Goodbye, 2021: Coffee With a Friend. Remembering Birtukan Sinshaw.

A year ago, Bruce and I were about to move from Ethiopia, our home since 2016, to Virginia. In the middle of our preparations, I tested positive for covid. I had only the slightest of symptoms–a telltale fever of 99, a hint of a headache, a bit of GI discomfort. I went to bed for an afternoon and scheduled a test at the clinic the next morning, even though by then I felt completely normal. I went about my (masked and distanced) life as normal, preparing for our farewell events as we packed up to leave Ethiopia. In fact, it was in the middle of our (masked and distanced) farewell party with Mennonite Central Committee staff and partners that I got the call from the lab. I left the party immediately and we scrambled to find a place to stay during quarantine, since the couple who would replace us as Country Representatives for MCC were also staying at our house as they transitioned into our role.

I called a dear friend, Birtukan, who managed a bed and breakfast not far from our home in Addis. She was alarmed at my request: “Are you able to safely host a guest with covid?” And even more alarmed to learn that the patient in question was me! “Ba Yesus sim!” she exclaimed. “Let me think about it and see if it is possible to do it safely.” She graciously made arrangements to have us stay in a self-contained room and brought our meals to a small table outside our door. Bruce would slip out to get the food, and we washed the dishes, rinsed them with bleach, and returned them to the table while never having contact with anyone. Several days later I tested negative and we were able to move back to the US without a hitch.

That was the last time I saw Birtukan. Within the year she had died after contracting covid, despite her precautions. Why did the virus ravage her, and leave me with scarcely a symptom?

Birtukan managed the bed and breakfast partly to help finance the orphanage, Yesalelem Minch, that she had founded with her husband. She herself had grown up as an orphan in Addis, and had been sponsored as a child through World Vision. She spent her life giving back to orphans and vulnerable children in Ethiopia, just as she had been cared for by a North American family when she was in similar circumstances. What of the orphans who attended her preschool next door to our compound in Addis Ababa, who received educational and material support from her and her husband?

That the virus is unfair and divisive is the only thing we can seem to agree on in North America. The rest of the world has yet to receive enough of the vaccine (let alone a booster!) to keep the virus in check and stop it from mutating. And good and selfless people like my friend Birtukan pay the price. My last WhatsApp message from her was on August 6, when we were discussing a possible visit here in Virginia when she hoped to visit her son at Liberty University. I was fully vaccinated and confident that a booster would soon be available and was feeling like life was slowly heading back to normal. Some time later, I saw a missed call from her. I was too busy to call her back. I found out from a mutual friend that she died on Sept. 8, 2021. I didn’t even know that she was sick.

Birtukan gave me an Ethiopian coffee set when she learned we were nearing the end of our contract with MCC and would be leaving. She had an identical one in the china cupboard in the B&B that I had often complimented.

The Ethiopian coffee ceremony is a sacred tradition, a time to build friendships and share confidences. If you are a guest in someone’s home, the hostess or her daughter or another woman in the household will prepare the coffee over a charcoal stove in the living room. It begins with freshly washed green coffee beans roasted in a little pan until smoking. The beans will be offered to the guests who breath in the scented smoke to test the darkness of the roast.

When the beans are roasted to the guests’ satisfaction, they are ground in a mortar and pestle.

The coffee powder is poured into a slender necked clay pot called a jebena and boiled on the charcoal brasier.

When the coffee is ready (as brown as a chicken’s eye), the first cup is served with sugar and often popcorn or kolo, a roasted barley snack.

While the coffee is roasted, ground, and boiled (which can take an hour) the conversation ebbs and flows like the smoke from the charcoal fire and the steam from the jebena. To add to the sensory experience, the hostess places glowing coals on a tiny incense burner and adds sandalwood or frankincense resin, the fragrant smoke curling through the room with the conversation.

More water is added to the pot, and the second round of coffee is brewed from the same grounds. The conversation, and the caffeine, continues.

If you are really good friends, and have a high tolerance for caffeine, there is a third round of coffee. The children are invited to join in this milder coffee session.

And then you go home, your friendships cemented, your brain buzzing on the caffeine and incense, and your whole body full from the good food and conversation.

Thank you Birtukan for what you offered me in hospitality and friendship. The coffee cups you gave me sit in my china cupboard in Virginia, waiting for your visit. I can’t believe you’re gone.