Learning to Eat Again

I think I may have left my fork in Porto-Novo. It was a cool camping fork that collapsed and was portable. My friends gave it to me as a going away present. Fortunately, kind of, I still have the spoon.

I decided on my second or third day in Matéri that my mission would to find people to feed me. It did not take long. My generous neighbor has food made for me breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In typical Beninese fashion, if they find something I like, I get it as often as possible. Also I am served first.

Here is how my crusade began. (Let me preface this by saying that since probably Elementary school I have made it an art to get food from other people. It is only after long periods of time that most people recognize what is going on.)

I bought green beans in Porto-Novo. I also bought onions, and potatoes. Without a refrigerator, after a few days, these things were starting to go bad.

It started with green beans. I sat on the floor of my house, like a squatter, snapping the ends off, as I had been taught by my mother when I was little. I still remember the small cement stoop we had when I was a child, with metal rails that had been tugged on to many times. I would sit with my mother snapping beans, which she would can that day and the next. While sweating profusely inside my house during le chaleue, I decided snapping all these beans was too much work for me right now. I was already trying to make some garlic mashed potatoes from a Trader Joes Mix that I brought from the states. I considered also having to wash the dishes. I pushed the green beans aside.

I didn’t want the green beans to go to waste. I had already thrown out some green peppers, and avocadoes. I always feel terribly guilty when I throw food out here. They waste nothing. I picked up my green beans, and I took them over to my neighbors. There was a kilo of green beans; way too many for one person. I could easily share these beans.

I sat down and started snapping the beans, and quickly everyone else started helping as well. A quick discussion about how to prepare them occurred. An hour or so later I ran back to my house to get something, and my phone rang. I was on the phone, when one of the girls appeared with a plate full of green beans, mixed with onions, tomatoes, and scrambled egg. I took the plate, ended my conversation, and made my way back over to eat what would be the best meal I had since arriving.

The next couple days I brought over slowly different items, including the potatoes, and now my arrival is expected. I am fed, and when I cook or eat anything I share it. I think tonight I may bring over my spaghetti and tomato paste.

My adventure into finding food has led to many cultural exchanges over food. My neighbors (or my family as I may refer to them from here on out) have decided the candy from the states is much better than the candy here—I agreed with them. I have shared my tea packets, and blueberry muffins.

They have shared with me something, which I can not spell, but it is like cream of wheat, but smoother, and a different kind of sweet. I love it, and eat it most mornings. I also enjoy yam pilee with sauce—everything here is served with sauce, which like most food I eat with my fingers. Yam pilee has a mash potato-like substance, but thicker. Now look at your right hand and think about tipping your pointer finger and middle finger in sauce (hot) then into the mash potato-like substance, take a ball size amount—I always am reminded of the balls I used to make out of cookie dough, when I helped my mom cook as a child—and dip it again into the sauce. Thinking about it now makes me hungry. The other night, my sister even said that when I go back to the United States, my mother is going to be shocked at me eating with my hands or rather hand, the right one. I guess the fork may have a better home in Porto-Novo.