What I Usually Eat

I've gotten a couple of questions about what I eat on a daily basis, so I thought I’d write about it.

My town is one of the few Peace Corps sites in Mozambique that doesn't have a year-round market due to the fact that it’s really tiny. Most families just grow their own food—but since I live on school grounds, this is not an option for me. There are one or two bancas on the road where on occasion you can buy spaghetti or tuna -- but for the rest of my shopping, I have to go to Tete City, an hour away. There are pros and cons to this -- on the upside, Tete is an awesome place where I can enjoy falafel sandwiches and ice cream in a nice air conditioned cafe on a weekly basis. On the downside, it takes a long time to get there, the city is an expensive place to hang out, and most of all, planning out a weeks’ worth of food, fitting it all into two shopping bags, and lugging it home on the ever-so-crowded chapa is difficult at best.

Due to the cost of meat and the fact that I’m freaked out by killing chickens, I’ve become 98% vegetarian. Eating a nutritious diet is therefore even more difficult, especially because I can only shop once a week, and fruits and vegetables go bad very quickly. I had one particularly desperate meal to date which consisted of a bouillon cube in hot water with "dumplings" made of nothing more than water and flour. (I was really scraping the barrel as far as food reserves go. I had nothing left.) I told myself it was "chicken soup with dumplings," but I am fully aware that I basically ate saltwater and flour for dinner. Never again!

On the flip side, the first few days after I go shopping are like Christmas come early. On those days, I have a wide assortment of fruits and vegetables, my meals are nutritious and delicious, and the amount of trash I produce is next to nothing. Needless to say, I love the first few days after I go shopping.

I think of my dietary habits as having three stages:

Stage 1: “Abundance”:
Just went shopping – food, glorious food! I binge eat wonderfully vitamin-rich fruits, vegetables and fresh bread before they go bad. Best days of the week!

Stage 2: “Mais ou Menos”
The hardier veggies, like potatoes and onions, are still good to eat, and I use them in conjunction with canned peas, carrots, and chick peas to make still pretty decent and protein-rich meals.

Stage 3: “Malnutrition”
 I need to go shopping. All my perishable and canned goods are gone. I am living off of bouillon cubes, xima, and ramen. I save my corn flakes for this troublesome time so I still have something to look forward to eating every day.

	Breakfast	Lunch/Dinner	Treat
Stage 1	Peanut Butter and Banana sandwich with fresh bread	Fried rice with vegetables or split pea soup	Cucumber salad or fresh fruits
Stage 2	Scrambled eggs or oatmeal	Pasta with tomato or alfredo sauce, or rice and beans.	Orange juice or hot chocolate
Stage 3	Corn flakes	Ramen, chicken noodle soup, batatas fritas.	A Jolly Rancher (melted)

Definitely, the hardest thing about eating here is getting enough vitamins and protein. I try to plan ahead as much as possible, but it’s still very difficult. Thankfully, Peace Corps sends me supplements in case I’m not getting enough of something.

I must say, though, difficulties aside, it has been fun getting to enjoy cooking. In myapartment in Houston, I was usually in a rush or my friends would invite me to eat out – so there wasn’t much incentive or enough time to really cook decent meals for myself. Here, I don’t have the option of going out to eat, and I usually have nothing to do anyway, so I can take my time and experiment a bit. The other day, I made some pretty tasty jam-filled fried dumplings for dessert! I considered it a victory.

Next step: Learn to make legitimate Mozambican food!