dinner

We had cupcakes after work, some friends and I, in honor of my birthday, and ordered one of every flavor of the mini ones. They came on a little glass tray, and my friends stuck a candle in the center one, and the three of us cut them into thirds and tried each one. Later, with a shifted crowd, we sat around a single great tray of Ethiopian food. "Do you want to eat like family or like friends?" the proprietor, B., asked us. "Friends don't know each other well enough to eat off the same plate." We ate like family, and ate it all. The flowers on the metal platter began to appear as we finished the food. It was a classically African platter, the same one on which I have been served chai in Kenya and brochettes in Rwanda and fuul in Southern Sudan. It made me smile.