Women's group in Sicily uses traditions of coffee and tea to brew unity amid migrant crisis
“Integration comes through simple gestures, such as sitting next to each other while sharing food and good conversations over a hot cup,” said the founder of the group.
Hosts
of an itinerant, women-led storytelling circle called Tea Time Tales use tea and coffee traditions in working to bridge a divide often created by politics.Jamiel
Law / for NBC News
ByStefania D'Ignoti
CATANIA, Italy — In a kitchen at Isola Quassud, a community center in eastern Sicily’s Catania, Elsa Habte roasts coffee beans on a pan over an open flame, while her daughter Meninet Teferi cuts a himbasha,
an Eritrean sweet bread, into small slices.
“It’s Eritrean coffee time!” Teferi proudly announces to a small audience of curious Italians gathered around her mother and aunt, whose figures blur behind steam from the coffee.
The event is part of an itinerant, women-led storytelling circle calledTea
Time Tales. The hosts use the rituals of tea and coffee, typical of Middle Eastern and African cultures, to get together and tell stories about their traditions and journeys to Italy, bridging a divide often created by politics.