Two days into my first homestay in Langa Township and I already have an authentic South African house playlist on iTunes thanks to my homestay brother, Odwa. I already have an isiXhosa name (“Noxolo”, meaning "peaceful girl") that my homestay mom, Mama Dudu, calls me; and I’m already getting into the swing of the routines of daily life. I’ve already adjusted to hearing clicks sprinkled throughout the conversations that transpire at home in a language that, two weeks ago, was entirely foreign to me – and I’ve already mastered the clicks myself. However, there are some things that haven’t been quite as easy to adjust to, first and foremost being THE FOOD.
One of my most vehement New Year’s resolutions for 2011 was to lose the 15 not-so-glamorous pounds that I gained my freshman year in the dirty south. I was under the impression that this would be pretty easy to while being abroad – I mean most people lose weight abroad, right? All of the daily walking, dancing, shuffling, sporadic hiking, etc. usually contributes to students coming back as much more chiseled versions of their pre-exploration selves - this is, of course, excluding those returning from countries with bountiful pastries, pasta, or beer. However, once again, South Africa has thrown me a curve ball to complicate my presuppositions. The strategy that I thought out before I came here of making excuses as to why I cannot eat this dish or that meat is proving to be not so effective. Many African cultures including those of South Africans are primarily centered on community based interactions—for students coming from the United States, that most essentially means that all of a sudden “I” comes only second in importance to “we”. And what better a manifestation of this collectivity than that of eating? Through eating together a family is nourished together; comes together for even a fleeting moment of their day spent traversing each others’ paths; indulges in the collective realization of gratefulness for the bounty of life. It’s been a really nice thing to have on a daily basis, even if it is spent sitting around the television watching American music videos and South African soap operas, which are called “Soapies”. Eating together is one of those necessary indulgences that I think every family should try to make time for even as kids grow older and lives become more complicated. However, here for me, that means that there’s not always room for the stark pickiness that I would usually allow myself at home or at school. It’s not necessarily about what I like anymore, but rather what has been prepared for me by the hands of my Mama. Thus many complexities arise when I realize that my breakfast toast is smeared with the “medium fat spread” in the fridge, or when some meat that might or might not be cow rectum is placed in front of me in bulk. This is not to belittle African food, Americans eat some pretty funky things too (case and point: can you tell me just what was packed into that delicious hot dog you just ate last week?), but this is just to emphasize the point that in being in an African home, I have to be a little more diplomatic about my choices. If you were wondering about what I did with the mystery (possibly rectal?) meat, I ate a bite and then politely asked my Mama if I could potentially save it for later because I wasn’t that hungry… it’s still sitting in the fridge, but my compromise was eating the bread smothered in fat. Almost needless to say, today during lunch I purchased a gym membership.
No comments:
Post a Comment