Jebna

My roommate and I went to visit some of our friends in our new town. We got there about 2 pm and knew we would have to stay and eat lunch, which is usually fine with us. However, we actually only knew the dad and when we got there the dad left us in the women's room with the women of his family. That's normal and just fine, except that conversation with these girls was like pulling teeth. So the first 3 hours of the visit we spent just kind of sitting there and staring at each other.

After we ate lunch then we had to sit and drink jebna with them because that's just what you do. Jebna is a type of coffee. Basically you start with the fresh beans, roast them yourself over an open fire, then grind them with a stick or rock, then mix them in water and heat it over the open fire. Then fill your glass half with sugar and pour in the unfiltered coffee. It's really pretty gross, at least I think so, but it's what they do out here and there's no getting out of it. Anytime you visit anyone you are obligated to drink 3 cups of this stuff.

We were pretty tired of just sitting there and staring at each other but these girls just wouldn't talk and we couldn't leave until after the 2 hour jebna ordeal, so I came up with something to fix the problem. When the daughter brought out the coffee fire and table I just had a seat and told her that I was going to make the jebna...that she had never had 'white-folk' jebna and this was her chance. Since I'm the foreigner I can do weird things like this, they already think I'm strange just b/c I'm white so why not play that up?!?

So I made the jebna. I've seen it done quite a few times but never really paid attention so it didn't take long for the girl to figure out that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. She helped a lot and, in the end, it tased just like it was supposed to, absolutely disgusting!!!

At some point in the middle of all this the neighbors heard all the commotion and came over. At the end of the evening we had quite a party going on. Between me making the 'white folk' jebna and my roommate speaking the 5 words of Bedouit she knew (the local tribal language), we made for a good show. BUT, they all opened up, we talked for a long time and they just absolutely loved us.

So I guess if I wanted to sum up my time in the new city up to this point, I could say that I've spent the last 6 weeks making a fool of myself, trying anything and everything just to get these women to talk to me. The jebna was my first really successful attempt (meaning that until now I've just been looking like an idiot alot without making any progress) but now I know the secret. From now on I'm just gonna be the crazy white jebna lady!