Short, staunch and always with a mischievous twinkle in her eye is how you will find her. An endearing character who can talk your ears off (an ethiopian characteristic), infectious humour and laugh, smart (turned one part of her house into an adjoining guesthouse which gives the family decent consistent money to live off), an educated woman with good english. I miss her wisdom, wit and charming character.
I have so many fond memories of this woman!!
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| Maza |
"Keeeem!!" The daily endearing cry of Maza calling out my name, usually to drink *buna with her.
For nine months in 2012, I lived in a quaint guesthouse adjoined to Maza and her family's main house in their tiny compound containing a small front porch and outside kitchen in Gerji - a subcity in Addis Ababa (the capital city of Ethiopia).
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| Maza and her family top left-right: Seble and Twaris bottom left-right: Jonny and Maza |
A good way to fully embrace the culture and local people, in this case Ethiopians, is to live in close proximity to the people; to hear amharic, to ride the public transport, to witness their blessings and struggles, to immerse in the deep-imbedded social ways and to get a good understanding of a functioning family.
- After Zumba some days I would buy meat from the butcher and Maza would cook us *tibs and we would gobble it up with freshly-made injera followed by buna. I cherished those times with her.
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| Tibs and Injera a traditional and delicious ethiopian meat dish |
- I remember when I was pregnant in my first trimester suffering from extreme nausea and heightened smell and the strong smell of cooked onions and *berbere that Maza and the girls never failed to cook everyday was nauseating...not just once in a while but every. single. day. 2-3 times daily!!
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| Our engagement - hosted by Maza and her family, Nov 2013. From left to right: Myself, Jonny, Yonas and Maza |
- Our engagement at their house with Maza, Jonny, Twaris and Seble. They graciously hosted us with traditional food and drinks. Maza and the girls made this huge traditional round bread made for special occasions, appropriately named 'Diffo dabbo' meaning 'big bread' in amharic; all the traditional dishes for special occasions i.e doro wat (chicken stew), tibs (chunks of meat cooked in spices), vegetarian dishes and of course freshly homemade injera. So much love went into this meal....Delicious!!!
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| Traditional Ethiopian food and drinks Maza and the girls prepared for our engagement |
Video of me washing coffee beans with Maza and Twaris in the compound.
- Maza taught me how to prepare and serve an Ethiopian coffee ceremony for my 31st birthday, right from buying the green beans at our local shop, cleaning, roasting, grinding to serving. I practised preparing and serving many times before I was happy and ready for my big coffee-making debut. Even now, while I await my return to Ethiopia whilst living in New Zealand, I prepare and serve Ethiopian coffee the traditional way for my husband and I every Saturday and Sunday. It's my way of keeping in touch with the country I miss so dearly.
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| Collection of moments from my 31st birthday at my place in Maza's compound top left-right: Cake!; Maza providing me moral support during my birthday coffee ceremony (I was extremely nervous because I wanted to get it just right!) bottom left-right: serving coffee; traditional dress |
- Power would go out often and I would light a candle and have my dinner outside on the little concrete front porch that adjoined the main house and my place. Sometimes the girls would join me and we would gossip and talk nonsense, under the moon and stars.
- Practising my zumba tracks and dancing Eskista with Maza and the girls. Learning Amharic. Seble would help me translate popular Ethiopian songs that I loved into english so I could understand what they were singing about. I particularly loved Fiorina by Teddy Afro and Helen Berhe.
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| Twaris clearing hail from the front porch of the compound. |
The energy in Maza and her family's compound was lively, spirited and affectionate and they lived simply in contentedness and humble abundance. What a blessed human experience I had spending nine intimate months with them.
*buna = coffee in amharic
*tibs = a traditional and popular meat dish
*berbere = spicy Ethiopian spice
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