One thing you must know about our time in Congo is we are eating like kings. Everyday, Mama Lily brings us huge containers full of food she’s made for us. We eat plates of fried plantains, potatoes and spinach, fish and chicken and beef, rice, beans, fruit–avocados, oranges, bananas. We stuff ourselves regularly, but even on our best nights we haven’t been able to finish all the food Mama Lily brings us.
In the mornings, we eat omelets that are cooked with fried potatoes. These omelets come out as big circles that we cut like pizza. We put these and freshly sliced avocado on rolls and eat them like breakfast sandwiches, and I cannot tell you how tasty they are. We eat avocado at nearly every meal, and I am loving it more each time.
Yesterday at lunchtime, we bought rolls and avocados from a roadside stand, and ate them with cheese and warm Cokes. It was the simplest lunch, but it was delicious, the cheese soft and creamy, the bread fresh, the avocado rich. We ate in the van, balancing the food on our laps, tired and hot from a full morning of work.
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this is so exciting =) not just the food, of course, although that’s enough to make me want to go one day (i love avocados). thanks for posting while you’re over there, i have really enjoyed reading some about your experience.
the Mama Lilly thing sounds like you’re going to be plumper when you get home….seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it?? Go to Africa and gain weight?
Hope you all stay safe and return home in good time
Oh my, the food does sound delicious. This Mama Lilly person sounds like a really, really good friend to have.
Am I correct in presuming that the avocados (and other produce) are locally grown? I have always been told that fruits in other countries taste so much better than the fruit we Americans can buy in our grocery stores. I think this is because most of our produce is flown in from that fall off country (where it would have tasted better) and is often artificially ripened. And in addition to that, perhaps our domestic produce is just not as good as other countries’ because we use so many pesticides and commercially patented or perfected seeds, so there is no natural variation. I guess I have come to accept that American produce is usually better looking on the outside than it i tasting on the inside. And all of this is to say tat imagine the produce you are getting in Africa is just the opposite. And I find that very exciting!
The food does sound amazing! I’m glad you’re able to blog during the trip because there’s nothing like immediacy in travel writing. Somehow it just doesn’t seem as fresh and urgent after the fact. But I want to hear more about the work you’re doing!
I bought a couple of avocados at Harris Teeter yesterday–somehow I doubt they’ll be as good as the fresh ones we had in Africa, but I had to try…
With all the carbs we were eating (bread, rice, potatoes in abundance), I would have gained a fair amount of weight, but I think I’m about the same. I attribute this to all the walking we did, and some type of stomach nastiness I managed to catch while there (antibiotics knocked it out).
The soil in eastern Congo is really rich, and they don’t have all the fertilizers and pesticides we spray on our crops. I told Bishop that people in the States pay extra for food like that, and he was amused.