040-069_200_CM_CR.qxp
12/2/11
10:41 AM
Page 56
★ People ★
TIM JOHNSON
mequanent berihun
Food and family IF YOU’VE EVER DINED at the Blue Nile, an Ethiopian restaurant just north of the Ohio State University campus, you’ve undoubtedly heard some version of this refrain: “Hello, sister, brother, how are you?” The welcoming man at the door is Mequanent Berihun, and for more than 15 years, he and wife Meaza have served traditional food from their native Ethiopia: spicy vegetable and meat dishes atop injera, a flat, sourdough-like bread. Growing up in Ethiopia, he never imagined this life for himself. But in 1984, Berihun, then a university student, left his war-torn home for Sudan, where he and his friends “did whatever work we found,” he says. Five years later, he resettled in Chicago; two and a half years after that, his wife and daughter, Sefanit, joined him. In Chicago, Berihun attended pharmacy classes and worked at his aunt’s restaurant, but with a second child on the way, they moved in 1993 to Columbus, where Meaza had relatives. Soon, Berihun realized his family’s needs and his long absence from school made it too difficult to continue his education. He worked as a parking lot attendant and a taxi driver to make ends meet before deciding to open a restaurant. After a little over a year at an east-side location— and with loans from friends and family—Berihun relocated his 56
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business to Old North Columbus in early 1996. Within a year and a half, he’d paid off his debts. “And then I was free,” he says, a grin overtaking his face. The days are long—Berihun typically arrives at the Blue Nile at 10 a.m. to prepare for lunch and works until dinner ends at 10 p.m.—and they are many: The restaurant is open six days a week, and Berihun is there for each of them. He sometimes wonders what life would have been like had he continued his pharmacy studies. But, “I am a Christian . . . and I believe that the way something goes is the will of God, so I accept it the way it is,” he says. The Berihuns have become U.S. citizens; Sefanit, now 22, is in her final year of college, studying chemical engineering, middle child Fassil is 18, and the youngest, Zelalem, is 8. Berihun last traveled to Ethiopia in 2000, and he says he doesn’t expect to return any time soon. The political situation remains troubled; genocide, famine and racism run deep. Still, Berihun says, the relationships he’s built at the Blue Nile help keep him going. “One thing that makes me motivated is the people. . . . Some people say, ‘How come you always smile? Do you have sad days?’ I do, but this is what makes me forget the sadness.” —Jennifer Wray