VP4- Eat Takes a Village

Living in the village makes me feel like a “Little American.” I know a little Swahili and even less Maasai. In fact, I am still getting praise from my home-stay Mama for my first complete Swahili sentence: “My friends have coffee, but they need hot water.” But, more than anything else, it’s the meals that make me feel small. I get a strong impression that our home-stay family is fattening us up for six weeks before they harvest our swollen, corpulent bodies. For our first meal they brought Kelsey and I each a huge, rounded bowl of beans. I’m a big fan of beans, and I was uncertain what to expect, so I had a little, “Yay, beans!” (“Safi sana, maharage!”) moment. After a while of struggling to make a recognizable dent in our delicious, but all too enormous portions, we were brought a full bucket of rice. We had barely begun on that when two oranges were cut up and added to the feast. Then we were presented with bread. At the time we didn’t know that we had arrived right in the middle of a local celebration known as “lunch.” For a little while this became our routine; three times a day we would eat far more than would comfortably fit in our bodies, and our family would fervently try to get us to eat more. I assume they’re worried about us because our family eats us under the table. They eat fast and they eat heartily. You should see how fast they can wolf down a plate of ugali. Ugali is a stiff, dough-like porridge, and our Mama can eat a heaping ...
Source: Support for International Change : HIV AIDS - Category: Global & Universal Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: news