A taste of Ethiopia.

Myrtle Beach is stepping it up. We now have an Ethiopian restaurant. After hearing me talk about the wonders of Misir Wat (my favorite lentil dish!), my friend Becca decided she wanted to try it out. Then her parents decided they'd try something new, too. So I then persuaded my parents to have a cultural experience. Thus began our Ethiopian adventure. Pre-dinner, I explained the whole eating with bread without utensils deal, but it was still a bit perplexing to some...

They started out with something everyone was more familiar with. Bread with butter and berbere for dipping. This was quite tasty! (You might notice the picture quality is 1000x better than in the last post. That is thanks to my new camera! Yay!)

Rebecca and I got a vegetarian platter, with the lentils, cabbage, and split peas. I must say, the Queen needs to start serving cabbage, it was delicious! Here's Bec's first taste of injera with lentils.

Our vegetarian platter:

The Sansburys, in the middle of telling a story.

Mis padres, being adventurous. They were game day players. Dad cleaned his plate...mom, not so much.

I don't know that everyone will want to go back for more, as we know, injera is not for everyone. But yay for trying something new!

I also want to point you all, once again, to Ron and Sarah's blog. They are still in Burundi, and are having some truly amazing experiences. One situation that they have been made aware of is the plight of a minority tribe in Burundi, the Twa tribe. They are completely disenfranchised. From what I understand, they are totally landless (they have no money to buy land), it's next to impossible for their children to get an education, and they get an average of two meals per week. The good news? Now they have some advocates.

Because of Ron and Sarah's super slow internet connection, I made a slideshow of their visit with these sweet sweet people and they should be posting it, along with much more information as soon as their internet will let them. Be on the lookout! You should check out their blog anyway, though, because they're pretty great.

*More information on the Batwa situation and what the Gonskis and their friends are trying to do there can be found here.

** Also, here is a video from Brian McLaren's blog about his time with the Batwa...