(Colbinski Chronicles) — I am sitting on an outside patio of a small café enjoying my afternoon macchiato. I am gazing southward down the street for no real reason. As my eyes turn back in front of me I see a few oxen loping slowly down the middle of the street. A few feet behind these lead animals are a whole lot more oxen. They take up the entire street and in their measured ambling they separate themselves around the parked cars on either side, occupying the sidewalk. If I was inclined to do so, and with a bit of effort, I could almost reach out and touch one as it passed by. There must have been 30 – 40 in total. One lone man, brandishing a short, stout stick was running loudly behind them from one side to the other. I imagine him like a gymnastics coach of young girls. Cajoling them to do something they don’t really see the sense of doing and something they normally would never do. The oncoming traffic stops in the face of these beasts although they don’t seem the least bit perturbed by the honking and yelling they are causing. They walk slowly past these metal machines. Behind them traffic is snarled. I crane my neck and can’t see the end of the stopped cars and minibuses. I briefly wonder where these cattle came from and where they are going. But then they are gone from my sight. I return to my macchiato. A few minutes later a donkey comes careening down the sidewalk with a different man in pursuit. Just as they pass the café the man thrusts out an errant hand and grabs hold of the harness and slows the donkey down. With a smile on his face he leads the donkey back in the direction it had come. I figure the oxen scared the donkey into running, as that was the fastest donkey I have seen in Ethiopia. By now my macchiato is finished and so is any animal related excitement. I pay my couple Birr and return to the office.
Fast Food Metamorphosis
(Colbinski Chronicles) — Smaller than cafes and occupying their own niche throughout Addis are the Snack, Juice or Burger places. These places, of which there are a rash of in certain neighborhoods, claim to serve snacks or fast food: juices, burgers, French fries. But everything is made fresh in front of you and, in the laidback Ethiopian way, it takes some time before you receive your order. Not exactly fast.
I found one little place, Cocoon Juice and Burger, that is great. I went there after my first bout with traveler’s illness for a fresh fruit juice and have been a regular customer since. They make a mean fresh juice. Mainly I was I just ordering fruit juice there. This caused me to be exhorted by the manager (possibly owner) to actually eat food. They make a “humburger” which is a burger with a slice of ham added. Really. Not to be confused with their beefburger. So it’s a hamburger with bad English translation but still taken literally. They place a homemade mayonnaise on it, add a grilled bun, along with the typical toppings (no pickles thanks goodness) and you are in business. A friend, who lives on the other side of Addis, recently told me that he heard the best burgers in Addis were made at Cocoon. Making a good burger is rare in Addis and they do make a good one.
It is a small shop, painted with pink trim inside and outfitted with tall tables and uncomfortable blue swivel chairs. It seems to be doing good business. The girls who work there are great and friendly and one, who seems to always be there, has a wonderful smile that greets me every time I enter. (This smile also made me think she was making fun of me for my pronunciation of mango. During my last visit there the power went out just as I arrived. That meant no juice but they still made me a “humburger” as the stove is natural gas. So by candlelight I watched as she prepared my food, smiling wonderfully, the whole time.
Café City Blues
One thing that Ethiopia does not lack is restaurants. They are all over the place, around every bend, and run from small ramshackle to large ramshackle. Actually, there are a lot of good and nice eateries here. Many of differing cuisines and of varying quality. One thing they all share is a distinct lack of napkins. For a culture that eats with its hands, it is certainly chintzy with the napkins.
The traditional or national food places have a more homey and rustic feel and usually include a large outdoor patio area where hungry patrons spill out into the sunlight to enjoy their fare. More modern are the cafes. Addis is rotten with these European style establishments and the Ethiopians have readily adapted the European café culture in that they sit around for hours enjoying a small cup of macchiato or coffee. Oftentimes they just sit in their car in the small parking lot or by the street side curb and drink their coffees. These cafes all seem to be named after cities. Just off the top of my head I have been to or seen London Café, Café Paris, Beirut Snack, and Café Cincinnati. And I keep hearing talk of one named The Parisian Café as the café to visit while in Addis (supposedly this place has the largest parking lot and many days the café is empty inside while the parking lot is full of people drinking coffee in their vehicles.). I can understand London and Paris, possible even Beirut, as it is a capital city of a country, but naming a café after Cincinnati stymies me. The Paris café has pictures of the Eiffel Tower on display, the London Café has some English paraphernalia, (and an aeroplane, for some reason) and the Beirut café has bullet holes (not really). I haven’t seen anything in the Cincinnati Café that reminds me of Cincy. No Venus Flytrap, no Jerry Springer. (Actually, there is a nice framed picture of a steam ship navigating a river by an old stone bridge on a perfect sky blue day. The picture is captioned “Cincinnati” although, having never visited the place I have no idea if that is what Cincy looks like.)
These café’s do have a few national food items on their menu but mostly serve up western style dishes. By western I mean they all serve sandwiches, pasta, a variety of egg dishes, and depending on the size, maybe pizza. The sandwiches are all similar, hamburger, club, etc. but not the same. A huge fluffy roll or small white bread is what is found surrounding modest helpings of whatever has been ordered. Twice, in two different places, I ordered a club sandwich and twice I was given an egg sandwich. At a third place I ordered a club and was served something between three slices of bread but I’m not sure what it was. I am very interested in what constitutes a club sandwich in Ethiopia. (I think it is a mixture or combination of egg salad or chicken salad.) While sitting in a café you see some people just with a coffee or tea drink, others eating national food, others eating western, and others eating western food but like they are eating national food. This is to say that they were eating with their hands.
I observed an Ethiopian family dive into a platter full of spaghetti with nothing but their right hand, which occasionally held some bread. Either they brought the strands straight into their mouth or scooped it up with the bread. Watching this brought back fond memories of me as a youngster, taking the Italian bread from the table, loading hearty amounts of spaghetti on it, making a spaghetti sandwich, and stuffing it into my gaping yaw. I did this over the repeated protestations of my parents. To this day I still enjoy me some spaghetti sandwiches.