Food

Let’s talk about food because as most of you know it’s what makes my world go round. The food here is not atrocious. I don’t eat much of the meat but I didn’t really eat much meat back in the US either. I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten goat, chicken, possibly rabbit and cow here. There is a very direct path from field to plate. We can generally hear the animals and then know what’s for lunch. (Sorry vegetarians!) At one point someone order brochettes at a local restaurant. Brochettes are like goat kabobs. After while a child exited the restaurant and came back dragging a goat behind him. A few minutes later he left with just the leash in his hand. There is really no way of ignoring the fact that you are eating a dead animal. The freezer section at Meijer is a thing of the past.

As predicted there is a lot of bananas, but not as many as I imagined. The fruit here is delicious, although not as varied as I would like. We are mainly served bananas, tree tomatoes (I don’t know if that is a common term that people will know), passion fruit, and pineapple.

They love to fry everything : potatoes, plantains, fish, potatoes, potatoes, potatoes.

So typical day of meals goes something like this:
Breakfast – egg omelet with onions, bread, butter, fruit, tea, coffee
Snack – tea, coffee, sambosas or chipati
Lunch – chicken, greens, pineapple, fried potatoes
Dinner – white rice, black beans, tomato sauce that they put on top of everything, more fruit

The last group of volunteers taught the cooks how to make guacamole and meatballs (at separate meals of course) and we are loving it. Guacamole nights are the crowd favorite. We gorge ourselves with rice, beans and guac and inevitably feel like crap. Now we are trying to think of new ‘American’ recipes to pass along so the next group can enjoy.

There are cookies here – although some of them taste like chocolate graham crackers, others just taste horrible. There are also potato chips – barbecue flavor or Pringles. The food really isn’t exotic. They give us peanut butter and jelly, honey, hot sauce. Within the capital you can find almost anything – ice cream, the best Indian food I’ve ever eaten, buttermilk pancakes, Heinz ketchup, syrup – the stuff dreams are made of.

Generally about 80% of our time is spent dreaming about food. One person starts it off with just a word – Oreos. It snowballs from there – sushi, curry, seaweed salad, Olive Garden breadsticks, McDonald’s, fourth meal, real pizza, brownies. Pretty soon we are torturing each other with words. It’s not like we are being deprived, in fact we are all impressed with how wonderful our food is. But get us going and we are like kids sitting around at fat camp – at least that’s what my housemate Jen tells us, as a former fat camp counselor.

Although I don’t see myself being this ambitious, other volunteers have figured out how to construct an oven over a charcoal grill. They have made cakes, bread, brownies, cupcakes, and tiramisu. I’ll just be happy to boil water for noodles.

I have become even more addicted to tea than I was in the States. First of all they drink it multiple times a day. Secondly, ‘African tea’ is delicious and a great source of calcium. African tea is practically chai tea. I’ll try and tell you the recipe that I’ve created with my limited experience. By the way we use powdered milk here so – three heaping scoops of powdered milk (yes, it will look like you are only drinking hot milk), two and a half scoops of sugar, then mix in the hot water. Finally put in the black tea bag, but not for too long. It is delicious. I’ve begun dipping my chipati bread in it – to die for.

I am by no means staving. In fact our medical officer told us that in all her years of working in the Peace Corps she has never seen a female lose weight during their service, or a male gain weight. I don’t think it’s that black and white but I can definitely see the validity of the point. Although we may be eating less than at home, our diets are also not as balanced. It’s a struggle to get enough produce, protein, calcium, you name it. People generally live off rice and beans.

Kitchen gardens are a big push around here with the government actually mandating that people have them by a certain date. Kitchen gardens are basically a very small garden that most people can fit in their yard that will provide enough produce for one household. In the middle is a compost pile. It renews the nutrients in the garden as you rotate the crops around. Most volunteers build one for themselves as well as get initiatives going for people in their community to build them at their houses. Malnutrition is a huge problem here, especially for young children or people living with HIV/AIDS.

Which reminds me, if anyone would like to mail me seeds, feel free. I’m hoping to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn, bell peppers (anything but green), basil, cilantro, parsley and mint -plus anything else I can think of.

I’ve already seen my future house and I have just enough room in my front yard for a kitchen garden.