Here's a re-post of my blog post that appeared on the Yahel blog last week:
After my last Yahel blog post, I started telling a few
families in the neighborhood about my “assignment” to write about learning to
make injera for the Yahel website. I got
a lot of promises, but nothing really materialized. Then, magic happened! I’ve been wanting to get to know a woman
named Bat El who is one of the leaders of the neighborhood Garin Ehud for a
while, and we finally made a plan for buna (Ethiopian coffee) after Shabbat. Garin
Ehud is a group of Ethiopian families who are committed to remaining in Ramat
Eliyahu and working together in order to develop activities and resources to
support the wellbeing of the community. We talked for hours about our respective community
work and passions, the Garin model, and the neighborhood. I mentioned my desire to learn to make injera
and she offered to teach me. Something about the way she offered made it clear
that she was serious, so we made an appointment for the following week.
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| Mixing teff and water to make the initial buho |
Making injera requires a small initial input of hard work, practice,
a certain comfort with delayed gratification, and perhaps a leap of faith. During my first lesson, I eagerly dug in to a
basin of teff flour and water with both hands, mixing and kneading for a long
while and trying to memorize the texture.
There are no measurements, as the amount of water needed varies with each
batch of the grain. My notes probably read strangely to the outside observer,
as I used the terms “quicksand,” “chocolate pudding,” and “coconut milk” to
describe the buho at various stages of preparation. It will take a lot of practice for these to
become intuitive. After making the buho, we let it sit for several days until
it had fermented sufficiently to rinse, thin, and cook. Days later as Bat El
and I added baking powder to the thinned buho (batter) in preparation for
cooking the injera, she told me “this is the step you start to pray to have a
good injera.” As we laughed about this
she went on to tell me that “When you get married and cook something for the
first time with your mother-in-law you pray a lot!” Luckily, as we cooked the first injera and
the “eyes” (small holes) began to appear, she declared it an excellent
injera. While I mostly credit the
teacher, she insisted that success began with the persistent attention I gave
to mixing and kneading the teff and water in the initial buho-making
process. A good injera, like a strong
community, requires attention to build a strong foundation.
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| "Eyes" appearing on the first injera we cooked |
As we shared a piece of injera spread with berbere and jo
while we continued to cook, Bat El commented how nice it is to share food from
a single plate. We talked about this
common practice in Ethiopia and how much less common it is among Ethiopian families
in Israel. Bat El told me about how when
she was nine and her family came from Ethiopia, the family was instructed on
the “proper” way to eat with silverware instead of their hands and from
individual plates. They lived in a hotel
for a month or two before they were given an apartment in an absorption center,
and did not have a way to make injera during that time. The family dropped the practice of eating
from a communal platter almost immediately upon making aliyah. Bat El told me what a shame she feels this is
– that they were immediately sent the message that there was somehow something
wrong with a practice that was so integral to their culture, a practice that
emphasized attention to the needs of the whole group. The Garin’s activities in
Ramat Eliyahu embrace Ethiopian culture, recognizing connection to culture as a
community asset that brings people together.
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| Bat El and I with a batch of cooked injera |
During my cooking lessons with Bat El, I’m learning to make
traditional Ethiopian food, but I believe for both of us the experience is far
more. We share stories, culture, ideas,
and most importantly are developing a friendship. It’s through these lessons that I’ve also
been given an opportunity to contribute to the community in the way I had been
hoping all along. During my first lesson,
Bat El brought up a previous conversation we had about my non-profit resource
development experience and asked if I could help her bring in some funding for
the activities of Garin Ehud. Bat El and I are now working together to
build a proposed budget and descriptions of their programs for funders. I’m
looking forward to using my non-profit experience to support the capacity
development of this local garin, a contribution which I hope will have a
sustained impact on the community through the ongoing work of these committed
community leaders. At the same time, I’m thrilled to learn about the model and
ideology of Garin Ehud, and how to support the needs of this type of
organization. And it all began with a
simple request for an injera lesson!
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| A feast of injera topped with shiro, gomen, and cabbage & carrot stew I cooked for the yahelnikim |
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| Yahelnikim digging in to the feast |
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