An immersion in the african culture: sharing a traditional diner with an ethiopian family without knowing how to do it

Résumé du document

When I received the instructions for this paper about a diversity experience, I was excited to discover something new but was, at the same time, quite embarrassed as well, because I did not know at all what kind of experience I would be able to lead and whether I would be able to find an interesting idea or not. I wondered a lot and finally decided to discover a new culture: the African culture. I have always been very interested in discovering other cultures, and when I travel around the world, I really enjoy learning about habits, cultures and ways of life of the inhabitants of the countries. What I like most, and even love, is to discover the way of eating of the natives. I think that seeing what people eat, when they eat and how they eat always reveals many things about the culture of these people. That is why I decided, for this diversity experience, to share a dinner with people from a different culture that I don't know much about: the Ethiopian one.

Extraits

[...] I don't know if I will be able to keep patience and serenity being the only one in a difficult situation. And they will probably laugh at me (especially the children) because I don't know how to do with the food for example. But I'm also very impatient and excited, because it's always great to be in a difficult situation, and it's a real challenge for me. Experience report When I arrived at their apartment, and knocked on the door, I was really stressful. [...]

[...] When they knew that my friend wanted to discover their culture years ago, they welcomed her very friendly and invited her to a traditional Ethiopian diner. She told me that time about this wonderful experience, quite disturbing but very interesting and surprising. That's why I thought that living the same experience could be something great for me in the frame of this diversity class. Since I'm going to be back in France for my brother's wedding, I asked my friend to introduce me to them and to ask them if it was possible to share a diner with them. [...]

[...] I was also quite pleased to see that my previous ideas about how the family would act toward me were wrong: they were not disdainful at all, not judging me negatively, and they were very nice with me. They were laughing but never in a rude way, and I was really happy to have had wrong stereotypes about a family I didn't know before. This experience was really rewarding and I realized that being the only one who doesn't know what to do or how to do something is something really scaring and really uncomfortable. [...]

[...] An immersion in the african culture: sharing a traditional diner with an ethiopian family without knowing how to do it Frame and expectations When I received the instructions for this paper about a diversity experience, I was at the same time excited to discover something new but quite embarrassed as well, because I didn't know at all what kind of experience I would be able to lead and whether I would be able to find an interesting idea or not. [...]

[...] But I was really pleased to be in an understanding family because they took the time to explain me that I was wrong and that I shouldn't use my left hand. Then, the diner finished in a very peaceful atmosphere and I didn't do any other mistake concerning the way of eating tradition Ethiopian food. But I gave another opportunity for the family to laugh, because the Doro Wot was very spicy, too much spicy for me! So I became to redden, to sweat and even to cry, because of the strength of the spices. [...]