Doro Wat

Recipe for Doro Wat (Chicken stew)
Cut loads of onions (like 1,5kg), prepare the chicken (kill it, get the feathers of peel the chicken, get the organs out en cut it in pieces, wash it with salt and lemon water, cut 2 big garlics, 0,5-1kg tomato: boil them, peel them and chop into very tiny pieces.
Cook the onion without oil or water, stirring regularly. When soft add plenty of palm oil. Then add berebere, the national spice, (about 200 grams of it and with some garlic) then add water. Boil and add tomatoes. Continue boiling and add chicken. Boil for about 1 hr. Boil 10 eggs, peel them and make little cuts in it: then cook them in some of the wat. At the end add the garlic, some more water and 1/3 cup of rough salt. Add cleared butter with spices (special mixture and curcuma(color)) and at the very end add the eggs to the wat. Let it cool down a bit and serve with…. Injera!
…
So, that is a short version of making Doro wat, the national dish of Ethiopia. We did not eat meat in the past 6 weeks, because in the time before Easter, the Christian population does not eat anything of animal origin, thus no meat, milk or eggs. They do not like to buy meat either and would never kill an animal during this period. But we very much wanted to try Doro wat at least once. So we asked Dr. Agraw, one of the GPs and a Muslim, to buy a Chicken at the market today and one of the pharmacists volunteered to prepare the Doro wat, even though she is a Christian. Dr. Agraw came with the chicken and I killed it (the first animal bigger than a spider I ever killed) and got the feathers and the skin of it. I have always said that if one wants to eat meat, one should be able to also kill the animal that provides the meat. When it came to cutting the chicken's throat, I found it quite scary. Basically because I did not want to make the poor fellow suffer. But Dr. Agraw showed me the exact place and when I started cutting it did not feel strange anymore.
Then Sabele, the girl from the pharmacy, took over. She was clearly thinking I was not doing it the right way. So she took charge of the chicken and in the meantime I chopped all the onions and the garlic. We were busy for at least 3 hours to prepare everything. But it was worth it. It was delicious. We invited all the Muslim co-workers and had a nice dinner all together. Sabele even went to the milk-shop to get some yoghurt for Adrienne, to smoothen her portion, because it was quite spicy. She joined us at dinner, but did not touch the food. We wanted to make some Shiro wat (made from grinded lentils) for her (we learned how to prepare it from Shewaye), but maybe she did not trust our cooking, anyway she preferred to eat some Shiro at her home and just came over for company.
Lovely, to sit all together, have fun, laugh and eat. Later, some other co-workers passed buy and we kept chatting and laughing. It feels very familiar. And people are never offended, when I - usually unwillingly - do something against the Ethiopian rules of social behavior or tradition. For example: I wanted to be polite and walk around with a bowl and a jar to have the people wash their hands, but Zebiba, the OR nurse, insisted in having her hands washed by her son. And it appeared that it was not because I did something wrong, but just that I was too high in social rank to wash her hands. Usually someone of lower rank (younger, less important role in family or at work, poorer…) has to help the one of higher rank to wash his or her hands. The one with the lowest rank has to wash his own hands.
Another example: one day we had a coffee ceremony at the ward. I came somewhat later and when I saw the scene, I wanted to take some pictures. I said I was going back to my room to get the camera, but Dr. David told me to stay. He wanted to get his own camera and could bring mine as well. So I agreed. He left and in the safe-abortion-room, were we held the coffee-ceremony, a murmur started. I did not pay too much attention. But finally one of the midwives asked me, if in my country it was normal to ask someone older to do something. I told her that I would not usually ask, but if it was offered to me (like Dr. David had offered to get my camera) there was no problem accepting it. Well, here this appears to be different: Even so the older person would offer it, I had to decline and make sure to go get my camera myself, because it was impossible to have the older (and more respectable) person, to do this for me.
Of course, like in most countries the Ethiopians appreciate it, that we farenjis adapt to their way of living. But unlike some other countries, they are not generally offended or angry if we do not immediately do everything according to their books. As I told before: Slowely, slowely an egg learns to walk… And farenji eggs sometimes learn especially slowly :-)
Big hug to all of you!
Anna
PS below you find the pictures of our cooking from chicken until dinner and one picture of the teahouse at the hospital.