Ambabur Bed (Somalia)

Big day in our house! Today was Ian's first day in his Hi-5 preschool program. After eagerly packing the backpack and picking out a new school outfit, Ian was off and running as an official student, one who rides the bus and everything. Something we love about Ian's school is the diversity of the student body. Almost 40% of the school is black and 35% Latino, so many of the students are brown like Ian. Many of his classmates are Somali, so tonight in honor of Ian's first day of school and of Eid al-Fitr, which falls today to celebrate the end of Ramadan, I made Ambabur Bed, Somali Egg Crepes, which is a recipe made specifically for this holy day.

For a long time, Ian believed that any brown person he saw was from Ethiopia. Technically that's true for all people, since the origins of humanity have been linked to ET, but that isn't exactly what he understood;) We've slowly been introducing him to concept of race by explaining the different places where brown people can be born and what that means. This is a big idea for a four year old, only complicated by his understanding of adoption! Just recently he asked what country his new cousin, my brother's baby, will be from when it is born in October. I explained the baby will be American and why, yet he still asked what language it would speak and how we all might be able to communicate. He knows so much of the world and what makes a family, but then is limited by the uniqueness that experience.

And the fact remains that many of his classmates are indeed Somalian, from a country right next to Ethiopia. Their journeys to America are much different than his, though they share a complicated history of culture and conflict as neighbors from this corner of the world. Some of that history is quite recent or even ongoing for many members of the Somali community, and I want my son to understand the complexity of the Ethiopian-Somali ties. That will take some time and effort. Today we started with food, soft, warm crepes, rolled tightly and flavored with a healthy amount of clove.

 As I poured the thin batter into my skillet, the rest of the family sat coloring at the kitchen counter, and Ian told us about his day and his classmates. He got to drink juice at school and color a school bus yellow. He made one new friend. One of the boys in his class cried when he had to get on the bus home, and one of the girls  rolled her wheelchair onto a special platform to help her ride on Ian's bus. During his telling, little Suki just demanded his crepes:) There are many different experiences and people that Ian and Suki will encounter in their school days. I hope that we can teach them to be open to how that might enrich their lives and the connectedness that may exist. Ian is certainly ready to get back to school tomorrow, which was made even sweeter by the promise of left over crepes from breakfast in the morning.