In the past few days I've been indulging myself in the goodness of one of the great wonders in the world -- Singaporean food. In the next couple of weeks I'll also be enjoying some homecooking and Hong Kong food that I've missed in the past year. Culturually, food is a pretty big thing for us, and in my family, its importance can only be amplified. Food is probably one of the things I've taken for granted, especially good food.
When we were working in Nkwazi, members of the team took turns to work in the kitchen to help the ladies prepare our meals. While we cooked we chatted with the women, and from them we learned even more about the community and some of their traditions.
When it was my turn to cook, the topic of conversation turned to celebrations and ceremonies. I told the lady sitting next to the charcoal stove next to me that food is always a pretty important component in Chinese celebrations. "We quite enjoy our food," I said without really thinking. In a level voice she said, "It's good to have a lot of good food at celebrations and parties, but you've first got to have enough food to even fill your stomachs." I was sure that the comment was only a reasonable one, but I couldn't help but feel a touch of bitterness in her voice and suddenly I felt that I had said the most inappropriate thing I could have said. I couldn't think of anything else to say so I simply sat on my stool in embarassment. The rest of the cooking went on relatively quietly, and I grew even more self-conscious when I clumsily dropped grains of rice onto the floor when I emptied the pot into the big bowl at the end.
For a long time after that, I blamed myself for not being sensitive enough though in retrospect, I suppose I didn't really say anything wrong because it was true. But it made me wonder if it had always been like that for them, if food had been scarce in that part of the world since the beginning of time (or the beginning of a time relevant to the world today anyway) and therefore played no extravegant role in any sort of festivities, or if they used to have enough to fill their bellies and brought out the extra for a special treat once in a while, but had somehow lost the resources somewhere along the way. If it was the latter case, how did it happen?
Indeed, for many people in Europe and Asia, food is a source of pleasure, and the preparation of it is itself a delicate art. Eating is a necessity, but we enjoy it while we're at it. I suddenly realised that being able to do that in Africa, or Zambia -- or Nkwazi, rather -- is a luxury, a privilege. People there eat mostly to do another day's work. And we adapted to that way of life too when we got there. My friends asked me about the food in Africa, whether it was bad, or if it was ok. I found that I didn't really thought of the food in those terms. It was simple and perhaps packed variety, but it was enough to fill our tired bodies with content at the end of each session of work. It was no Viennese schnitzel or Italian pizza, but it served its purpose and no one complained. (Until, of course, we returned to Lusaka and looked hungrily at billboards that advertised various western cuisines.)
P.S. Actually, we were eating a lot more and much better than everyone else in the community. In fact, from what I've heard, we cleared the village of chickens that were of edible size. We found that out when we wanted to give chickens to the three new homeowners at the dedication ceremony and was told that we had to get them from somewhere else.