Forbidden Fruit Always Tastes the Sweetest

What do you get when you mix a conservative Muslim culture that views alcohol as sinful and untouchable with a former colonial power that has a homeland flowing with wine and champagne? Djibouti! Ironically, there is a ton of alcohol available here even though it is considered by every good Muslim to be 'haram' or forbidden. I think this oddity is mostly due to the large French population here. In fact, we live just down the street from the biggest alcohol store in town. (Thus far, I have only bought juice and pop there, if you are curious.) Usually, the subject of alcohol rarely comes up and if it does, people just say "Oh yes. We don't drink any of that stuff. We are Muslims." Fair enough. There's no need to drink, especially if your culture forbids it.

But this week in my university classes, we have been doing a unit on food and drink, so naturally a topic like this has come up. Our textbook from Europe had several pictures of different foods and beverages, so we spent a class period discussing which food each picture represented. These students are all math and science majors and English is just a required course they have to get through. A few take it seriously, but mostly I am just learning how to teach whoever shows up and how to have fun with them. So when we came to the picture of beer, they all instantly knew what it was. I asked, "So how many of you have tried beer?" They laughed at my joke (because obviously none of them have tried beer and even if they had, surely none of them would fess up to it in front of the entire class) and everyone vigorously shook their heads no. All except for one boy. He was just sitting in the corner watching me with this discreet and self-satisfied smile on his face. I knew instantly what it meant. "So Ibrahim...how about you? Have you ever tried beer?" He tried to feign innocence. "Me, teacher? No, I haven't tried it." But he was grinning like a cheshire cat and I just couldn't resist the opportunity to tease a student. "Yes you have!" I cornered him. "Admit it! I've seen that smile before. I know you've tried beer!" He laughed and finally relented: "Ok, teacher. You are right. But you know...I was in Addis Ababa for holiday...and it was only one time." "I see, so being away from your friends and family, you thought you would just try it out?" "Yes."

Frankly, even though I cornered him, I was quite surprised that this guy was willing to admit to something I'm sure many other Djiboutians have probably done and denied. Of course I had to ask the all-important question: "And what did you think of beer? Did you find it good or bad?" I pretty much expected that he would say something like "Oh it wasn't that great. It's not such a big deal after all." (This was my reaction to my first beer.) Instead, he leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head and smiled as if he were thinking about a beautiful woman. He closed his eyes and said with great conviction "Oh, teacher. It was soooo good." In vain I struggled to hold back an eruption of laughter. Like I said, forbidden fruit always tastes the sweetest.