Posts tagged chicken

Tomorrow is the Ethiopian New Year, and everyone is abuzz with preparations. They don’t do the countdown to midnight thing here (the day starts at 6am, so that’s either a really long party or too early to get up on a holiday) — the Ethiopian New Year is all about food, specifically doro wot, the national dish.

The population of chickens in town peaked yesterday, market day — just about every person leaving the market had a chicken tucked under his or her arm, like a living, squawking clutch. This morning, the chorus of roosters announcing their presence was even louder than usual. Just this very moment, I helped(?) my neighbors capture a rooster that was running around the compound in the rain. I’ve already received an invitation from my neighbors to partake in some doro wot with them tomorrow. I would feel much worse for the roosters if (a) they weren’t so darn tasty and (b) they didn’t wake me up this morning.

While chatting with an acquaintance last week, he started to say, “When you marry a habesha woman —” I laughed, and interrupted him. “When I marry a habesha woman?” “No, I mean, not you, but you,” he amended, gesturing around him. He plowed through my sassiness, and started again: “When a man marries a habesha woman, it doesn’t matter what she looks like, it just matters if her doro wot is good.”

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On a different, more serious note, today is the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and, given the threats and warnings of another terrorist attack, I’m a little nervous for family and friends back home in DC and New York. I’ll be thinking about you today, a little anxiously, but hoping that some combination of luck, intelligence, and vigilance will thwart any plot. It’s strange being awake long before most of you in a place where the anniversary isn’t on anyone’s radar, surrounded by the bustle of preparations for a new year. Anyway, I’m sending out all my love.