we can invite in new voices, we can share stories, and we can listen to the stranger who is our guest. This is a generative place, where everyone feels full and satisfied. I have never seen anyone leave a shared plate at an African Family Dinner, leave hungry. There is always enough! Might eating from a shared dish be a profound step toward peacemaking? It is surely a rich celebration of the sacred potential of relational being.
Posted: March 17, 2014 by Dr. Samuel Mahaffy Leave a Comment
Sharing an Uncommon Relational Banquet in a Very Common Restaurant
My family’s visit early last Saturday morning to the Blue Nile Restaurant in Seattle, Washington was about more than finding a place to eat. After all, it was only 10:30 in the morning and not really time for lunch. It was about more than getting a chance to enjoy habesha food—the traditional food from East Africa—that our family has come to love since I journeyed some decades ago from Eritrea to the U.S. The Blue Nile Restaurant is, by American middle class standards, a ‘hole-in-the-wall’ gathering place. There is nothing fancy about it. What we knew we would find there was a relational richness that characterizes few public gathering places.
A chime on the door announces our entry. There are a few tables with Eritreans and Ethiopians huddled over cups of sweet spicy tea (Shahee) defying the cold wet Seattle wind that sweeps bits of debris down the street. In an act reminiscent of communion, some are breaking off chunks of thick pan-baked bread called ambasha and dipping these into their hot tea. As we push the door shut behind us, our family with blond, blue-eyed daughters attracts more than a few gazes. What brings this white family to a clearly East African gathering place?
I greet the room collectively with one of the few Amharic words I knew. Teanaste’lle’n. The phrase translates roughly to ‘May God give you health.’ The greeting brings welcoming smiles. An Ethiopian lady who carries some aura of dignity and authority rises to greet us. She seats us in the center of the room, pulling two tables together to give us room to spread out. On the wall above us is a picture of the “waters that roar”—a crashing waterfall in the Blue Nile. The waters of the Blue Nile are a sacred place in Ethiopia that evoke a sense of magic and mystery. After all, this is considered the birthplace of civilization.
Respecting my weak efforts at Amharic, this lady who speaks perfect English responds to my one word greeting with a string of Amharic phrases that I am unable to translate. She is conveying her clear willingness to accept us without question as part of this gathered community. When she learns that I am from Eritrea she announces that finding in Amharic to the men gathered in the restaurant. An Eritrean man comes forward to affirm that he was also born in Asmara, my birth-town. My few words of Tigrinya are quickly exhausted. But we find a common bond from our shared journey to this place from an East African nation half way around the world.
Our family requests coffee as it is traditionally prepared in Eritrea and Ethiopia. Tina (the American name for the Ethiopian lady who is our server) conveys the request to the kitchen to get approval from the matriarch who is in charge of this domain. We know that our request is an involved one. Habesha coffee is not even on the menu. Preparing and serving this coffee is a ceremony of sharing that cannot be rushed. A traditional coffee service involves green beans that are roasted then brought to the guests to enjoy the fragrance of the freshly roasted beans. What is to follow, about 45 minutes later is the presentation of a jebena—the traditional blackened pottery coffee pot with a thin neck—filled with strong delicious coffee. This is poured into small handless cups arranged on a tray with a dish of burning incense. Tina serves each of us, and then pulls up a chair to join us.
Tina is more than a waitress in this restaurant. She shares a bit of her story as she sips coffee with us. She is the owner of the next door retail business that sells spices from East Africa along with an assortment of grocery items and packages of injera, the traditional bread of Eritrea and Ethiopia. There is little hierarchy in the tiny space of the Blue Nile restaurant. From the taxi cab drivers drinking tea on their break to the occasional homeless person who wonders in to get warm, each person finds a respectful welcome.
A TV cable channel broadcasts in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, a news story on the relationship between Ethiopia and South Korea. Pictures flash from boys herding cattle out to pasture in rural villages to urban development in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The cable TV story chronicles the mixture of old world and new. It reflects the recent engagement of Asian and Western nations with the nations of the Horn of Africa. It blends into the mixture of languages, cultures, religions and social classes so present in this little room with blue walls called the Blue Nile Restaurant.
As they sip tea together, the Eritrean and Ethiopian men engage easily with each other slipping freely from Amharic (the language of Ethiopia to Tigrinya (the language of Eritrea). This might seem surprising only because the two countries fought a brutal extended war with each other that cost tens of thousands of lives. Many of those in this room are refugees from that war. Most have lost loved ones to this terrible conflict. While the two countries maintain an uneasy peace with each other and Eritrea continues to be guarded about its territorial rights, there is no evidence or mention of that conflict in this place.
Several hours later, we emerge from the Blue Nile restaurant into the now sunny day in Seattle Washington. We leave full– not so much from the amazing spicy vegetarian and meat dishes, but from the rich relationships. This is truly a place where differences that divide people around the world fall apart as a meal is shared from a common dish. It is a place where immigrants and refugees readily welcome the stranger in their midst.
The experience leaves me wondering how finding peace between nations can be so difficult. Do we need more of these gathering places where we can eat together from a common dish? Where are the places where we can share the richness of relationship and our diverse cultures, where hierarchical boundaries melt away and where stories are not on the menu but very much part of every meal and every cup of hot tea or coffee? Where are the places where we can come as strangers and leave as friends? How might diaspora communities like those from Eritrea and Ethiopia–that seem to meet so easily in urban Western cities–make some contribution to peace in their countries of origin?
Our world slowed down while we were in the Blue Nile Restaurant. Our agenda for the day was set aside for a few rich hours of engaged relationships. We savor today those relationships and the special time we shared together, long after the leftovers from our meal have disappeared from our fridge and we have returned to our busy routines that cause us to grab some food ‘on the fly.’
Our experience in the Blue Nile Restaurant reminds me of a conversation with Dr. John Rijsman who leads the Ph.D. program I graduated from at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He noted that Brussels, Belgium has been the host of numerous gatherings that have resulted in peace treaties among nations and that very many times those peace agreements were hammered out over shared meals in the diverse dining establishments in Brussels.
What can we learn about the importance of place, of shared meals in peacemaking? How are relationships changed when we eat from a common dish? Might we intentionally co-construct meeting and eating environments that support peace and reconciliation? Where and how can we value relationships that raise us above differences compelling us to set aside agendas that bring us to war with each other?
How does just slowing down and taking time for each other foster peacemaking? I want to explore these questions more deeply by spending time in places like the Blue Nile Restaurant in Seattle, Washington or in the dining establishments in Brussels, Belgium where peace treaties have been forged. Like the waters of the Blue Nile River, these are sacred places where we find communion with each other. They are places where we set aside our differences. Let us share together in this relational banquet. Won’t you join me at this table of exploration?
Posted: March 10, 2014 by Amanuel Leave a Comment
Making Peace with the Laughing Hyenas is no Laughing Matter!
Shortly after dusk, the hyenas emerge from the mountains and creep toward the edge of the village of Senafe, Eritrea. They announce their presence with a distinctive yipping call. It is an eerie sound that has been compared to the laugh of a demented person. These are the laughing hyenas of East Africa.
I recall that, as a child, I walked with my friends to the furthest extreme of the dim village lights of Senafe at dusk to engage with the hyenas. We moved cautiously hoping to maintain a safe distance. We did so with some amount of trepidation. The howling cry of the hyenas ceased as we grew closer. We knew they were present by the dark hulking shadows darting forward then dropping back into the dark African night. Our search to spot them in the darkness was met with a row of luminescent eyes staring back at us.
The hyenas leave the mountains because they are hungry. They can be intimidating creatures. The spotted hyena (scientific name of crocuta crocuta) lumbers on stiff hind legs that support heavy shoulders and a large head with powerful jaws. These are jaws that can snap a spinal cord in two. The hyenas are scavengers but also might attack livestock or even small children.
The relationship between the hyenas and the diverse peoples of East Africa is complex. It is informative because it is more multi-faceted than the simple conflict between the hyenas seeking food and the villagers needing to protect their village. The hyenas and the people of East Africa have co-existed for centuries. Together with the peoples of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and other countries, the hyenas are survivors of armed conflicts, plagues, drought and famine. The hyenas have been scavengers in the brutal armed conflicts that have sadly beset this region. Sometimes they have fed on bodies left behind on battlefields or have dug up shallow graves.
Both the people of this region and the hyenas have survived because of great resiliency and adaptability. The hyena has come to occupy a place of respect in the cultural and narrative traditions of the region. They are woven into the fabric of the legends and the life rhythms of East Africa. Hyena stories have an important place in local narratives. These narratives often draw on lessons from the animal kingdom to inform human behavior.
East Africa has found its own way to make peace with the hyenas. The legendary Hyena Man of Harar (in Ethiopia) is designated by the villagers to engage with the hyenas on their behalf. He travels to their habitat in the mountains, meeting them in their own territory. He meets them at night when the hyenas are most emboldened. The Hyena Man comes in peace to feed the hyenas and convince them to leave the village unharmed. It is an intimate engagement. The Hyena Man holds chunks of raw meat in his mouth and invites the hyenas to come and eat. He is willing to be vulnerable. He is the host of a meal and a facilitator of a conversation. This is peaceful engagement with a potentially dangerous party for the purpose of finding common ground.
The tradition of feeding the hyenas to placate them grew from indigenous spiritual wisdom that sought out a way of peacemaking with these creatures as an alternative to attempting to eradicate them. There are narrative accounts that efforts to poison the hyenas only incurred the wrath of the hyena packs. It also had unfavorable environmental impacts as poison found its way into the food chain. The Hyena Man represents an alternative response. Through the Hyena Man, the villagers engage in a reflective conversation with the situation of the hyenas encroaching on the safety of their village.
The hyena is an icon for the intrusive neighbor with whom we must inevitably find some peace. Feeding the aggressor may be more effective than attacking them. This is a simple and profound truth from engagement with the hyenas: feeding those who are hungry goes a long way toward peacemaking! The hyenas come into the village simply because they are hungry. They leave because they are satisfied. The resolution is more than a full stomach. It comes through a relational engagement. The Hyena Man calls the hyenas by name as he feeds them. This is a communal conversation that engages the entire village in discourse with the pack of hyenas. It is a conversation not only with the hyenas, but with the situation itself.
The notion of a conversation with the situation stretches us beyond our individualistic and dualistic thinking. It involves more than a subject and an object. It requires a more relational perspective. It involves dialogue as reflective process of listening together. This is more than even listening to each other. It is what I call, relational listening. The notion builds on Schön’s writing in The Reflective Practitioner. It suggests that any conflict involves more than two parties—us vs. them.
What can we, in the West, learn from the East African experience of making peace with the hyenas? Many of us who have journeyed from Africa to the U.S. are struck by the impulse here to respond immediately to a perceived threat with dominance and force. If there is a conversation before a violent response to an act of violence, it is often restricted to a war room. It may be debated by television pundits entertaining the public with ‘debate’ on the issue. It is rarely brought into the public square of dialogue and deliberation. When is the collective wisdom of the villagers trusted? Does the propensity toward powering-over any threat preempt and avoid the deeper conversations with the situation that need to happen?
There is a perception in the predominant media and culture in the U.S that any administration responding to violence with dialogue and deliberation is showing weakness. Despite this, there is some growing perspective that military threats or a show of power should be a last resort, instead of a first response. Perhaps, on the level of international engagement, we are beginning to learn the wisdom of the Hyena Man of Harar.
The ‘war on terror’ has preoccupied resources and cost so many lives in many parts of the world over the past decade. Might it have run a different course if our response had been less about military counter-aggression and more about engaging conversations that needed to happen? This might have included a conversation about how and why the West has come to be despised in portions of the non-western world. It might have included an effort to reach some understanding of more peaceful ways to react to deep clashes of religious and cultural values.
There are perhaps conversations with the situation that need to happen whether the threat is the encroachment of hyenas on the village or the threat of terror attacks on an urban center. Deep conversations do not diminish us or our standing in the world. They may in fact enhance our ability to respond to real and perceived threats. The more reflective and measured response may have merit. Yes, the West has wisdom to learn from Africa.
Samuel Mahaffy was born in Asmara, Eritrea and grew up in Senafe, a village in Eritrea close to the border with Ethiopia. He has assisted more than five hundred nonprofits and NGO’s around the world. His work supports nonprofits in the Seattle, Washington area working with refugee families and immigrants from East Africa. He earned his Ph.D. from Tilburg University in the Netherlands through the Taos Institute.
Posted: November 15, 2013 by Dr. Samuel Mahaffy Leave a Comment
‘Gursha’: The East African Ceremony of Feeding One Another
‘Gursha’: The East African Ceremony of Feeding One Another
The East African ceremony of Gursha is the practice of feeding another by placing, with one’s hand, a bite of sumptuous, spicy food–wrapped in the East African bread called injera–gently in the mouth of another. It is an intimate act of friendship or of love practiced in Eritrea and Ethiopia, East Africa. The practice is a bit of a culture shock for Westerners accustomed to eating from separate plates with sterile forks and spoons. The ceremony defies every social norm in the West around personal space, eating with one’s hands, and much more, placing food in the mouth of another—touching both the food and the one being served.
The practice of Gursha—in defying Western conventions around sharing a meal—speaks to a different way of engaging with the food we eat, engaging with each other around shared meals. It is instructive of a different way of being in relationship. It enhances the notion of relational presence as a way of bringing the sacred into ordinary life and ceremony as a rich exemplifier of relational being (Gergen, 2009).
If you have ever dined in an Eritrean or Ethiopian restaurant or been blessed to have shared a meal in the home of a family from one of these countries, you likely will have observed the ceremony. It is strikingly different from western conventions, first, because the food is shared and eaten from a common dish. A proverb from this part of the world states that “those who eat from the same plate will not betray each other.”
There is a story told of heaven that, it is a place of banquets of food where participants in the heavenly feast feed the person seated next to them. There is a divine aspect to feeding one another. It is also an intimate act. What is more intimate than the picture of a mother breastfeeding a newborn infant?
What would it mean if we were to practice the act of Gursha in our relational life? Ken Gergen articulates beautifully the sacredness of being relational beings. He notes that what we hold as most precious cannot be owned or possessed. But, perhaps it can be touched in the act of feeding one another—nurturing the relationships that not only make life rich, but are what constitutes life. My take-away from the notion of relational being is the practice of relational presence. Relational presence is about really showing up to the relationships we hold most dear. It is about feeding these relationships, valuing these relationships above personal agenda and nurturing these relationships in love and intimacy.
Do you remember a time when you have experienced great intimacy in a shared meal? Perhaps it was around a communion table where communicants place bread and wine on each other’s lips affirming unity as one body. Perhaps it was around a shared meal. In my home or in the East African community I work with in Seattle, Washington, it is often around a shared platter of habesha food—the food of the peoples of the Horn of Africa. How do you nurture and feed the relationships in your own life?
I think of the many global peace conversations that have evolved around a shared meal. How might sharing a meal together be an act of peacemaking and conflict transformation? Let’s explore breaking bread together as a way of deepening and restoring relationships!
Thank you to my Oromo friend Waco and my Eritrean friend Amanuel for reflecting with me on the ceremony of Gursha. Thank you to all who have shared injera with me and held our relationships in tenderness and love.
Posted: September 24, 2013 by Amanuel Leave a Comment
Wisdom Poured from a Bent Tin Can: The Enduring Art of Making Injera
It was with great sadness that I left my home town of Senafe, Eritrea in East Africa, at the tender age of sixteen. As I began the journey on the windy mountain road to the capital city of Asmara that led to the port City of Massawa and a long boat ride to New York City, I gazed back at the beautiful mountainous valley that cradled the village of Senafe. It was a village that I might never see again. I wanted to tuck into my being every memory, every sight and smell, all the relationships I was leaving behind. I wanted to preserve all I had learned from time alone on the mountain peaks and the wisdom of this culture.
I learned the art of African bread-making as a young child squatting at the feet of a wise Eritrean woman, Abrahet. Abrahet always sang quietly in her native language of Tigrinya as she went through every step of making injera—the thin flat bread that was a central part of nearly every Eritrean meal. The mogogo oven, built from mud and cow dung, had a smooth flat black surface that needed to be rubbed with castor beans. The oil from the beans lubricated the surface. Tiny solid pieces of this bean, which is highly poisonous if ingested, needed to be carefully wiped away once the oil from the bean was used.
The injera batter of teff flour is mixed and allowed to ferment for days before injera is made. Now, Abrahet pours it with care and great concentration from a bent tin can onto the surface of the oven. The pouring process begins at the outside of the surface and moves inward to the center. As the batter hits the warm surface, it forms bubbles that look like hundreds of tiny eyes.
It took nearly twenty years of living in the fast-paced Western world that is now my home, before I found the courage to try making injera on my own. There were many failed tries. First, I had to slow down! I had to let go of my thinking in terms of measuring both ingredients and baking times. I had to let go of expecting there to be a script to follow or a ‘right’ way and a ‘wrong’ way. Injera-making is less about teaching and more about transmission.
This is an ancient art passed down through generations of Eritrean women who have fed their children, their families, their villages and the liberation fighters in the mountains fighting to win the independence of their country from occupying forces from Ethiopia. Injera—made from this simple mixture of teff flour, a little leavening and water—nurtured life in Eritrea through wars, adversity and famines. It fed communities celebrating together a marriage or the birth of a child. Somehow, there was always enough of this thin batter to make another stack of soft, aromatic injera for another meal of spicy African meat and vegetable dishes served from a shared platter.
Injera making is work. It is also ritual and a prayerful practice. It is the relational practice of Eritrean women connecting a village together around a shared meal that is physical sustenance. It is also sustaining of the rich conversations and stories that enhance identity across generations and are sense-making of life in the village.
I step into this this ancient tradition of making injera fully aware that I come as an outsider and a novice. In the Eritrean community I work with in Seattle, Washington, my claim-to-fame is not my published Ph.D. dissertation, but that I am “one of the only white guys in North America who makes injera.”
The practice of making injera, as I learned it from Abrahet, in Senafe, Eritrea years ago, has been a treasure to me. It gives me one way to nurture my family and my circle of friends. But, it also deepens my work as a facilitator and consultant. The motion of pouring batter from the outside of the circle in toward the center—slowly and purposefully—is a discipline for me in ‘centering in’—finding my own center in this sometimes frenetic world. I still use the tin can, bent to form a spout, to pour injera onto the griddle. It reminds me that the most profound acts require only the simplest of instruments. There is deep faith in trusting that a shared meal, made from simple ingredients, can be extended to feed a village. Injera-making touches the wisdom that measurements and recipes contribute little to defining acts of immeasurable kindness.
Making injera as a white male, tutored by an African woman, reminds me of how much our still male-dominated leadership culture has to learn from the indigenous wisdom of women who have birthed, woven and sustained the web of life throughout human history.
The slow fermenting process of injera-making, reminds me to be patient with community conversations and visioning processes—to allow these processes to ferment and to allow the wisdom of participants to bubble up to the surface forming the ‘many eyes’ of shared perspectives that grow from deep dialogue.
Injera is never eaten alone. It is broken and passed around and shared with family and friends. It is shared with the stranger who may be passing by in the custom of generosity so inherent in Eritrean culture. Sharing injera is an act of communion—it is breaking bread together—participating together in the relational practices that sustain life. I will bear the side-ways glances of fellow congregants in my church when I change the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer from “give us this day our daily bread” to “give us today our daily injera”! This is a prayer, not only for food, but for all that is sustaining of life and relationship.
My injera-making is far from perfect. Still, it is an art I pass on to both my son and my daughters knowing their skills already far exceed my own. As they feed and nourish the villages they will take their place in as adults, I pray that they will experience the depth of sharing and nurturing of relationships that is forged from the simple act of serving others and from eating together as a community from a common dish.
Posted: April 23, 2013 by Amanuel Leave a Comment
Guests at a Banquet: Decision Making as Eating from a Common Dish
Sharing a meal together is a deeply relational practice. It can be an intimate event, with even a sacramental quality. Breaking bread together is an act of communion, a celebration of our one-ness. It is the most beautiful of affirmations that we are first of all, relational beings. Growing up in Eritrea, East Africa, I experienced the intimacy of eating from a shared dish. The round platter of spicy, delicious meats and vegetables is enjoyed by young and old, gathered close together. It is scooped up with injera—a soft, flat bread made from teff flour and other grains. It is a leisurely, un-rushed process. It is a celebratory act. This is a time for sharing stories, experiencing the richness of the life we have together, and appreciating the abundance of flavors and textures that we are dipping into together.
If you come as a stranger, to a group of Eritreans sharing a meal, you will, without a doubt, be invited in to this feast. There is always room for one more person. There is always room for the stranger. Eritreans are not the only community that shares food in this way. Much of the world does. I remember passing through an airport on the west coast of the United States. Close to the baggage claim area, where I was waiting to retrieve my bag, a small circle of men from Somalia were clustered around a large bowl, dipping chunks of bread together, into a rich stew. It took only my passing greeting to them, to garner me an invitation to join their circle. For a moment, the hurried life of North America stopped. I became immersed in a community of men, sharing together and welcoming me, as a stranger passing by.
I have come to see meeting processes and decision making in this light of a banquet, shared from a common dish. Decision making is first, about relationships, and not about agendas. If we are attentive to the relationships, the agendas will take care of themselves! Perhaps, here is a place where the Western world, has something to learn from Africa. On my way to giving a presentation at a Taos Institute conference on conflict transformation in San Diego, I caught a shuttle bus to the airport in Seattle, Washington. The driver was an immigrant from a region of Ethiopia. In the short ride to the airport, we found a place of deep conversation about differences between living in Africa and living in the United States. Stepping down from the shuttle bus, I set my suitcase down to thank him for the ride. As we parted, I asked: “What do you think North America has to learn from African culture?” He paused for only a minute, and then said quietly: “We eat from the same dish.”
As I pursued my PhD dissertation with the Taos Institute through Tilburg University in the Netherlands, I reflected much on this metaphor as I wrestled with understanding the spatiality of decision making from a relational constructionist frame. Dr. Harlene Anderson, one of the founders of the Taos Institute, describes therapists (and facilitators) as invited ‘guests’ to a process. I found the notion of welcoming the stranger to a rich banquet of ideas, as a rich way of describing decision making as a relational process. When we welcome the stranger, we welcome in new ideas and perspectives. When we view decision making processes as a rich banquet feast, we move out of limiting, problem-solving models, which become about dividing up a limited fare and identifying winners and losers.
Might decision making processes in community groups, universities, agencies, churches, mosques, and synagogues, be enriched with this notion of a banquet feast? This is the place where we can invite in new voices, we can share stories, and we can listen to the stranger who is our guest. This is a generative place, where everyone feels full and satisfied. I have never seen anyone leave a shared plate at an African Family Dinner, leave hungry. There is always enough! Might eating from a shared dish be a profound step toward peacemaking? It is surely a rich celebration of the sacred potential of relational being.