The first phase of our project in Ethiopia has ended, amidst a thousand adventures mixed with just as many satisfactions. It has been two months of intense training in non-attachment and patience, spent mainly in the village of Wuchale, in the Amhara region. Here we learned our first words of Amharic, the local language with multiple origins, we got used to the local food, enjera, to be eaten strictly with our hands, and we made our first friendships with locals: teachers, children, neighbors and some intrepid passers-by.
Walking down the main street, one of the few paved ones in all of northern Ethiopia, is like walking with a spotlight on you: people observe us, call us farenji (foreigner), children run to touch us and run away; Africa, for those of us who had never been there, has transformed from a confused imaginary into concrete reality. An initially unknown and disorienting reality. After the first week, however, we realize that behind the words of the abesha (native Ethiopians) shouted loudly, incomprehensible and a little scary to us, there are always… invitations: to enter their homes, to drink coffee, to share an enjera, to tell where we come from, to drink a sip of tej, homemade mead, or browse family photo albums. So we discovered, even before getting to work, the strong culture of hospitality that characterizes these people. We sat in front of several braziers sipping coffee prepared according to the traditional ceremony, observing and recording in our minds every step of this ritual: the roasting of the beans, the cooking, the lighting of the incense, the preparation of the side dish (which, to our great surprise, consists of bread and… popcorn!) and the blessing of the woman who takes care of this entire process, also known as “The Queen of Coffee”.
The coffee ceremony is the symbol of Ethiopian tradition and is an occasion for conviviality, discussion of both hot political issues and village gossip, demonstration of hospitality for foreigners or long-time friends. This is what the participants in our workshops told us about this, with whom we decided to start working right from here, from their culture, to create the foundations of a solid group and pass on simple theatrical skills useful for building living pictures on the theme of irregular migration.
Bringing our methodology to a different culture and with the filter of two translations (ours into English and that of our social worker into Amharic) forced us to face difficulties that are hard to imagine before leaving: how to make living statues, in a world where the concept of a statue doesn’t even exist?
How to obtain personal opinions from a people who indicate obedience – and conformism – as a virtue? Ethiopian political culture has always been characterized by government systems that have never promoted autonomy of thought as a founding value.
How to empathize with the users of our workshops – 80 people for 4 workshops in two villages involved? and, even before that, how to understand the socio-cultural context in an appropriate and functional way? We had to immerse ourselves 360° in a world alien to us, discovering the keys to understanding that would give us the possibility to understand everything that was happening around us.
Although each group only spent a week with us, the experience of an SCT workshop and the discussion of strong themes often linked to personal stories about irregular migration contributed to the creation of intense bonds between the participants. Their commitment to building the Community Celebration all together was proof of this.
The final events – the parade and the Community Celebrations – were moments full of exchanges and fun: faces, music, unexpected encounters, improvised dances on the doorsteps of houses, curious and screaming children, the scent of berberè, sips of tej, folk dances, steaming coffee, braziers full of incense and shared bread. We too humbly offered a gift, of what we can and know how to do: a short acrobatic performance and singing… completely improvised!
In Bistima, due to various bureaucratic obstacles, we had much less time to do everything: in just one week we managed to bring home two workshops and a final event that, although not organized, was miraculously successful.
Ethiopians enjoy making you one of them and the more curious you show yourself, the more they teach you, between a laugh and a handful of popcorn. So, on our last day, during the community celebration, they crowned us queens of coffee, with the task of receiving the blessing on the steaming drink in front of us. Fatima, meanwhile, suggested the right words to say while Amed, a failed comedian, blessed the coffee with a smile under his mustache.
After drinking and eating, we abandoned ourselves to a bath of hugs. They asked us: “don’t forget us”. Even if we wanted to, forgetting them and what Africa and all its contradictions have taught us so far would be an undertaking.
