i like bananas

For the record, bananas are not my most favorite food, (my mom said that even as a baby i didn't like them,)but they are slowing growing on me (the taste, not the banana itself).

 

I have discovered an expensive yet educational way of solving every mother's problem of trying to get her kids to eat.  Remember when you were a kid and you had some food left on your plate, probably something you didn't want to eat, or when you had served yourself "your eyes had been bigger than your stomach" and now you were too full to finish?  And then your mom (or dad) said, "Finish all your food, there are starving kids in Africa." Well, current or future moms and dads of America, worry no more.  Don't try to figure out how to send your children's leftovers here, just send your kid.

 

I can't remember what i ate here my first lunch but i do remember there were green peppers in it.  I think green peppers taste great, i think they look great in food, but i get sick every time i eat them.  I quietly picked them out of the food and set them to the side of my plate.  I planned to eat everything else and then figure out what to do with them.  I didn't have to think of anything because in a flash Victor reaches across the table and stabs all them in one quick motion.  Every following meal, Victor took my peppers.  Sometimes he wouldn't even wait until i'd picked them all out.  They don't let a morsel go to waste here.  (A hungry bum would be hard-pressed to find anything edible in the compost pile here)    

 

After Victor had been eating my peppers for about a week, Mama Gloria (as she is affectionately called), watched me pick them out, i think she was catching on.  She, as well as Clemencia took some off my plate that meal, in fact, all three of them were eating more off my plate than i was.   She hasn't put peppers in anything since.  I felt bad because i really didn't mind picking them out, and it was pretty clear that every one else loved them.  (She has since been cutting them up and putting them in a side dish.) 

 

There is another main ingredient in the food here that still remains: onions.  Onions are in everything.  We eat salad for breakfast every morning, (that took a little getting used to), and regardless of what else is in it, be it shredded beets, carrots, garlic, cilantro, spinach, or whatever other leafy green vegetable i can't pronouce or spell, there is always onions.  When Mama Gloria makes spaghetti, she sautes onions in with it (that's really good).  When she makes eggplant stew, there are onions.  When she makes okra, there are onions.  (You get the idea.)  I should mention right about now that i can deal with the onions, raw or cooked, and even though i'm not fond of eggplant, i can eat that too, but there is one thing in this world that i truly feel should have never been created and when i get to heaven i'm definately having a heart to heart with God on this one: okra.  I was born a Yankee and didn't try to stuff until I went to highschool in Oklahoma, i promised myself, never again. (Forgive me if this happens to be your most favorite food in the world.)  I had been here 9 days and was beginning to think it didn't exist this side of the atlantic, i was wrong.  I walked into the kitchen after my English class had ended to see what Mama Gloria was cooking and if she needed help.  She lifted the lid and said, "you like?"  It was a mucilogenous stew of okra.  I almost choked right then and there.  I feigned a smile and shrugged my shoulders and said, "I'm not sure, i'll have to try it."  I thought i should at least try it since she had already quit putting green peppers in everything.  I always thought of myself as a healthy eater; someone who wasn't afraid to try anything at least once.  This is the first time in my life i have to draw the line and realize that i am indeed quite picky or that Africa boasts some of my least favorite foods.  I tried the okra.  It took all my brain power to keep it down and keep a smile on my face since everyone was anticipating a reaction.  (If i was on Fear Factor and this is what i had to eat, i just might lose.)  During lunch, Clemencia went on and on about how much she loved the okra and that it was her most favorite, (i'm only guessing here since it was in portuguese) but Mama Gloria kept saying thank you so i'm pretty sure that's what she was saying.  She said that most of the previous students and visitors wouldn't eat it (i can't imagine why) and that they didn't have it as often as they could now (i can't wait till next time).  I was anticipating a soon return.  Yesterday the okra lady came to our gate.  If i had only known portuguese i would have told her that we were out of money, that we forgot how to cook it, or that everyone had contracted a serious allergy to it...but alas too late.  A huge bag of it sits in the fridge, awaiting its death by stewing. 

 

Whatever we don't eat, Furia the dog, gets to eat.  That dog gets the royal treament when it comes to scraps.  They cut it up and cook it; her food sometimes looks better than ours.  Its not like she doesn't have teeth, they claim she takes a while to warm up to new people because i still see her pearly whites if i go near where she is chained up.  One day, actually it was the day we had okra, they made her mashed potatoes with some vegetable cut up in it...i'm serious when i say i considered sharing lunch with Furia that day, grimacing teeth and all. 

 

To save Mama Gloria's reputation i should say that just about everything she makes tastes great.  Really.  The okra was the only thing in the past 2 weeks that i struggled with and that really had nothing to do with how it was prepared.  Overall, the food here is really good, and even if it looks kinda funky, it usually tastes good and if all other reasoning fails, it's healthy.  I still look forward to dinner the most; it usually consists of a mango (which i love), a banana and a slice of bread.  I'm a month passed mango season but they have some of the best in the world.  Victor doesn't like mangos very much, so guess what i get to stab off his plate?     

 

(i also wanted to include an update of my room situation...i got an upgrade from prison cell to princess suite.  When Bettina and Lelio left for Brazil, Clemencia gave me their room.  It's huge, with a double bed in the center and its own bathroom with a gigantic tub (that i wouldn't have enough water to fill anyway, but a tub none-the-less), and geckos who climb the walls and busy themselves eating the mosquitos and other bugs.  Last night i took a shower, (it usually dribbles out of a showerhead about 6' high above the tub).  When i moved the bucket to catch the water i discovered another friend, a little cockroach.  I have heard that if the world was destroyed by a nuclear fallout that cockroaches would be one of the few surviving lifeforms left.  I think that if the nuclear warhead includes a squirt of Dr. Bronner's organic lavender soap then they will just keel over and die, just a hunch.)            

 

"Ogre's are like onions." 

"Why? 'Cuz they stink?" 

"Yes, uh, No! They have layers: Onions have layers, Ogre's have layers, you get it!"

(If i come back smelling like and ogre or an onion, now you'll know why.)