Food For Thought

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Recently, the number of meals I have eaten at home has drastically reduced. This isn’t because I don’t like the food, but in order to go to the pool after work or anything else I need to do, makes it difficult to be in the northern end of town at 3 pm for lunch. If I can’t make it home, I usually eat on the street and then again when I get home. Unfortunately this isn’t always possible because my rice lady outside the hospital isn’t always set up yet, but I now have a sandwich guy I go to as well, so I’m starting to have options. The past few days, I have missed dinner a few times, which I don’t like, because I was socializing.

Because I have missed these meals, it seemed today that my family thought that I just hadn’t eatin because they would not let me stop eating at lunch and dinner until I was about to throw up both times. Usually, I can say that I am full and leave it at that, but not today. For lunch, we were eating out of the bowl and my mom kept pushing rice to my section…I had to eat it. At dinner, we were eating cere and it really isn’t my favorite dish, but I was starving. I put alittle on my plate and ate it. I was asked if I wanted more and I said yes because I wasn’t full and felt I could tough it through a few more bites. Well, my sister decided to keep pilling it on my plate. When eating from a plate, it isn’t cool to leave stuff on it, so I had to eat it all. Following dinner, we had mangos, which are absolutely amazing. While full, I wasn’t going to let that stop me from a piece or two of mango. Well, I was given the slices of an entire mango. Not a big deal, but I knew I would struggle. As I brought my plate of mango outside to eat, my mom made me take a slice of hers. By the end of the night, I was a very full kid.

With this said, I also do not think I am eating as much as I should. I feel like I am always hungry, regardless of how much I eat at meals. If they had corn nuts here, I would probably have a pack or two in the spirit of my dad. Since they don’t, I have been going through Biskrems and Pringles at a costly rate.

I decided to weigh myself at the Peace Corps office last week. I had lost a little weight since arriving, but not a significant amount. I think my weight fluctuates a lot more here because of the amount I sweat throughout the course of the day and night (I wake up in a pile of sweat and my sheets are typically wet each morning). I am trying to compensate for this by drinking between 2 and 4 liters of water a day. This may sound like a lot, but 95% of my day is spent sweating. I couldn’t imagine being in the hotter portions of the country.

My final note concerning food and sweating is the dish of yassa poulet. While I am a huge fan of maffe as I’ve stated in past posts, yassa poulet causes a stir in my head if both are on the menu. Yassa poulet is a plate of rice and rotisserie chicken on top, smothered with a sautéed onion sauce. I am not going to lie, but it is pretty good. I ate it 3 or 4 times last week, on top of a few bowls of maffe as well.

Bon Appetite