Food and Culture

So...trying to get more regular here! Posting on the blog I mean, not talking about anything else, though I guess I kind of am given the title! Food and nutrition is a big thing here, in many different ways. I may very well do some nutrional education work while I am here and, of course, feeding myself an staying healthy is pretty high on my priority list.

Nutrition here is interesting. On the one hand, folks do eat more vegetables than I originally felt led to believe - most meals have a vegetable portion - but it is small and often cooked until mushy with salt and oil. Men are very fit (it's no coincidence, I think, that there is not a word in the language for sit up - my attempt at a six pack is almost laughable here compared to what almost every male is walking around with naturally) but women tend to be overweight and often significantly so - but that is in fact the standard of beauty. Diabetes and high blood pressure are increasingly rampany throughout, however.

So it may be more about the don'ts then the do's when it comes to education - don't cook with so much oil, don't fry everything, don't cook with so much salt and MSG and all that, etc. But we'll see.

My food situation is questionable. I have more than enough food to last me a good long while, but most of it is canned or otherwise packaged and all of it - here's the kicker - is prepared by me! I'm far from a great cook but I'm an even worse one here! Between unfamiliarity with the ingredients, unfamiliarity with the stove and the utensils, and general cooking un-know how I am struggling to cook tastey food! I quite accidently made a very good meal last night and it was awesome! I should have taken pictures and sent them to ARIEL because it was almost vegan and could have gone on her blog!

My neighbor gave me okra and squash and I combined that with rice and lentils. I lightly stir fried the okra (they cook it to slimy sludge here and it is terribly) and that ended up ok but didn't go as well as I remember watching others do it and cooked down the pumpkin in the Saramaccan way which is sort of a thick pumpkiny stew - very tastey. I cooked the rice and the lentils together in the same pot - the rice was overcooked by the end - and I was thinking that was a mistake and I decided to stir in 2 eggs just for the hell of it. Somehow, the lentils turned to the consistenty of re-fried beans and when I mixed in the other stuff it was actually hella tastey! But those successes are rare!

So I'll learn, but it's making me recognize how much I depended on the few standbys I actually knew how to cook and how much I actually ended up eating out in the States. It creeps up on you and can definitely be expensive - so a good wake up call! Can't wait to go back to those terrible ways! You have no idea how much I miss Subway and Chipotle. Grocery store sushi. Oh dear.

On the plus side, my primary sponsors - the village Rastas - planted me an incredible garden and it is starting to be ready to harvest! I have my own long green beans and other stuff to come soon! So I definitely can eat quite healthy here! My neighbors have already started taking stuff and that is fine, because they help me cook it too. It was a bit awkward at first because I really think on of my neighbors tried to tell me that one of the rows of beans was hers and I couldn't have any awhile back and then when faced with the Rasta's clearly explaining it to me (and my increased language skills a week later) she of course retreated. It may have just been me misunderstand, but I think she was trying to put one over on me. Hard to say, but she's one of the neighbors I like less, just because.

And it is a pretty...grabby...culture. You ask for stuff and if someone offers you something you take it. It's just part of the culture so you can't judge it by American standards, but that is really tough - particularly when you mix in the pollution caused by the strong stereotype about white Americans being super wealthy and being walking ATMs/candy machines. So you can't judge...but sometimes you can. And you certainly shouldn't say yes very often.

But really, people ask you for stuff alot and it's generally either just "Give ___ to me" or occasionally "Give ___ to me fast." Kids look at me blankly when I tell them to ask in a more polite way, even when adults have explained that there are technically more formal/polite ways to ask - which of course adults almost never use either. So it's tough not to feel like they are trying to abuse you/being rude, but really they aren't - and increasingly they aren't as we get used to each other and exchange cultures and boundaries.

For example, culturally you don't ask for covered things. So cover your stack of cans and they know they are being rude if they ask you for one - and they generally won't. That can make it hard when you are in the act of looking for something or cooking something and I haven't fully gotten comfortable there yet, but it's a big improvement. Additionally, I have come up with good responses.

Some are things I do. For example, if you call me foreigner I will chase you down and make sure you know my name and possibly give you my Peace Corps spiel. It often embarrasses them and I'm ok with that. At this point it's mostly kids under 3, so I just go for the name part. If you ask me for money I will yell at you and remind you that I live here.

Others are things I am helping the people here understand. For example, they don't initially understand that I'm not paid to be here and Peace Corps doesn't have money. So I've learned to explain that all of my stuff was given to me by the Peace Corps (pretty close to the definition of a living stipend, don't you think) and I need it all because I am going to live here for 2 years and I don't have fields like them or a gun to hunt like them or a family to bring me food like them or a job that pays like (some of) them.

The phrase, "No one pays me while I live here" has gone a long way to help people understand. The idea of volunteering is not well understood, but we are getting there. And people are noticeably less grabby after that. You start to see a movement towards the pure cultural stuff (which is hard enough to get used to) and pull out the stereotype driven polllution.

The other thing that seemed to help was doing some old fashiioned cultural exchange. I'm helping people learn English, informally for now, and so one of my neighbors that I do like more said to me "Gimme that!" I was surprised and taken aback and she asked if she had said it correctly in English. I pounced!

I explained that she had spoken the words correctly, but that asking for someone's things like that was incredibly rude in America. I went on to explain how big of an adjustment it was for me here in Suriname where it is ok for people to ask you for stuff - because it was terrible manners in America and everyone would think you were a terrible person. I laid it on thick. And she got it! People here...are people. Generally, they aren't dumb, they are relatively friendly, and they don't want to feel rude - but at the same time they want free stuff if there is free stuff laying around! People are people.

After that, she's been going out of her way to offer to give me stuf and started asking for things much less - and when she does ask, it's for stuff that makes sense. Like an onion, because she realized she was out in the middle of cooking, instead of one of my 2 pots when she has 20. They love their pots here - most women collect them. Literally stacks. Often still in the boxes.

On the other hand, may have something to do with the fact that I have started baking! I'm 2 for 3 on banana breads thus far. Upside, everyone loves it! Downside, it makes me miss Ariel even more and I'm going to run out of sugar! I made my first one and gave it to the above neighbor, my other favorite neighbor, and my Rasta's - along with some random kids of course. Several people wanted to learn to cook it and so I've done that twice now. One of those times, I may have accidently sextupled the salt quantity. Whoops. And forgotten the backing soda. It was still edible...but not wonderful. The other two were really good though!

So yeah, having things that I'm willing to give (and unsolicited), having people understand my role and my living restraints, and helping draw distinctions between what I can and want to gift to people and not is all going a long way to make life more fun. And it is pretty fun in general so this will only help make it more so!

That's all for now!