Avocado Scavenger and other food stories

So whenever the rain starts pouring here (almost daily), I think of one of two things.  Either I think of singing "Umbrella," a favorite here and a song I've used to discuss friendship and learn English words with the kids and one we frequently reference in the rain, or I think AVOCADOS!

That's because next to my house is a tall tall tree that, at unreachable heights, bears avocados.  There's no way to get them except to wait for a rainstorm to shake them down for you. When it does I run around the bottom of the tree looking for dropped fruit, careful to leave some for the other scavengers.  Then I bring them back to my room, putting one at a time in paper bags to ripen them for future guacamole lunches.

I bring this little lovely occurrence up because I realize I've been withholding important information from you.  What am I eating??

Let's begin.   As you know the village has its own farm, where many of our veggies come from.  We also have a bakery where we get to bake fresh challah on Fridays and buy delicious rolls if it is open.  All the meals are cooked in the kitchen by some awesome chefs who peel tons of veggies and cook tons of rice in big vats to serve around 300 people breakfast lunch and dinner. 

Lunch and dinner are generally the same, although lunch occasionally also means a side of fresh avocados or pineapples (which are about 879430 more delicious than pineapples you eat at home).  Every meal features rice, some sort of bean concoction that often involves sauce or cabbage or green beans or all of the above, and some kind of potato - either sweet or regular - or cooked banana dish, or if you're lucky, sweet potatoes.  It's all fine tasting, and sometimes, when the cabbage is in tomato sauce or the green beans are in peanut sauce or the potatoes are fried, its really delicious.  But of course its repetitive, and its meals for 300 so no veggie gets the attention you'd want it to get.

In order to not get too sick of the same food, and to give myself some sense of choice over what I consume, I've also started cooking a few meals a week for myself and friends.  I've transformed part of my desk into a very awesome makeshift kitchen that rivals that of my friend Kate, who lived in a kitchen-less studio in DC.  I have utensils, cups, a bowl, and a kettle that originally just boiled/sanitized my water but now has become a very convenient pasta-cooker. If I really need a pot (like for hard boiled eggs or corn), I can head over to my housemates' kosher hot plate. 

Having this kitchen makes every day a little bit more of an adventure for food.  When I have a few hours, I walk to the market in the surrounding town and buy whatever vegetables and bread I can find - which usually means trying to shop with no common language with the sellers, a huge crowd of laughing kids, and an understanding that one always buys 10 tomatoes at a time (my walk home is always considerably more burdensome, though fulfilling).  When I or someone else heads to Kigali, we buy cooking supplies that need not be refrigerated (biscuits, chocolate peanut butter, laughing cow cheese, soy sauce and ramen are most important to me).  And when I'm back home with my bounty of food my friends and I try to determine what meals we can fix up. Recent successes include guacamole sandwiches, egg salad, israeli salad and noodles with veggies.  I've figured out the best way to store the veggies and rolls, to ripen the avocados as I want them to be ripened, and to use the salt and sugar as bookends. 

As my friend Mara explained, I've involuntarily become almost vegan, almost a fruitist (is that what you call people who eat only fallen fruit?) and almost a local, organic-only eater. But never has cooking and buying food been so satisfying or therapeutic.  I have an hour each for lunch and dinner, and even though my days are booked, since everyone eats at the same time there's almost no chance I'm "too busy" to eat a good meal, either at home or in the dining hall.  And on a broader scale, I know I'm sharing meals with hundreds of kids who's lives have been hard enough and should be able to count on regular meals, and that's even more exciting.

Ok time to get ready for a dining hall dinner tonight!  Wish me squash or peanut sauce!