Tonight we had a "cultural experience." We were given no hints as to what this would be. We were led into a back room of the International Hope center where there were cushions placed around a white tablecloth on the ground. We were told this was a "home" of two Yemeni sisters. We were given the challenge of trying to fit in with the culture of the "family" in the home and try not to offend anyone by doing something more... American, for lack of a better word.
We watched our hosts walk into the room before us and we tried to mirror what they did. We took our shoes off at the door before walking in and then we took seats on the cushions around the table. For a few minutes, we sat and talked. We still were not quite sure what was going to happen the whole evening. Our hosts explained to us some of their experiences of going into homes of people in the Hamtramck community and trying to do what we were doing, but with the additional challenge of not speaking the same language as the family or only being able to communicate a limited amount.
We began this "cultural experience" at 5pm, for later reference. After a while of sitting and talking, our host left and brought out cups, a jug of water, and a common type of Mango juice in Yemeni homes. We were served the juice and we just sat and drank our juice and talked more. While this is happening, we were also trying to figure out the culture and how to be respectful and not come off as rude (even though we know our hosts fairly well by this point in the trip, but we were pretending as if we had been invited into someone else's home).
After some more time of talking, a tray of different snacks were brought in. We were encouraged to try everything, and I believe everyone did, except for Jack (who apparently has a sensitive stomach, and that was the reason, not because he was scared. Apparently...). The first things we tried was a type of trail mix and two types of chips. Another note I should include is that I do not remember what any of this is called, so if you wanted to know.... sorry. We were also not told the name of the foods or what they were until everyone had tried it.
The trail mix was slightly spicy and the one type of chips were spicy, but the other ones weren't. The next things we were given were these kind of beans, a type of prepackaged wafer, and what looked like a small dark green log. Imagine sticking two pieces of dark green celery together and filling it with chopped dark green celery. That's what it looked like. After trying both of these, we were told the first was a type of beans that you have to take the outer shell off, like an egg, which Emma found out the hard way-she ate a shell. The wafer was a date with a wafer-cakey type thing. Personally, I didn't eat these, because, well, allergies, but I was told that it tasted like chocolate shortcake. The other was a dill wild cucumber, so basically a wild pickle.
After this, we were given olives and these little green things in a small container. The olives were, well, olive, and the other things were capers.
Next was the tea. It was a very sweet minty tea, and it was delicious. It was poured and repoured, which apparently is common and for the purpose of getting more bubbles in the tea and making it more flavorful.
After all this was more talking and laughing, surprise-surprise with this group. We got a break to stand up and stretch since we had been sitting for a while at this point. After maybe 20 more minutes, the main course arrived. We were given plates as pita bread was passed around the table. We were also told that we were allowed to eat with the bread or spoons, nothing else. For the main course, there was lots of rice. We had containers of a hummus like spread made out of eggplants and containers of garlic butter. There was this type of meatballs and onions that was very delicious. There were containers of a dish that had rice on the bottom, then elbow noodles and a sauce on top. There was a large container of cooked chicken, carrots, peppers, and onions.
It's safe to say, the entire meal was delicious and a very eye opening experience to how some cultures eat dinner. I hope you remember what time I mentioned that we started this "cultural experience" because here's where it comes in to play. I checked the time after the meal was over. It was 8pm. We had a 3 hour meal, sitting down on the floor on cushions eating off of a plastic table cloth.
It was a good look into some of the cultures in this community. We learned how it is disrespectful to say no in most of these cultures, so people are often late to other activities because they were having a meal in someone's house. These cultures are so different from our own, but it was so cool to spend a night in someone else's culture.
Jennifer
