This week on Inside Appalachia, we meet a West Virginia high school student whose love of reading inspired her to bring books to young children. We also check in on people who were displaced by historic flooding in Kentucky. What’s happening now that we’re deep into winter? And we find advice for people navigating the difficulties of caring for aging parents.
This week, we meet a West Virginia high school student whose love of reading inspired her to bring books to young children.
We also check in on people who were displaced by historic flooding in Kentucky. What’s happening now that we’re deep into winter?
And we find advice for people navigating the difficulties of caring for aging parents.
You’ll hear these stories and more this week, Inside Appalachia.
Maybe you’ve heard about food deserts. These are places where there’s little access to fresh food, but there’s another kind of desert in our region that affects the literacy rates of young children. Book deserts are areas where there aren’t libraries or bookstores.
Rania Zuri, a senior at Morgantown High School in West Virginia, is the founder of an organization that provides books to preschool children across the state.
Sit For A Spell In The Story Parlor And Hear A Story
Appalachians love telling stories. Lies, yarns, and good ole fashioned tall tales. In fact, the International Storytelling Center is based in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Just across the state line in Asheville, North Carolina, a young family is cultivating another place for people to gather to share stories. Matt Peiken at Blue Ridge Public Radio reports.
How To Help Manage Legal Issues For Aging Parents
Helping aging parents can involve a lot more than getting them to the doctor, church and the grocery store. It might mean managing their checkbook, their bills and their treatment.
WVPB News Director Eric Douglas explores care giving in “Getting Into Their Reality: Caring For Aging Parents.” He recently spoke with Franki Parsons, a lawyer who specializes in legal and estate planning.
Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony Brings People Together In Moorefield, WV
Moorefield, West Virginia is home to about 3,300 people – about 1 in 10 are immigrants. That includes a small community from Eritrea and Ethiopia. Many work at the chicken processing plant in town, Pilgrim’s Pride. The hours are long and don’t leave much time for socializing. Still, members of that East African community continue to practice a tradition they’ve brought from home: the coffee ceremony.
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Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert. Other music this week was provided by The Company Stores, Hillbilly Gypsies, Watchhouse, Long Point String Band and Ona.
Bill Lynch is our producer. Our executive producer is Eric Douglas. Kelley Libby is our editor. Our audio mixer is Patrick Stephens. Zander Aloi also helped produce this episode.
You can send us an email at InsideAppalachia@wvpublic.org.
A German packaging manufacturer is investing $48 million in a plant in West Virginia and expects to create 100 jobs in Moorefield, officials said.
A German packaging manufacturer is investing $48 million in a plant in West Virginia and expects to create 100 jobs in Moorefield, officials said.
Papier-Mettler acquired an industrial building in May for the company’s first U.S. production plant, according to a news release Monday from Gov. Jim Justice and the state Department of Economic Development.
The company manufactures packaging from paper and plastic and is one of the leading makers of flexible packaging in Europe, the release said. Papier-Mettler has also pioneered sustainable packaging alternatives in the industry for years, officials said.
The family-owned business employs about 5,000 people in 16 countries and operates a sales office in Raynham, Massachusetts.
On this West Virginia Morning, a new West Virginia board game combines the Mountain State’s resident monsters and some favorite dishes. Also, in this show, we meet a woman who has been serving up traditional Honduran and Salvadoran food at her restaurant in Moorefield.
On this West Virginia Morning, a new West Virginia board game combines the Mountain State’s resident monsters and some favorite dishes. Also, in this show, we meet a woman who has been serving up traditional Honduran and Salvadoran food at her restaurant in Moorefield.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from West Virginia University, Concord University, and Shepherd University.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
Moorefield, West Virginia, is home to about 3,300 people — about one in 10 are immigrants. That includes a small community from Eritrea and Ethiopia. Many of them work at the chicken processing plant in town, Pilgrim’s Pride. The hours there are long and don’t leave much time for socializing. Still, members of that East African community continue to practice a tradition they’ve brought from home: the coffee ceremony. Folkways reporter Clara Haizlett brings us this story, with help from former West Virginia state folklorist Emily Hilliard.
Trihas Kefele, a native of Eritrea, is one of the many immigrants who live in Moorefield, West Virginia and work at Pilgrim’s Pride, a chicken processing plant in the small town. Although Moorefield, West Virginia has just about 3,300 residents, around one in 10 are immigrants—including Kefele’s small community from Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Due to long shifts at the factory, members of the community don’t have much time for socializing. But in their free time, they continue to practice a ritual that is custom to their region of East Africa—the traditional coffee ceremony.
On a Sunday—Kefele’s day off—she invited a group of friends and family to a coffee ceremony at her home. Incense and candles perfumed her small apartment, along with the smell of roasting coffee beans.
Courtesy Emily Hilliard
Spices used to prepare coffee.
Kefele sat apart from the guests at a low table that was used to prepare the coffee, stirring the green coffee beans on a single-burner electric stove. She wore a floral dress and a wooden cross around her neck.
On the floor beneath her was a green mat, decorated with strips of plastic that look like grass.
“It just makes it look special, like you’re welcoming the guests,” said Kelefe’s teenage son, Finan, translating for his mom.
Three paper plates were lined up on the mat, each filled with a different colorful snack. On another table, fruit, homemade bread, and chilled drinks were artfully arranged. The ritual obviously took time to prepare, with each detail carefully arranged in anticipation of the guests’ arrival.
Women typically perform the ceremony, which can take up to two hours and involves multiple steps—from roasting the raw beans to serving fresh coffee individually to each guest.
Courtesy Emily Hilliard
Trihas Kefele Pours Coffee For Guests.
The coffee ceremony isn’t just for special occasions. Among family and friends, it’s a common pastime that involves sharing coffee and food, listening to music, and just enjoying each other’s company.
“You cannot just make coffee by yourself,” said Azeb Mekonnen, a guest originally from Ethiopia. “You call people. That’s how it’s fun.”
Mekonnen explained that the tradition is passed down by family matriarchs.
“My mom learned it from my grandmother and my grandmother learned it from her mom,” she said.
A couple of years ago, Kefele began teaching her 14-year-old daughter, Nebiat, how to make coffee, even though she’s lived most of her life in the U.S.
“I just watched my mom do it and I just learned from it,” Nebiat said.
Now, every evening, Nebiat makes coffee for her parents before they work the night shift at Pilgrim’s.
Courtesy Emily Hilliard
Cups and Plates Used in Coffee Ceremony.
The poultry plant is what brought Kefele and her family to West Virginia. Before coming to Moorefield, they lived in a rural part of Eritrea, farming vegetables. More than 10 years ago, they decided to leave their home and immigrate to the United States.
“We wanted to have a better life, better freedom and my dad was the first one to come here,” said Kefele’s son, Finan.
Kefele stayed behind with their children until her husband got settled. Their migration process was long and difficult. But after five years of separation, the family was reunited in the U.S. Now they’re all in Moorefield.
“It’s good and free… and it’s also free of violence,” said Kefele. “It’s always safe here.”
Kefele and her husband both work at Pilgrim’s Pride. Her job is to cut and debone chickens. She works long hours and it’s hard work—even harder, she says because of the language barrier. She mainly speaks Tigrinya.
“Whenever you go to work, you struggle with English a lot,” said Kefele as her son translated. “Even out of work, out of your house, you go somewhere, you struggle.”
Kefele hopes that learning English will make her life in Moorefield easier. So after each night shift, she comes home, showers, and goes directly to a 9 a.m. English class at an adult learning center.
It’s hard to make friends with native English speakers, she said, but the classes offer a chance to build community with immigrants from other parts of the world who are also learning English. They’ve even done coffee ceremonies together as a class.
“Everybody that goes in that class is her friend right now, ” said Finan.
Courtesy Emily Hilliard
Guests Socializing at Coffee Ceremony
The coffee ceremony also plays an important part in maintaining social ties within their East African community in Moorefield, where Mekonnen said there aren’t many outlets for leisure activities.
Mekonnen, who worked for eight years at the Pilgrim’s plant, said her life in Moorefield has primarily consisted of work, spending time with family, and more work. There’s not much else to do.
“Maybe you go Walmart; where can you go?” she said. “Maybe you go somewhere in Ponderosa or somewhere here, you know?”
For Kefele, who comes from a small village in Eritrea, rural life hasn’t been such a big adjustment. But Mekonnen is from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, and lived in Atlanta, Georgia, before coming to Moorefield.
When Mekonnen gets the chance, she goes over the mountain to cities in Virginia like Winchester and Harrisonburg, where she can find ingredients from East Africa, like green coffee beans. She said the coffee ceremony helps alleviate some of the tedium of her life here.
“Like get together like this and make coffee—I love that,” Mekonnen said.
Mekonnen often hosts her own coffee ceremonies, but that Sunday she was a guest – sharing snacks, coffee and conversation at Kefele’s home in downtown Moorefield.
After roasting the beans and brewing the coffee, Kefele moved around the room with her coffee pot, serving each guest. She poured the coffee from up high into little espresso-like cups.
The coffee was strong and sweet. It tasted of cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger, which Kefele ground and stirred together with the beans.
As Mekonnen sipped her coffee, she explained the coffee ceremony’s significance in her community in Moorefield.
“With ceremonies you think you are back there still. Your mind go back there,” she said. “So we feel like we are back home.”
On Monday, Kefele and most of her guests would be back at work at the chicken plant. But for that hour or two, her living room was full of guests and conversation, fueled by coffee and the warmth of hospitality.
This story is part of the Inside Appalachia Folkways Reporting Project, a partnership with West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Inside Appalachia and the Folklife Program of the West Virginia Humanities Council. The Folkways Reporting Project is made possible in part with support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation. Subscribe to the podcast to hear more stories of Appalachian folklife, arts, and culture.
In a virtual press conference Friday, Gov. Jim Justice said members of the National Guard would be sent to Moorefield to respond to testing needs at Pilgrim’s Pride, a chicken processing plant that’s the largest employer in the county.
Testing at the Pilgrim’s Pride plant of about 940 workers in Moorefield will occur on every shift, Hardy County sheriff’s office spokesman David Maher said in a news release. The office is handling media requests for the health department.
“We appreciate the ongoing cooperation of Pilgrim’s Pride and the many folks in our community that work in the processing plant,” said Hardy County Health Department administrator William Ours in a prepared statement. “We have a shared goal of keeping everyone healthy and ensuring the ongoing safe operation of our food processing facilities.”
Pilgrim’s Pride spokeswoman Nikki Richardson said in a statement that workers at the plant will have a “choice” to be tested.
“The health and safety of our team members remains our highest priority. We have implemented a wide of [sic] range of measures at our facility to combat coronavirus,” Richardson said. “Today, every Pilgrim’s facility temperature checks 100 percent of the workforce before they enter a facility. We also provide and require face masks to be worn at all times on company property.”
She also said the company will not punish workers for not coming into work for health reasons.
The sheriff’s office spokesman, David Maher, said he thinks there “were a few cases related to the plant” but he did not elaborate, and Pilgrim’s won’t say either.
Richardson said some Pilgrim’s Pride employees across the U.S. have tested positive for COVID-19, but that “out of respect for the families, we are not releasing further information.”
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Hardy County jumped from three on April 27 to 16 as of Monday morning, according to DHHR’s coronavirus tracker and the Hardy County Health Department’s Facebook page.
Meat processing plant workers are an especially vulnerable population during this crisis. Thousands of workers have tested positive for the coronavirus at meat processing plants across the country leading to the closure of some plants and prompting meat shortages.
Gov. Jim Justice requested the tests at the Moorefield plant, which remains open.
“We’re going to do some extensive testing there and try to nip that in the bud and stop it as fast as we possibly can in order to be able to keep that plant moving,” Justice said Friday.
Additionally, the National Guard will also be helping the local Hardy County Health Department with contact tracing and recommendations for self-isolation.
At least 54 people in West Virginia have died from the virus and 1,366 have tested positive, according to DHHR on Monday morning.
For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause severe illness or death. For most people, it causes mild or moderate symptoms that clear up in two to three weeks.
For more than a decade, more than 100 migrant and refugee families from countries like Myanmar (formerly Burma), Vietnam, Ethiopia, Guatemala and others have come to Moorefield, West Virginia.
They’ve done so to work at Pilgrim’s Pride – a large poultry plant that is Hardy County’s biggest employer with 1,700 workers.
For the past six months, 100 Days in Appalachia reporter Anna Patrick has been working on two stories exploring Moorefield’s growing migrant and refugee population.
Her stories take a deep dive into Moorefield’s poultry industry and discusses what a typical workday is like for employees at Pilgrim’s Pride.
