(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, the epic story and unlikely success of Zemam's Ethiopian Cuisine.

(Amanuel) The fork and knives, we use them as decorations, not as utensils.

We always eat with our hands.

(Tom) Walking Cats as a ritual with Kid Congo Powers.

(Kid) Yes, there he is.

He's in this library right now.

(Tom) This shrub will flower most of the year under the right conditions.

(Alex) This is a plant that you can essentially put against your fence in your backyard and if you forget about it or go on a vacation for a month, it's going to be fine.

(Tom) And Susan Claassen makes a lasting impact on the local theater community.

(James) She works on a character 24 hours a day, and you can see that when you see Edith Head or when you see Dr. Ruth.

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated.

I'm Tom McNamara.

Zemam's Ethiopian Cuisine has been serving Tucsonans for over 30 years, but very few people know the story of its charismatic owner, Amanuel Gebremariam Now when told that 80% of restaurants fail within the first year, he replied, well, I'll be part of the 20% that don't.

See how his story became the true embodiment of the American dream.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC (Amanuel) Everything here shows you how the Africans live.

The fork and knives, we use them as decorations, not as utensils, we always eat with our hands.

I am a refugee, a former refugee who came about 40 something, 43, 44 years ago to the US.

The only thing I needed was opportunity.

And this country gave me that opportunity to start my own business and I told my wife, I'm gonna start my own restaurant.

(Cindy) When he came home one day and said, "I'm gonna open a restaurant," I was like, "What?

You don't even know anything about that industry.

And by the way, I've never seen you cook.

I thought it was like "Oh cool" He's gonna be like, he doesn't really know how to, like, he doesn't really make food besides his spaghetti.

- He said to me, "If somebody else can do it, I can do it."

I'm like, "Okay, we got a credit card.

We got a credit card.

That's about all we got."

This is where I started with four tables.

One, two, three, and four.

Four of them.

And so many critics who were also criticizing at that time there was a starvation in Ethiopia.

And one of the talk show hosts said, "There is an Ethiopian restaurant open here in town.

And what do they have to offer?

They are starving right now."

But he came later, the guy who commented that, came and said, "I'm so sorry.

I really, really like this food.

And this is what America needs."

Soon it started filling up, and then after that, it was history.

♪ PEACEFUL MUSIC The name of the restaurant bears my mom's name.

Because all the recipes I'm using is hers.

I don't have any culinary training, but I watched my mom, how she was cooking, and then she bears her name now after that.

Every recipe that we use here is my mom's.

We have 19 different dishes.

And we make them on daily basis, fresh.

My personal favorite is the collard greens, the red lentils, the lamb, and the spicy chicken and spicy beef.

The number four, which is shiro.

It's a chickpea or garbanzo beans.

They call it the food of the poor person.

Most people could not afford to have meat every day.

The only thing you could do is you get the cheapest one, the shiro, but it's also one of the nutritious recipes we have.

(Amanuel) I'm originally from Eritrea, which is now as a country, but when I came here, I came as an Ethiopian because there was no country named Eritrea.

So I'm originally from Ethiopia.

There was a civil war going on after the king was overthrown in Ethiopia.

As a peaceful person You have to join either the government groups.

The anti-governmental troops, I didn't want to be part of either.

- That's one of the longest running wars in Africa, is between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

So people fled from both Eritrea and Ethiopia into the Sudan, which is a neighboring country.

[ PEOPLE CHEERING ] So I just decided to leave the country and I lived a year in the Sudan as a refugee.

And I was sponsored by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

(Cindy) He was headed for San Diego in a few months.

I said, "Why don't you go to D.C. instead?

Because I'm going to go back to D.C. and I can help you."

(Amanuel) When I came first, I was a dishwasher at McDonald's, which always people talk about McDonald's, accommodating people.

After McDonald's, I worked at Pizza Hut.

I went to U.D.C., University of Washington, D.C., took English.

And then my wife worked for Peace Corps.

She was a PCMO, Peace Corps Medical Director in West Africa.

And I was working for the US government at the embassy in West Africa.

And then we lived there for two years.

Didn't like it very much.

It was a beautiful country, but the politics was everywhere between Senegal and Mauritania.

We left the country and then came here to Arizona.

And then after that, I worked for a company that rebuilt large-body aeroplanes.

But I was not happy, so I decided to start my own venture.

This is a country of immigrants.

They come here, they run away from the homes they love, from the parents they respect and love, from the friends they have, just to have a peaceful night without being afraid, being interrogated and also being scared.

The concept about immigrants come here to do some killings, some stealing, some damage to the country is not right.

(Amanuel) I don't get all the credit.

My wife was my supporter in everything I did.

Deserves as much if not more credit.

And my kids, they are the best support I have in my entire life.

(Lucas) You know, I was in third grade.

I didn't really...

I was like, okay.

You know what I mean?

I didn't really get the gravity of it, I don't think.

- First jobs were to peel carrots and potatoes, like chopped carrots and peeled potatoes, and pick up cigarette butts in the parking lot.

Can't do that anymore.

- I mean, we've been involved like as kids basically since it opened.

So I think I was like four or five.

- Well, man, we hated it.

We cried, we complained, you know, and it said when you get older and realize, like, oh, we didn't really see my dad hardly ever, like, you know, except for Mondays when he had his day off at night.

It was more of just being able to a way to than time with his kids.

(Cindy) Often he would call him, he'd go, "Oh my God, I need help Can you come?"

And I'd go, "Well, not really, but okay."

And I'd pack the kids up having a family, a wife and children who would say, "Yes we'll come help."

You know, helped him a lot, yeah.

I wanted my kids to learn the work of ethics and work independently, to have their own business, to have their own establishment, to have their own career.

And all my kids are helping me now.

One is running the restaurant with me, learning from what I did.

My other son is running the bar.

And my daughter is helping me doing all the accounting and the advertisement and all the business procedures.

(Noah) The one thing I would say to my dad is, "Thank you for building this empire.

It's been really great working with you."

- I love you.

I would do anything for him.

I would do anything for him.

And the example he has set for our children is huge.

- The one thing I would say to my dad is that you should take a break and relax and enjoy all of the things that you've built.

Take some time to enjoy that and look at what you've done, look at what we're going to do and enjoy it.

- Here I am, as an owner of a business, doing very, very well and really happy.

I was a former refugee who fled his country for lack of freedom, of speech, lack of a peaceful night.

I'm really thankful for the people of the United States to open not only their houses but also their hearts.

♪ UPBEAT MUSIC Now we bring you the third in a series where we join people to learn about their rituals and the sense of clarity and meaning those rituals bring to their lives.

In this segment, we join legendary musician, Kid Congo Powers on his daily walk with his beloved cat, Farooz.

And we see what they both gain from their adventures.

♪ SLOW JAZZ MUSIC (Kid) We wanted a companion for Elroy.

So Elroy was already a year old and Farooz was probably four or five months old when we got him.

When he saw us taking out Elroy, he was like, "I don't care what cost it is, I'm gonna put on a harness and go."

Here we go, all right.

It's like walking a dog for people.

So cats are very different.

Come on.

Yeah, look, here we go.

Come on, you can come this way.

Come on, just go this way.

Come on.

We're gonna go away, we're gonna go this way.

Come on, babes.

Come on, there we go.

Good boy, good boy, good boy.

Yes, good boy.

There you go.

You gonna get in the Canumbo car?

You gonna get up on the car?

He likes sniffing the car.

Like right now he's smelling the wall because there's been a feral cat running around.

Sometimes I just let him go for a little bit without the leash because he just stays within the yard.

He doesn't run off in any big way unless, you know, there's something wants to catch like a lizard.

Oh, are you stuck?

And, as you can see, that's the thing.

He gets stuck on the...things As I become more in tuned with the nature around us because he's always really aware of every sound and every smell.

You know, I'm here to protect him in case some wild dogs run in the yard or a coyote wild dogs run in the yard or a coyote comes out of the bush, which has happened a few times.

Before I always lived in big cities like LA, New York, I lived in London, I lived in Berlin.

It's a different kind of nature here and it makes me really appreciative.

Oh my god, it's so exciting when a roadrunner comes through.

That's going in the bushes, and I hate going in the bushes, so he knows that he has a little bit of freedom when I let him off the leash, but we're fenced in here.

How you doing?

Yes, look at you.

But I'm glad he gets to go out, you know, and not just keeping him indoors and relieve my guilt of having indoor cats, because they're hunters.

I could use a little bit of his patience in my own life.

They are instinctual animals.

Nice to maybe follow my instincts a little more sometimes.

Yes, there he is.

He's in his library right now.

I like being out here to, you know, let my mind wander.

I think about music a lot.

My work is dreaming up melodies or ideas.

Or, you know, I've come to some of my really best ideas while I'm walking the cat, waiting for him to appear again from wherever he's gone.

Before we had the cats, I don't know if I walked every day.

Like regular time and a regular thing.

Now I feel it incredibly beneficial to my mental health and my mental well-being.

I always can also get the feeling when he wants to start to go inside.

He just kind of makes his own way in.

It looks like he wants to go in about now.

What do you think?

You want to go inside?

You want to get a treat?

Huh?

Yeah.

Uh-oh.

What are you doing?

Oop.

Yeah.

You want to go inside?

Here.

Come on.

Let's go in.

Come on.

Let's go inside.

Here we go.

All right.

We'll get a treat now.

♪ SLOW JAZZ MUSIC Thousands of native and drought-resistant plants can be grown in the Sonoran Desert, and we're sharing some of those recommended horticulturists and experts.

And today we share the Baja Ruellia, which is a shrub from Baja California.

It can provide flowers most of the year under the right conditions.

♪ SOFT PIANO MUSIC Right here surrounding me is a clump of several Baja Ruellias or Ruellia peninsularis.

Peninsularis referring of course to the peninsula of Baja California.

This is a plant that anybody from Tucson has probably seen while driving around town as it's often planted in medians, in strip mall parking lots, and oftentimes also just in backyard landscaping.

As far as the size of this plant goes, what you see here is about the maximum size, which is why it really lends itself to narrow medians where you find it so often in places like Tucson.

It's also great for a side yard, for a corner, or something tucked under a mid-sized tree.

Three by three feet is pretty standard for its size.

Maybe it could get as wide as five or six feet though after a few years.

Now you won't find this plant growing native in Arizona, but it is really well suited to our urban environments.

It's native to very harsh conditions in Baja California, places that are very rocky and sunny and hot.

So in a street median or street-side planting, a corner with reflected heat from an urban environment actually is really well suited to this plant due to where it comes from.

This is a plant that is unarmed, no thorns, so it can be put close to pathways.

It is very versatile in terms of how much water it can take.

It can take very little water.

It's often planted next to other things, like Texas Rangers that have similar low water use needs.

That being said, with more water, it will become fuller and grow faster and flower a bit more.

This is a plant that you can essentially put against your fence in your backyard, and if you forget about it or go on a vacation for a month, it's gonna be fine.

It's not gonna suffer from lack of water, but it doesn't have really particular needs in the sense that you can put it on the same irrigation as anything else in your backyard.

Certainly being a dense, low-growing plant, it would certainly provide good habitat for lizards.

The purple flowers attract, as most purple flowers do, bees.

They're also a tubular-shaped flower, and like most other flowers in the acanth family, it's a great plant for hummingbirds as well.

In terms of it being an alternative to Lantana, it is good in the sense that it's a similar general shape.

It could fill out a similar niche in your garden.

It doesn't necessarily attract the same kinds of pollinators.

Lantana could be great for butterflies, for example, where this might be a bit better for bees and hummingbirds.

So I'd say go ahead and plant both if you have the space.

♪ CHEERFUL MUSIC ♪ If you have questions for the experts about what to grow in your yard, be sure to mark your calendars.

On April 19th, we'll be hosting Arizona Illustrated Thriving in the Desert, Sustainable Landscaping for Southern Arizona here at the Environmental and Natural Resources Building at the University of Arizona campus from 1 to 2.30.

For more information and to reserve your spot, go to azpm.org/plants.

Before retiring last year, Susan Claassen devoted more than five decades to the world of art and theater, leaving her mark as the Managing Artistic Director of the Invisible Theatre.

Now, this story is just a glimpse into the soul of an artist whose heart and spirit were entwined with the very essence of theater.

(Susan) My best friend lived across the street, Karen Kraus.

She was taking dramatic lessons at Mr. and Mrs. Rudolph's Dramatic School, which was above the Maplewood Movie Theater.

Because she was going, I wanted to go.

In junior high and high school, I did drama classes.

My parents originally thought I was going into speech therapy.

So there I am in the gymnasium and speech therapy is over here and theater is over here.

And my parents are 3500 miles away.

So I just gravitated to the theater.

Now I never lied to them.

They would say, "How's school?"

I'd say, "Great."

"How are your classes?

Great."

My mother found out first.

My father came out after I was awarded the Outstanding Junior in Theater Award.

I was fine with it as long as I minored in education and had a backup career, which I did do.

(Betsy) I walked into this theater.

It was just this magic little gem of a space.

Then this woman walks out on stage.

It's a one person show called "Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe."

The actor plays multiple characters.

I laughed, I cried, I pondered.

A lot of things came to question, came to light.

It was just an incredible performance.

That is how I met Ms. Susan Claassen.

(Molly) About 1976, the common love of the theater pulled us together.

I introduced Susan, the Invisible Theater, and I said, "We should go by and see what it's like."

(Susan) I was going up the steps and I really felt as if I was entering a hotbed of artistic creativity.

Everybody learned how to do everything.

First ten years, all we did were original plays.

We became a forum for new playwrights to express their voices.

Then we moved to the current location.

In the summer of 1976, we had space to rent.

The Invisible Theater was interested.

That was when we first met Susan.

The Old Pioneer Laundry which we converted into a theater with virtually no money.

The first year of our collective at the Invisible Theater was artistically fabulous and economically devastating.

Most of the gentlemen in the company moved on to other things.

All of a sudden we became a woman-run theater.

I've known Susan since 1986.

So my job is to enhance the actor's character.

I built it for her.

The piece behind me, the stars and rhinestones are all hand sewn on.

She wanted an iconic tuxedo look, so this was it.

♪ UPBEAT GUITAR (Susan) Art opens minds when people see what people can achieve rather than assuming what they can't achieve.

I would write grants and we developed a whole arts education program.

See the me inside of me, see what's special.

(Virginia) I first came here as a CETA worker, which stands for Community Education Training Act.

It was a 40 hour a week job in the theater and I thought I was in heaven.

We had some great teaching opportunities and our crowning glory is Project Past Time.

The students love her.

They think she's an animated character.

She just lifts them up, has a very high bar of what she expects of them and they answer that call.

(Pamela) My late daughter, Jana, participated in Past Time Players, which is Invisible Theatre's program for young people with developmental disabilities.

(Don) What you trained for all during the school year.

(Danny) We did dancing, drama.

I did solos.

I did poetry.

I'm a teacher's assistant.

Then I help them act like a role model in how to dance, how to sing.

(Susan) Gail Fitzhugh and I wrote the theme song, and the lyric goes, "The me inside of me is striving to be free.

The me inside of me is letting go.

Oh, the me inside of me is a very best of me.

It's a special friend you'll want to know."

And that opened the doors for the audience.

(Molly) The kids that start out at the beginning, some of them barely will speak.

And by the end of the year, they are like little hams, just dancing, singing, acting.

So many parents have said, we had no idea that our child could do anything like this.

Besides doing plays together, Suz and I did improv.

We called our show "Malls and Suz."

When you work that close with somebody, put your little frail ego in their hands.

And we didn't know each other that well.

We brought different ideas, but we had so much in common when it came to like social issues and politics.

(Susan) I adore acting.

It provided an opportunity to be in someone else's shoes.

That adds up to, I was never very good at math.

(James) She works on a character 24 hours a day.

And you can see that when you see Edith Head or when you see Dr. Ruth.

And she brings that same commitment to directing as well.

Stop staring at each other in the gym and do more exercise.

(Susan) I had had one directing class in college.

I was a trained actor.

Now 600 directorial projects later I think I'm beginning to learn how to direct.

That was it.

(Tom) Thank you for joining us from the Environment and Natural Resources Building.

And we hope to see you here on April 19th for our Desert Plants event.

For more information, check out this website right here.

I'm Tom McNamara.

Thanks for watching Arizona Illustrated.

And we'll see you again next week.