Unstoppable Grin

• Gene Morris, Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2007

“Ouch! That’s hot!” thought Dagim, as he toddled into the bunna beans roasting on the charcoal burner. The tiny grassed courtyard was surrounded on all sides by high concrete walls but it was the entire world to Dagim, who was just learning to walk.
Mama Negiste, a kind old lady, poured some cold water on Dagim’s stinging leg. Dagim’s huge eyes boggled out of their sockets. “I know what you need Dagimiye,” Mama Negiste whispered affectionately, as she scooped some red powder from the mortar and put it on the tip of the little boy’s tongue. He squealed excitedly with delight, his grin radiating beyond his dimples. Mita-mita, the hottest of peppers, was one of his favourite things.
Dagim was about to discover another magical moment - initiation into the bunna circle. Papa Zowdou was reading on his rickety chair and Lakew and Misrak were sitting on the back seat from a junkyard Mercedes. Tadelich ground mita-mita into powder while Simegn tended the charcoal fire. Dagim was still grinning on Mama Negiste’s lap.
The bunna had been harvested, roasted, pulverised and percolated. Its aroma, mixed with fragrant wafts of frankincense and myrrh, filled the courtyard like a comforting blanket against the cold. Pot raised, Simegn skilfully poured long, thin streams of bunna into miniature cups.
When Mama Negiste’s bunna had cooled, she gave Dagim his first taste. Dagim,s eyes lit up again as the bunna permeated his taste buds. Bunna had just become another of his favourite things. He swooned in the heavenly mita-mita flavoured, bunna-scented bliss.
At that point I awoke from my siesta. Everything had changed. the scenery was different. My name wasn’t Dagim anymore. Not two, I was twelve and lying under a coffee tree, full of brightly coloured beans jumping out of a sky blue background, an Australian sky. I thought, for ten years I have not been allowed to drink coffee because ‘you’re not old enough’.
When a scarlet red coffee bean suddenly dropped onto my cheek, a revelation struck me…I’m not old enough to drink coffee? What nonsense! I was two years old when I was initiated into bunna. Coffee drinking was my heritage, my birth right. I had seen the light.
I knew what I had to do. I collected the best beans to roast on the backyard BBQ. Two rounded stones served to pulverise the beans. I sneaked some sugar and a cup from the kitchen. I let the coffee grounds settle to the bottom of my camping-billy-come-coffee-pot before I poured the magic brew. I didn’t know quantities so I just filled the cup with sugar until no more would dissolve.
The time had come. I breathed in the aroma as I brought the bunna slowly to my lips. Its magic swilled around my tongue and rushed through my body, just like ten years ago. Then I heard Mum’s voice from the house, “who wants a drink?” “No thanks,” I called back, with an unstoppable bunna grin.