Khadro, Somali chef

PDX Global Eats is a dinner and benefit for The Refugee Center Online, (RCO) an organization that serves refugee students (in forty-six languages) in imaginative ways (see the link if you’re interested). The site is a clearinghouse for information of all kinds, originally designed for students but now also serving adults in students’ families.

Khadro Abdi was one of the refugee chefs who catered the dinner. She brought Somali bread and sambusas (similar to samosas) with homemade sauces. The other chefs came from  Nepal, Iraq, Cuba, and the Hmong culture of Southeast Asia. 

Tickets were $30 for dinner and drinks, and the money all went to the RCO. Sue and I attended as guests of Tricia Zigrang, who started a companion website called Refugee Volunteer Organization (RVO) which offers information for people who are not refugees but want to volunteer to support refugees in various ways. Both websites had just gotten up and running when the election happened and refugees stopped coming into Portland. Fortunately a good number had arrived before the gates were closed, and many of us are doing the little we can to welcome those who are here and to resist the ban on immigrants and refugees.