week four at site

May 11, 2009

I guess it’s true what they say. Women really must gain weight in the Peace Corps. I was actually really surprised when I heard that the first time. I thought, “How can I gain weight when I have to walk everywhere and cook for myself? And what will I eat? Will my village sell anything but beans, rice, and sweet potatoes?”

Well, it’s true that my village doesn’t have the variety of Walmart or even the local gas station in the U.S. for that matter. Actually, the offerings are bread, eggs, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beans, cassava, corn, tomatoes, onions, peanuts, questionable milk and some weird vegetables I don’t know the name of. Actually, people here eat the leaves off of everything it seems and they call it vegetables. Oh, and I almost forgot my favorite, avocado.

Okay, so the first week I was here, I kinda didn’t cook at all. For one, I had no wood, gas, or charcoal. Second, I didn’t know where to buy anything or how to cook on wood or charcoal. Third, I had no time to cook especially because it would get dark by 6:30. So, I basically bummed off of my neighbors for about a week and a half. At that time, I was eating only once or twice a day and I honestly thought my clothes would start falling off of me soon. Well, I finally bought some charcoal and for the past week and a half, I have been developing a system of cooking. I actually now have the charcoal lighting down (if I throw half a cup of kerosene on it before lighting). And my timing is getting better. People here eat pinto beans every day and you know as well as I do that pinto beans take forever to cook! So, I finally developed a system where I soak my beans overnight, light my charcoal when I wake up, start the beans cooking, go to work, come back and cook them another hour or two. This system is not flawless though. The first time I tried this, I underestimated how much water to put in the pan and seriously burnt the crap out of everything. Okay, maybe I did this twice. And since I work 8 hours a day, the charcoal also goes out by the time I come back and I have to relight it. Anyway (I’m taking too long to explain this.), I am finally getting used to cooking for myself and since then, I have been eating way too much. For one, I usually have half an avocado every day. In the morning, I have my bread and butter. At ten, I have one or two little sweet breads they sell at the hospital cantine. At twelve, I have some more bread and butter or I reheat food from the night before. At 7 or 8 pm, I have dinner (usually beans, rice or noodles, and avocado). Or I have eggs and, you guessed it, bread again. Then, at 11 or 12 am, I get a craving for chocolate and eat about 3 or 4 spoonfuls of Nutella. If you don’t know what Nutella is, stop reading this blog and go to the supermarket to buy some. Seriously. Nutella, with its heavenly mix of chocolate hazelnut and vanilla-like spread, is probably the best thing invented by man. At least, it is the best thing in the food department and when you spread it on bananas, wow! I, at least, can’t stop eating it and I have gone through a whole jar in just one week. And nutella isn’t cheap either. It costs $4 a jar. I guess it’s a bad idea to keep it by my bed. I’m moving it tonight.

Today, I made pancakes. Real, honest to goodness, like your grandmother makes them, pancakes. And they were delicious. I had to sacrifice one of my precious eggs for the recipe but it was worth it. I’m going to try to save around three of the pancakes for breakfast tomorrow (not sure how that’s going to turn out but it’s that or nothing). I also cooked enough beans and rice to feed a family of five, so I’m having that tonight too. This is after downing three or four cookies with nutella and eating half an avocado. You see what I mean? I’m going to blow up. I hate to keep harping on this. In the States, I was never really that conscious of my weight but here, where villagers are lucky to eat twice a day, I am actually considered a little heavier than normal. I weighed myself the other day, after the pregnant women had finished weighing themselves, and I actually weighed just as much as a Rwandan woman in her sixth or seventh month of pregnancy!

Talking about weight, that’s what I did today. I weighed children and measured their arms in one of the little villages. After doing that for about four hours, I was ready to cry or at least strangle myself for being an American. Seriously, about half of these kids were underweight and many were in the malnourished category, some severe. I weighed one child I thought to be around 8 months old only to find out she was two years old. I literally gasped when the mother told me how old she was. After I would weigh the child and find out she was underweight, I would usually tell the mother to visit the clinic for vitamins and nutrition counseling. After a while, I started thinking if I was going to have to send all these mothers to the clinic. And I asked once or twice what the children ate at home. One mother told me the family only ate pinto bean greens (the leaves off of the plant). What can I say to that? I did tell several mothers to feed their children pinto beans, sweet potatoes, fruits and vegetables. But what does that accomplish? What can a mother do with this information if she has no money to buy the food or if, like much of the land in my sector, the land she tills is so infertile, she can’t produce enough food for her family, especially not the food for a varied, healthy diet?

That’s the main problem I have been facing here. Poverty. I guess it’s obvious yet I didn’t expect it to slap me in the face like it did. You tell them something and they listen. They agree it’s good advice and they believe you because you have the white lab coat on. But do they do it? Many times, the answer is no because they simply cannot afford to do it. For example, health workers tell the villagers to boil their water before drinking because the water is dirty and will spread diseases. Yet, what mother will stop what she is doing to boil water when she has only one pan and she probably needs to cook beans and potatoes for her four hungry children? And after she boils the water, does she even have a container to put the water in?

It’s a cycle. Poverty leads to health problems, shortened life span, and malnutrition and, in turn, health problems, shortened life span, and malnutrition lead to more poverty. I guess the answer lies in trying to solve the poverty problem. If people have enough money, they can buy nutritious food, boil their water, buy shoes for their children and send them to school. Maybe, if the child goes to school, he will be one of the lucky few, who finish high school and goes to college. Maybe, if he finishes, with help from the government and scholarships, he will be one of the even luckier few, who will find a good job. But maybe, his parents will be like so many others who dredge out a sort of living every day on their small plot of infertile land and they try their best to feed their five children and send them to school. But high school is inordinately expensive and not many people can afford it. So, the children stay home and grow up to become farmers themselves. They divide the land of their parents and continue to live the same life as their parents did. And they have many children because they are afraid some of their children will die. For who will take care of them when they are older if their children are all dead?

Okay, I’m depressing myself so I will stop writing about this. And I need to stop eating! Maybe, I am channeling my emotions through food. That would be trouble. Haha. Okay, next time I will try to write a happy blog. If anybody is reading this, send me some topic ideas or questions so I will not just write about the demise of society or some other sobering topic.