I have stopped eating cake for breakfast. This happened quite a while ago actually. The main reason was that when power outages were occurring seemingly every other day the small café where I had my cake didn’t have power. Thus no hot beverages. Since I couldn’t get my morning tea or shai there I switched to a café right next to door to my office. This café runs their coffee machine on gas so no power, no problems. I ended up liking this café better so even now with power back (almost) everyday I never returned to the old one. This new café had a smaller selection of cakes. In fact they really only had donuts. So I started having a chocolate glazed donut with my tea. Then one day I saw someone eating some fried bread concoction. It caught my fancy and I inquired about it. It is called malawa and I am told is an Arabic food item as opposed to Ethiopian. I decided to start eating malawa.
The transition to malawa wasn’t easy. The waitress at this café speaks and understands very limited English. During my first visits, to make things as easy as possible I asked for shai and just pointed to the donut on display. She was used to me having shai and a donut every morning. Now I wanted to switch up and for days in a row I would order “Shai and malawa” but always got a donut. The shai was always good though.* I asked a guy at work whether she can be confusing my pronunciation of malawa for whatever a donut is called. No way, I was told. To add to this constant miscommunication is the fact that their menu is entirely in Amharic so pointing to what I wanted was a no-go as I can’t read Amharic. I think she was just so used to me eating donuts that she wasn’t really listening to anything I was saying.
This difficulty in getting an order of malawa culminated one rainy morning. I noticed that the bin the donuts are usually kept in was empty. I ordered my shai and malawa figuring that she would realize that I know there was no donuts and by saying malawa she would know I was talking about something other than donuts. But then she went and spoke to another worker and they both kept looking over at me.** Then she grabs an umbrella and goes darting out into the rain. In about 10 minutes she returns with a tray of donuts. Great, now I am sending waitresses out into the rain to fetch me breakfast. At this point I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t want a donut. I just ate it. I just didn’t understand why I couldn’t get me some malawa.
The next morning, after the rainy donut fiasco, I stopped her as she was making her way to the donut tray with a loud “No, No, No.” She looked at me quizzically. “Malawa” I repeated several times. She smiled and said “Malawa?” and then she shook her head while laughing as if to tell me “Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?” We now have an understanding. Thank goodness. The malawa is very tasty. Better than the cake or the donut. I don’t even have to order anymore. I walk in, she smiles at me, I smile back, I nod my head affirming her unspoken question of my breakfast. She places in the order. It seems so simple now.
*Ethiopian tea comes spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and ginger. I think that is what it is spiced with as that is what my discerning taste buds decipher. It is an altogether excellent tea. Another reason to recommend this new café is every time I ordered a shai I received this spiced tea. Other cafes would bring me a teabag of black tea and hot water instead of the spiced variety that I prefer.
**I notice Ethiopian wait staff talk amongst themselves and look conspiratorially over at me after I place an order. It happens all the time. I really don’t like it. One of the listed side effects of the malaria medication I am taking is paranoia so I just chalk up my negative feelings to this as “being on my meds” and try to wipe any thoughts of intended malevolence out of my mind.
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