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3:51

There were two driving forces that led Hamisi

3:53

and Nadia Mamba to start their restaurant Bawabab

3:56

Fair a few years after he arrived in

3:58

Detroit. The first being that they were weren't

4:00

so into the food scene.

4:02

Second, Detroit is

4:04

more than 75% black. Why

4:06

we have black people and we don't have

4:08

African food?

4:10

Detroit's African food scene exists, but

4:12

the African food that is there is mostly

4:14

Ethiopian or West African. Hamisi

4:16

missed the food that was more familiar to him.

4:19

And though he wasn't a professional chef back in Burundi,

4:21

he still remembered what he learned from his mom. And

4:24

Nadia was also a great cook. Chef Mamba

4:26

actually tells me he thinks she's the better

4:28

cook of the two. So with their combined ability,

4:31

plus the skills he learned back in business school in

4:33

Burundi, Hamisi and Nadia Mamba

4:35

decided they'd go into business together and open

4:37

up an East African restaurant. They

4:39

leased the storefront on a corner in the vibrant

4:42

business district in the heart of Detroit, called

4:44

New Center. Not far from the Fisher

4:47

Building, couple blocks from Motown.

4:51

And when Chef Mamba and Nadia started to design

4:53

the place, they made it a priority to include

4:55

nods to their homeland of Burundi and

4:58

also their new home of Detroit. If

5:00

you see, if you come in the restaurant, the floor

5:03

and the roof and the ceiling,

5:06

it's very, very Detroit-er, right?

5:08

It's very Detroit-er industrial.

5:11

And then the ambiance is

5:14

contemporary African design. You

5:17

know, you have the color, you have

5:19

the flashy yellow

5:22

colors, the chairs are flashy yellow.

5:25

You know, if you go to Africa, that's what you see,

5:27

everybody have those flashy colors. And

5:30

once you're in there, the menu is entirely East

5:32

African. They got dishes like entore

5:35

and eggplants stew served with peanuts, dude,

5:37

spinach and spiced rice pilau and

5:39

samaki, which is this fried fish plate

5:41

with fried plantains, sauteed onions, stewed

5:44

yellow beans and coconut rice. Yeah,

5:47

their whole menu sounds that good.

5:50

But then there's the name, Bawabab Fair.

5:52

It represents the journey Chef Mamba and Nadia

5:55

took to get to this point. So Bawabab

5:57

is a tree and this tree growing. desert

6:00

area without water. And this tree

6:03

is very useful. The bio-bab

6:05

is nicknamed the tree of life. The tree grows

6:08

throughout the African savannah and can be as tall

6:10

as a hundred feet with a circumference that can

6:12

land around there also. The tree is

6:14

essential to the savannah ecosystem and

6:16

can help aid nutrient recycling in soil and

6:19

can help keep soil humid. Between its

6:21

bark and its fruit that can sometimes look

6:23

like a mango, the bio-bab tree offers

6:25

uses from indigenous remedies, to

6:27

rituals, to cosmetics. Hamisi

6:32

saw these trees often. He knew their significance,

6:34

but he never thought he'd be uprooted from his homeland.

6:37

As a kid growing up in Burundi's economic capital,

6:39

Bujumbura, life was pretty simple.

6:42

What's Burundi like at that time in the late 80s,

6:44

early 90s? So very, very

6:46

peaceful environment. We

6:49

moved around a lot in Bujumbura, right?

6:51

And then everywhere you go, you see there. It

6:53

was very, very solid

6:56

community putting and working

6:58

together and being together. That is the image

7:00

I have. And play on the streets.

7:04

Try, don't play where you are because everybody

7:06

will wanna watch you and wanna look at,

7:08

you know, go to see what else you're

7:10

doing, make sure they're protecting you.

7:12

Any music everywhere, parties everywhere.

7:17

Samhain's always like party

7:19

everywhere, play on the street.

7:22

For me, the one word I would say was,

7:24

if freedom, I was free. But

7:26

then the social and political climate in Burundi

7:29

started to shift. You see, Hamisi grew

7:31

up a member of the Tutsi tribe. And

7:33

in October of 1993, Tutsi soldiers

7:35

assassinated the newly elected president who

7:38

just so happened to be Hutu, the largest tribe

7:40

in Burundi. This added more attention

7:42

to the already long-standing ethnic divisions

7:45

in the country. A civil war was

7:47

now underway. For

7:49

me, that was a change.

7:51

And, you know, start hearing, like,

7:54

hey, your friends, who you were playing

7:57

with, in the country, you know,

7:59

The elementary school

8:01

is tutti or is utu, so

8:03

you are not the same. You

8:06

know what I'm saying? It's like you are different. It's like,

8:08

no, but that's my homeboy. You know,

8:10

we grow together, we play together. What you're talking

8:12

about? No, they don't live here anymore.

8:16

The war wouldn't officially end until 2005, but

8:19

political turmoil and the tensions angered.

8:24

Five years later, Hamisi met Nadia at

8:26

a mutual friend's house. Nadia was a human

8:28

rights activist in Burundi, and her focus

8:30

was helping kids stay in school despite the political

8:33

and economic hurdles around them. But

8:35

the troubles for the new couple were really

8:37

just beginning. After about three years

8:39

of dating, Hamisi and Nadia applied for

8:41

asylum in the United States. Hamisi

8:44

was denied, but Nadia was approved. She

8:46

went straight from Bujumbura to Detroit,

8:48

Michigan. Nadia

8:50

was alone in Detroit. She didn't speak English and

8:53

didn't really understand the culture. On top

8:55

of that, a few months after she arrived, she

8:58

found out that she was pregnant

9:00

with twins.

9:02

While giving me shelter, right? So

9:04

everything was like, how am I going to do this? The

9:07

only help Nadia could rely on came from an organization

9:10

called Freedom House. They operated the shelter

9:12

she was staying at. Freedom House is a nonprofit

9:15

that works towards progress in a lot of different sectors, from

9:17

press freedoms to government accountability, and

9:20

protecting and aiding asylum seekers.

9:23

Legal supports, roof,

9:26

pool, everything that you need to

9:28

start a new life. Because we don't

9:30

be where we are right now without Freedom House. And

9:32

this house has been there for 40

9:34

years. So you can imagine how many Haitian,

9:37

how many African, how many Lebanese,

9:41

Afghan, Palestinian, how

9:43

many people are going through

9:45

this program. Nadia

9:47

gave birth in 2014. That

9:49

year, Hamisi was denied asylum again.

9:55

Hamisi wouldn't be able to come to the United States

9:57

until November of 2015. His kids...

10:00

were almost two years old.

10:25

Nadia was working as a housekeeper in a small

10:27

motel, and then she got a job as a caregiver.

10:30

Hamisi got a job in the auto industry, making

10:33

car door frames. In 2017,

10:43

Hamisi and Nadia decided it was time to do

10:45

something different. At that point, they already moved

10:47

out of the Freedom House shelter and were adjusting to a

10:50

somewhat normal life in Detroit. That

10:52

is when they decided they'd go into business for themselves

10:54

and open Bauab Fair. Hamisi

10:57

figured that in America, starting a business is

10:59

the real way to improve your economic situation

11:01

quickly. It was a risk, but it was either they

11:04

were going to keep working for other people or take

11:06

a chance for themselves. In

11:09

order to get the SEED money, they entered and won the

11:11

annual Co-America Hatch Detroit Contest,

11:14

a local small business proposal competition,

11:16

which at the time had a grand prize of $50,000.

11:19

We were like, okay,

11:21

let's just start. And again, this

11:24

is what one year, almost three years, coming

11:26

from Burundi. But the winning

11:28

streak wasn't over. Early in 2023,

11:31

Chef Mambo was a contestant on the Food

11:33

Network TV show, Chopped. And

11:35

that changed my life, of course, and

11:38

that brought a lot of attention. It

11:40

also came with $10,000 in prize

11:43

money because, well, Chef Mambo

11:45

won his Chopped competition. The

11:47

couple donated the winnings to two causes close

11:49

to their heart. The first $5,000

11:52

went to Freedom House. So Freedom

11:54

House, now we are raising more money

11:56

to build the kitchen for them. This

11:59

is Chef Mambo in 90 years. his way of returning

12:01

the favorite of Freedom House for everything that organization

12:03

did for their family. The shelter's new kitchen

12:05

will be industrial and able to provide for

12:07

the hundreds of folks who rely on it for decent

12:10

meals. The second half of the winnings

12:12

from Chopped is going towards the formation of a campaign

12:14

by Chef Mamba and Nadia called Burundi Kids.

12:17

It's an idea they have to help teenage mothers in

12:19

Burundi. Typically, those mothers

12:21

are shunned by their families and aren't able

12:23

to go to school. So this

12:26

shelter will take them, we

12:28

give them a chance to

12:30

raise their kids

12:32

and they go to school. The

12:34

kids go to school and moms go to school.

12:36

At the end of the day, they come back home and they

12:39

live normal lives. Chef

12:41

Mamba says this work in his adoptive home, Detroit,

12:44

is just the beginning. And the work in his homeland,

12:46

Burundi, is ongoing. Yeah,

12:49

I'm so grateful, of course. I'm so humbled

12:52

to be in this position. But again, I'm

12:55

still hungry

12:56

to bring and to do more big

12:59

things. And no running a small business

13:01

comes with its own challenges. Chef Mamba

13:04

and Nadia are committed to facing those hurdles

13:06

with the same resilience as the Bao Bap

13:08

tree.

13:09

We saw ourselves as this tree. We didn't

13:11

have a family. We didn't have anybody.

13:13

And we wanted, we had an intention to make

13:16

the impact that we are making today.

13:19

And

13:20

we saw us, if we consider ourselves as a

13:22

Bao Bap tree that's growing in Detroit

13:24

right now.

13:29

Bao Bap Bear is open every day except

13:31

Monday. Aside from being able to buy delicious food,

13:34

you can also buy coffee beans imported from Burundi

13:36

and roasted in Detroit. You can also buy art

13:38

from artists that reside in both locations.

13:40

We'll also drop a link to support

13:42

the Freedom House Kitchen campaign in the show

13:45

notes. This

13:49

podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura

13:52

and Stitcher Studios. Our production

13:54

team includes Dylan Thresse, Doug

13:56

Baldinger, Chris Naka, Camille

13:58

Stanley, Manolo Morales, Gabby

14:00

Gladney. Our technical director is

14:03

Casey Holford. Our theme in end credit

14:05

music is by Sam Tyndall. This episode was

14:07

mixed by Luce Fleming. If

14:09

you want to learn more be sure to visit atlassubscira.com.

14:12

There's a link in our episode description. My

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