at the centre there is a kitchen and dining room in the main house, which is separate from where the kids and the local staff eat, but i have really tried to limit eating there, and choosing to eat as many meals as possible with the kids and malawian staff.
i came into this trip with the personal expectation that i would try and offset some of my guilt of being a rich white dude in a third world orphanage by eating entirely with the kids and local staff, and choose not to eat at all with the mzungu contingency of the centre... but that was a more difficult immersion than i was expecting.
let me break it down for you a bit... what they eat here is called nsima. it is a maize flour base, that is prepared two different ways for three different meals. they eat a runnier version of it for breakfast (think refrigerated gravy, haha) with a little bit of sugar (and i mean a little bit), and then for lunch and supper it is about the consistency of play dough. the lunch and supper versions have zero taste, and when i first had it i had a really tough time getting it all down without the o'le gag reflex kicking in as i had flashbacks to kindergarten.the kitchen is outfitted with two giant iron pots that are heated by fire from below, and to make the nsima they bring the giant pot full of water to a boil and slowly add the maize flour until it gets to the right (i use that term loosely) consistency.
they accompany lunch's nsima with veggies (a stew of chinese cabbage and a little bit of onion and tomato) or beans. and dinner's nsima is accompanied with veggies and a combination of either beans, soy pieces or fish.
there is little to no seasoning from what i can tell, so it is a very bland meal... i have grown to enjoy the nsima and veggies, but really look forward to when we have beans or soy pieces with the meal. the fish is sun dried and is a bit weird for me still (yes, i am eating it...), and i still kind of pick around it for the pieces of meat while the kids just throw the whole thing down the hatchet... head, bones, tail and all. the kids laugh at me for not eating the fish like they do, but i think they are secretly glad because it means that there are a few fish heads for them to snatch off the mzungu's plate.
i spent my first week at the centre really having a hard time getting into the swing of eating the local food, especially since the food that is being cooked in the main house is so damn tasty, and it's tough to pick dough and unseasoned vegetables over lasagne and french toast and rice and cake.... and it doesn't make it easier when you have to haul yourself out of bed for 6:30am to eat congealed gravy for breakfast. so i started by eating just lunches, and then added breakfast a few days later, and about two weeks after that i ate dinners as well... so, since about the 2nd week my diet has basically consisted of nothing but nsima. it's a bit daunting to think that this will be my diet for basically another 2 full months, but it's even more daunting to think that this is a choice for me, and that this is simply reality for the people in this culture. i'm starting to realize that as much as i want to sympathize with the marginalized and those in poverty, that i simply can't. i have options, and they don't. i am eating this diet for 3 months, and then flying home and have the opportunity to eat whatever the hell i want... i could go on a mcflurry diet when i get back if i really wanted.
i spent my first week at the centre really having a hard time getting into the swing of eating the local food, especially since the food that is being cooked in the main house is so damn tasty, and it's tough to pick dough and unseasoned vegetables over lasagne and french toast and rice and cake.... and it doesn't make it easier when you have to haul yourself out of bed for 6:30am to eat congealed gravy for breakfast. so i started by eating just lunches, and then added breakfast a few days later, and about two weeks after that i ate dinners as well... so, since about the 2nd week my diet has basically consisted of nothing but nsima. it's a bit daunting to think that this will be my diet for basically another 2 full months, but it's even more daunting to think that this is a choice for me, and that this is simply reality for the people in this culture. i'm starting to realize that as much as i want to sympathize with the marginalized and those in poverty, that i simply can't. i have options, and they don't. i am eating this diet for 3 months, and then flying home and have the opportunity to eat whatever the hell i want... i could go on a mcflurry diet when i get back if i really wanted.
through this experience i have truly come to appreciate food as sustenance. in canada i ate at my convenience, never truly felt hunger, and if i was served at a restaurant what i am eating here in africa... i probably woulda sent it back.
it's strange what a change of scenery can do for you. at the centre we eat breakfast at 6:30am, lunch [nsima and veggies pictured on the left] at noon, and dinner [nsima, veggies and fish pictured below] at about 6pm. if you miss those meals, you miss them... theres no fridge to store leftovers, or put some aside. they make one giant pot of each item and they stretch that out to serve whoever is there. in between meal times i am outside in the sun splitting my time between teaching PE, the garden, and playing... so by the time that lunch and supper roll around, i am absolutely starving and ready for the carbohydrate load and inevitable bowel back-up that is coming with it... but honestly, i am so grateful for the food i get when i get it... which is a pretty big contrast from what i was living like in canada, where i would sometimes eat simply because i was bored, or felt a craving for a specific type of food.... now don't get me wrong, i definitely get cravings here; and, i would do a lot of ugly things in order to get my hands on an ice cream sandwich or a plate of eggs benedict and hashbrowns from diner deluxe or a cold bottle of granville island's maple cream ale.... but here it is simply just reality. about twice a year they butcher a goat and serve it with rice... but besides that, this is their reality every single day, three meals a day.
but i think one of the most meaningful things i will take away from this trip will be that i have really spent some legitimate time hungry (and i'm not talking about stuffing myself full of pizza one minute before and after the world vision 30 hour famine), and had time to reflect on it. i lived in and am returning to a place, and partook in a culture so saturated with options, waste, and overconsumption... that i think i am going to have an even harder time coming home and justifying my overconsumption and wasteful habits.
for a few months there, it seemed like you were constantly barraged by the occupy movement and it's talk about the 1% and the equity distribution issues in our culture. but it's interesting thinking about how the people living in those tents bitching about equity distribution spend on one meal at a restaurant what it would take to feed a centre of 150 children and staff for a meal. it's easy to always find someone above you that has more... but maybe it's time to realize that while 1% has the majority of the wealth, that what we have is so far beyond what the majority of the world can comprehend. upper, middle or lower classes are a bit irrelevant when you are talking about true poverty. and if you think that people around malawi would consider those of us that fall into the 'middle class' category as being unfathomably rich.
so what does this look like for when i get home? i guess that goes for more than just my food consumption, but in general.... how does one take this experience home and not allow the constant influence of western culture slowly and surely overpower the questions i have wrestled with for the 3 months of this trip? because it's near impossible to live in a way in canada in the way that i live here. so i don't know what that looks like, but i'm kind of excited to figure it out.
as for other news... i'm heading out in two days to mount mulanje, which is the second tallest mountain in africa outside kilimanjaro. i'm gonna be spending 5 days on the mountain up to the peak. i'm a bit overwhelmed at the idea of it all, to be honest. simply the spiders and snakes are enough to do me in, but i'm also really excited. it's going to be an odyssey, i imagine. definitely something to remember. if i don't end up as tarantula food or like the skeletons in indiana jones in the snake pits, i'll make sure i put up pictures when i get back.
peace.
it's strange what a change of scenery can do for you. at the centre we eat breakfast at 6:30am, lunch [nsima and veggies pictured on the left] at noon, and dinner [nsima, veggies and fish pictured below] at about 6pm. if you miss those meals, you miss them... theres no fridge to store leftovers, or put some aside. they make one giant pot of each item and they stretch that out to serve whoever is there. in between meal times i am outside in the sun splitting my time between teaching PE, the garden, and playing... so by the time that lunch and supper roll around, i am absolutely starving and ready for the carbohydrate load and inevitable bowel back-up that is coming with it... but honestly, i am so grateful for the food i get when i get it... which is a pretty big contrast from what i was living like in canada, where i would sometimes eat simply because i was bored, or felt a craving for a specific type of food.... now don't get me wrong, i definitely get cravings here; and, i would do a lot of ugly things in order to get my hands on an ice cream sandwich or a plate of eggs benedict and hashbrowns from diner deluxe or a cold bottle of granville island's maple cream ale.... but here it is simply just reality. about twice a year they butcher a goat and serve it with rice... but besides that, this is their reality every single day, three meals a day.
for a few months there, it seemed like you were constantly barraged by the occupy movement and it's talk about the 1% and the equity distribution issues in our culture. but it's interesting thinking about how the people living in those tents bitching about equity distribution spend on one meal at a restaurant what it would take to feed a centre of 150 children and staff for a meal. it's easy to always find someone above you that has more... but maybe it's time to realize that while 1% has the majority of the wealth, that what we have is so far beyond what the majority of the world can comprehend. upper, middle or lower classes are a bit irrelevant when you are talking about true poverty. and if you think that people around malawi would consider those of us that fall into the 'middle class' category as being unfathomably rich.
so what does this look like for when i get home? i guess that goes for more than just my food consumption, but in general.... how does one take this experience home and not allow the constant influence of western culture slowly and surely overpower the questions i have wrestled with for the 3 months of this trip? because it's near impossible to live in a way in canada in the way that i live here. so i don't know what that looks like, but i'm kind of excited to figure it out.
as for other news... i'm heading out in two days to mount mulanje, which is the second tallest mountain in africa outside kilimanjaro. i'm gonna be spending 5 days on the mountain up to the peak. i'm a bit overwhelmed at the idea of it all, to be honest. simply the spiders and snakes are enough to do me in, but i'm also really excited. it's going to be an odyssey, i imagine. definitely something to remember. if i don't end up as tarantula food or like the skeletons in indiana jones in the snake pits, i'll make sure i put up pictures when i get back.
peace.
You're making me think. I know that I want to be a better global citizen but I'm also going to admit I don't really want to give up much of anything. Keep writing.
ReplyDeleteWow! I couldn`t do that diet.
ReplyDelete