Chakula

Let’s talk about food (chakula is dinner). This seemed to be the first question people would ask me when they knew I was preparing to spend an extended time in Africa. What about the food? What will you do?

Many of you know that I am a notoriously picky eater. Just ask my mom or Brenda Kuper. However, in Tanzania I love the food. There are a few things I could do without, cucumbers and warm milk. Otherwise, I like it all – yes, even the banana stew.

Before this trip I had always managed to avoid the banana stew. It is just what it sounds like. Bananas are served in stew, sometimes with other vegetables and meat, usually over rice. It does not look at all appetizing, but the bananas really just taste like potatoes and the spices they use are quite good.

Last night we had banana soup, it was thick and pureed and had some beef in it. Delicious. Mama Kweka said, “tonight we eat like Chaggas.” It was so nice because it was just the soup. Most of the time there are about 10 dishes on the table and you have to take something from each plate and I never know how much to take from the first dish, because I never can anticipate how many more are still to come.

Best of all is fruit for dessert. After each meal, fruit is served. Watermelon, bananas, papaya, oranges and mango. These fruits are freshly picked, they are ripened on the plant, and they just taste 10 times better than the fruit we get in the Midwest where fruit does not grow natively. For breakfast we have roasted bananas, the outside is hardened like a shell and the inside is hot and gooey and tastes like candy. Again, they look nasty – but taste wonderful.

Finally I must talk about the most hallowed of foods (in my book anyway) the parachichi – or avocado! I love them, when I see them appear on the table it just makes me happy. I rarely eat avocado at home, they don’t seem to have much taste to me. But these African avacado’s right off the tree outside the church are amazing. Let me just say that they are like butter. I suppose only the Norwegian readers will understand the butter reference – but the translation is that they are like frosting from heaven.

I haven’t even cracked the seal on my big jar of peanut butter yet. There are just too many good things to try here!

It is early in my trip, so I should probably update this post again in August. Perhaps by then I will have a different story.

For now, let’s eat!