Food

This is me with a bush rat I bought on the road from Boukombe to Natitingou. It had just been killed and some of its hair was being plucked when I bought it, hence his white bald spot on his side. I ate him that same evening. He was tasty!!!

I always love my weekly phone calls from the States. I love just hearing familiar voices, hearing about day to day life back at home, hearing about how wonderful things are over there. I like to hear that most of day to day life is just as I remember it. I love imagining everyone in the air-conditioned bubbles, the work bubble, the car bubble, the store bubbles… the stores…

I like to imagine all the things you could buy in the States. If I were there, I would jump out of my house bubble and into a car bubble and drive down to the nearest grocery store bubble where all the produce and meat I could imagine could be found, and in perfect condition (aka in their own bubbles). I might cry if I could go in a grocery store. Tears of happiness, of course. I would buy a head of broccoli, a head of cauliflower, carrots, and some big steaks. …Scratch that; I would go to Charleston’s in Oklahoma City. I would order a steak with mixed vegetables and Charleston’s glazed carrots. Maybe some potatoes too, depending on how I felt. I would hate to not eat them and be wasteful. After all, think of all the starving children in Africa.

Food is one of the things I miss most. There’s something very soothing to be found in grilled chicken or a hamburger. There is meat here, but it is all very lean. The chicken tastes rubbery and flavorless unless fried. For the small price of 3 hours of work, I could grind my own hamburger and make my own burgers… and that’s not even considering the time to make the buns. I’ll admit though, I do do that occasionally.

Food has probably been my hardest thing to deal with in living here. In the 2 years that have now passed, I’ve probably lost more than 50% of my hair, and it turns out that it’s more likely I lost it from a lack of protein than from the anti-malarial medicines as I had previously assumed. I’ve also gained weight and lost muscle mass… also results of more carbs than proteins.

It’s just so hard to eat protein here! For chicken or guinea fowl you have to wait till market day (every 4 days) to buy the live chicken, keep it alive (and crapping and crowing at 3:30am) until you want to eat it, then cut it’s throat(not easy to do with a dull knife), defeather it in hot water (which you have to get from a bucket and boil), then remove its innards and prepare for cooking. Let’s not even think about boneless chicken!!! I definitely don’t.

Beef and pork are easier, but pork is a little risky. To kill all the possible diseases in pork you have to bring the uncut beast to a high temperature I believe, and this doesn’t get done here. Pork is sold in small, precut pieces at the market though, which is less work than chicken. Beef is sold by the kilo, and you can choose with or without bones. Of course, you’re ordering this from a butcher who is standing 3 ft in front of a huge cow carcass, only to fill your order by turning around and hacking at the poor remains with a machete. There’s also a separate butcher who sells the innards, if that’s your thing. A good cow’s brain can be bought whole for the small price of about a dollar or two. And yes, I’ve eaten that, along with the skin, intestines and tongue. No signs of Mad Cow Disease yet!!!

Goats and sheep can also be bought, but your basically buying the whole baaing, squealing animal at the market. I don’t mess with that, but I’ll eat it when it’s served at places. Goat’s pretty tasty really, and of course mouton is.

My favorite meats are really the surprising ones. I really like bush rat. In fact, I will eat bush rat any chance I get!! It’s just SO GOOD. Bush rat is as huge as a rabbit, and just as decadent. Rabbits good to. I keep meaning to try dog. I hear it’s a rich mans meat. Monkey to. The monkey is always so pre-cooked that it looks disgusting though. Same for the moles. I have eaten your average rat though… it might have been mouse I guess. It wasn’t my thing, but a lot of people like it. Fried rain bugs are good, but I don't know if you would call that a good source of protein. The only thing I probably won't get a chance to try is cat. They say that cat is for really poor people and there’s not much meat. Pigeon also didn’t do much for me, but I guess if you’re eating meat mostly for the bone marrow, it might be good.

Everyone here breaks the bones and sucks out the bone marrow… yes, like a dog. My post mate ate dinner with a French woman/tourist once, and they were with some Beninese as well, and when the Beninese started chewing the bones and sucking the marrow out the French woman literally said, “Oh, like a dog!” …Which is so offensive I can’t even imagine the looks on everyone’s faces. Especially since in Ditammari (local language) calling someone a dog is a way of really putting them down. She just didn’t understand. If you throw unbroken bones on the ground or in the trash here you will most likely offend some people. At least leave it for some kids. After all, bone marrow is a great source of protein!

I do miss vegetables as well, but if you work at it you can get your veggies. We get cabbage and carrots at the Market for most of the year here in Boukombé. For a brief period at the end of the rains (September) we get eggplant and mushrooms. We seem to get green beens for a month or two after the rains as well. We almost always have tomatoes, though defunct in flavor, and onions in either white or purple. We also have okra all year around, but people don’t fry it here. If you drop raw okra into boiling water it turns into a snotty looking goo sauce, which is eaten all the time here. When anything can’t be found in Boukombé it can almost always be found in Natitingou, the big town 35miles (50km) to the East. I bring carrots back, and sometimes avocados, green beens, eggplant, radishes, and/or cucumbres.

Fruits are seasonal, but more abundant than veggies. Oranges can be found from about July to December. Bananas are a year around cheap potassium source. Papaya shows up everywhere from about December to February. Mangoes to are incredibly abundant, but only from March till May when they disappear completely. Grapefruits, melons, and pineapples (very rare up here for lack of water) all make appearances at the end of the rains (August/September) till about December. Citrons and lemons also are fairly easy to find, especially during the rains.

As I’ve mentioned before. After September we don’t see another drop of rain, much less even a cloud till March, so that limits everything that can be found here. It also determines when you can find meats. For some reason birds like to lay eggs during the rains. Also, people sell off their cows in the middle of the dry season because the poor beasts are starving and getting sick. Animals don’t get fed, they roam for food, so once the rains stop food gets more and more rare for goats and cattle. Also, one of the biggest thing lacking in Benin is an affordable transport system, whether it be with humans or produce, so we rarely see items from elsewhere. There are buses that go north and south on the 3 long paved roads that run through the country, but they are mostly for people, and they are expensive even for that (approx $16usd one way Natitingou to Cotonou – a 9 hour trip).

I just realized that I’ve probably explained my food situation in way to much detail to you. Honestly, I just really am obsessed. Luckily Boukombé gets a lot more variety than most towns its size, but in that month or two when you can’t get tomatoes here you realize how limited you are. When onions double in price and sell out early in May you can’t help but imagine that far away land of grocery stores who keep hundreds of pounds of huge onions stocked at just about the same price year round. Or what about that moment where you’re craving a steak (no matter how lean), only to realize it’s not market day or that the butcher took the market day off.

Though it might seem I’m complaining, I’m really not. I’ve gotten used to things here. Yes, it will be nice to go home to the carcass-free land of plenty, but I’m busy enjoying the here and now. There are so many incredible things to see and learn and experience here. It’s just to bad that a good piece of meat can’t be one of those things to.

Sarah