Friday, June 24, 2011

Swazi Food 6/23/11

It is said that as a Peace Corps Trainee, your time is not your own.   As you may have seen from my other post about my daily schedule so far, they have our schedule pretty booked.  I have only been to town on one other occasion so far.  When we go to town we have the opportunity to go shopping and go to the internet café.  Last time I was only able to spend 15 minutes on the computer, a computer so ancient and slow, it took half of my time to load my facebook and as I was writing a status to my friends and family that I was alive, the internet kicked me off!!! Uugghhh…. So with only a few minutes I was able to e-mail a blog post that I had stored on a thumb drive the night before…
I have come to find out that the only things I am missing from home is access to the internet (mainly facebook..haha), 24/7 news coverage(esp English news), and chocolate(they don’t eat dessert here!!!)!!
So as for the food here…  Initially, I was surprised.. I came here with the expectation that it would be completely bland and tasteless, and I guess some of it is, especially their staple food, corn porridge.  But whenever I have had that, which is like every other day, there is always a gravy that moistens it up and adds nice flavor.
For breakfast, I was eating corn flakes most days.  However the last two day I switched it up!  The other night, I watched one of my Sisi’s bake scones from scratch with no recipe, no measuring cups, and in an oven with completely uneven temperature.  It is a wood burning stove with fire only on one side of the oven!!  I will have to post a picture, this thing is like something we would see in a museum at home…lol.  Anyways, they came out great and I had a couple with apricot jam for breakfast yesterday and then I made oatmeal today.
For lunchI either eat a peanut butter sandwich using the JIF I brought from home.  They have PB here.. kinda tastes like Peter Pan, but I prefer JIF… or homemade french-fries and a hard-boiled egg.  The fries are good, but way too much oil.
And for dinner there is some kind of meat either beef, pork, or chicken; and always the worst cut with the smallest amount of real meat possible.  The beef and pork is always on the bone with almost no actual meat.  I think they eat the bone marrow and then also chew on the bones.  Yesterday, I tried to chew the bones like my Make, but all I was thinking about was breakin my teeth and how long I had braces on.
I am up for trying anything.  The other day I ate chicken liver.. or at least I attempted… gross.. it tastes like a chunk of mud. I choked down half of it and couldn’t take it anymore.  I gave the rest to Babe(Dad).  I also watched Make(mom) wash the other chicken parts: intestines, feet, gizzards, and head.  I am scared for the day she pulls that stuff out of the freezer!!
Dinner is always served with a grain.. either rice or the corn porridge.. (think thick grits).  It is usually a huge heaping pile of starch too… so much different than home.  Every night we also get some vegetable in as well, usually spinach, fresh from the garden, or butternut squash.
I am not going hungry, so don’t worry.

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