Lidetay. My Birthday.

Balloons were hung, banners were printed, and food was prepared. 5:30pm finally rolled around and I was finally ready for my cross-cultural birthday celebration.  I was very excited to entertain Ethiopians in my house for the first time, although it took me a while to finally decide to host this celebration.  About a week before my 23rd birthday I was still debating whether I should stress over having a party or if I should simply open the presents I received in the mail and sing the birthday song to myself.  The day before my birthday I finally made the decision to have the party, a sign that this was no American gathering.  I simply walked around town visiting my best friends to verbally invite them with just a 24-hour notice.

There are so many cultural things that need to be explained in order to even begin to understand the events that unfolded on the evening of July 7th in my tiny little house.  First, Ethiopians only celebrate children’s birthdays until about the age of seven.  Birthday celebrations then consist of having a coffee ceremony, serving a massive bread, sometimes there is an attempt at cake, and a big candle in the shape of the age is lit.  My tutor, Binium, had been helping me prepare my event, and in his mind I should wear Ethiopian traditional clothes, and have a coffee ceremony for my guests.  Well, my thinking is that I wanted to share an American birthday celebration with Ethiopians, not simply replicate their traditions. I finally compromised and decided to have my neighbor help me prepare a coffee ceremony, I would wear American clothes, and serve American snacks.

All nine other people in my compound were invited, along with about eight of my close friends from Dangila, making me cringe as I started thinking about where everyone would sit, or even stand, in my small house.  Ethiopians tend to cycle in and out during coffee ceremonies, so I figured things would just work themselves out.  5:30 comes and goes as I await my guests.  The children from my compound made themselves at home on my sofa and began snacking on the food, but other guests had yet to make an appearance.  Finally, Binium shows up around 6pm, and by 6:30pm the guests started overflowing off my three-person sofa and one additional chair.  Everyone made themselves at home, and began drinking the kool-aid I mixed up; along with a small variety of American food I had recently received in the mail (THANK YOU CINDY + FRIENDS!).

The one problem was that the guests started asking if there was going to be a coffee ceremony, and the neighbor, Billie, who told me she would help, had not shown up.  After a while Binium took the initiative to go to my neighbor’s house to borrow the coffee ceremony supplies, and he started preparing the coffee himself.  By this time the guests were getting antsy and we did not want to start roasting beans from scratch, and instead opted to use the already roasted and ground beans I had prepared several weeks ago.  I use a coffee grinder to grind my coffee though, making the coffee powder rather coarse, as opposed to the fine powder that comes from grinding it by hand.  This is not a problem when I prepare coffee for myself with a small tealeaf filter, but in the traditional jabena used for the ceremony it created a problem in getting the beans inside, and also added big chunks of coffee grinds to each cup.  After the first round of coffee (there are usually three) it was mutually decided to end the coffee ceremony.  I would boil it down to just about the worst coffee ceremony ever.  I served delicious cupcakes though which I think made up for it, and I lit mine with candles to show that American tradition.  Overall, it was a fun party and because I am a ferengi, all mistakes are overlooked.

As soon as the first eight guests file out of my compound, my house quickly fills again for round two!  I had overlooked the fact that Ethiopians cycle in and out, so my compound-mates were awaiting sofa space it seems.  Billie apologized for not performing the coffee ceremony as promised, because her helper girl that takes care of the baby suddenly went back to her family that afternoon without warning.  I guess it is the American equivalent of having your babysitter cancel at the last minute, topped with the Ethiopian cultural norm of indirect communication, which resulted in me not knowing what the problem was until hours after the coffee ceremony had been planned to begin.

I still opened presents alone and ate way too many cupcakes by myself, but I am glad I decided to host a party.  I think in order to teach anyone about American culture here I have to be willing to make a fool of myself, which is easily accomplished.  I am happy that I stepped outside of my comfortable zone and opened my house to an overwhelming amount of Ethiopians. I think I learned more about Ethiopian hospitality and was able to share American traditions too!