Mmmm...Taste Like Home!

I’ve been in Ethiopia for one year now… I’ll blog about that later.  During the past year I’ve been able to spend a significant amount of time with other Peace Corps volunteers in my region.  My town is fairly sizable by Ethiopian standards, has a solid selection of stores, & is in the middle of a cluster of PCVs.  All those factors lead to regular visits from PCV friends in the area.  So, what is the main topic of conversation when we “save the world” PCVs congregate?... Politics? Community relations? Projects?  Nope, none of the above, it’s food!  We talk about food we like, food we hate, food we have, food we want, food we miss from home, food we cooked, and on and on and on. So, why do we talk about food so much?  I can’t speak for everyone, but for me there are two main reasons.  The first is that since there isn’t much food variety in Ethiopia, there are a lot of foods we miss from home.  Volunteers tend to talk a lot about what they miss, and food is at the top of the list.  It may be bacon, milk shakes, burritos, barbequed anything, or whatever.  The second, and biggest reason for me, is food reminds you of home.  Talking about food, cooking food, and especially eating American food can provide a brief escape back to America.  The best comparison is a scene in the Disney animated movie “Ratatouille.”  In the scene, the harshest food critic in Paris comes to evaluate the cooking rat’s restaurant.  Of course at the time he doesn’t know that a rat is preparing his meal.  Anyway, they serve the critic a peasant dish called Ratatouille.  The critic takes one bite and instantly flashes back to his childhood, sitting in his mother’s kitchen, smelling the aroma in the room while she cooks, and the feeling when taking that first bite of her home cooked Ratatouille.  Needless to say, he gave it a great review.  My mom wasn’t really that good a cook, so unless I eat a chicken pot pie that someone forgot to put chicken in, I won’t flash back to her kitchen when I’m eating a great tasting meal.  I do taste home when I bite into a zebra cake.  It sends me back to my apartment, sitting on my couch eating a zebra cake w/ a cold glass of milk, while watching college basketball.  Sometimes you don’t realize how beautiful a simple moment is, until it’s unavailable.  That brief moment of nostalgia can get me through a bad day, or week.  That’s also why PCVs love food packed care packages so much.  Good food can help you through a bad time.  Some of my best moments in Ethiopia have been times spent w/ PCVs and my site mates eating a well prepared volunteer cooked meal.  The food in Ethiopia isn’t bad, and contrary to popular belief, everyone here isn’t starving.  There are plenty of dishes I like, but the variety is limited.  It’s difficult to find American dishes, and if you do, the quality isn’t that good usually.  I’m fortunate enough to be in a town w/ solid restaurants, and stores.  I can actually buy snickers and twix candy bars.  Also, a large town is only a 45 minute bus ride away w/ burgers, pizza, doughnuts, ice cream, and other foods.  I have it better than most.  Even with that, there are still limitations.  Foreign foods are always only pizza, burgers, & pasta for the most part, even in bigger towns.  The only city is Ethiopia where you can get Mexican, Chinese, or any other nationality food is Addis Ababa.  The problem is unless your site is near there, or you’re one of Peace Corps preferred volunteers that spends time there frequently, you only go there a few times after being sworn in.  So for the normal PCVs who toil in obscurity, every bite counts.  Any taste of home is a moment to be savored.  A home cooked meal, especially for me since I’m a horrible cook, is a major victory… and if you’re reading this blog, it’s been a good while since I’ve received a care package ;-)