Hello World,
Sorry I’ve been failing miserably at these once-a-month updates. I have been thwarted by Real Life, including, but not limited to: moving house, interviewing surveyors, seeing baby elephants, and hanging out on farms (pictured).
Right now I am thrilled to be in a room with “tea making facilities”, my new favourite phrase. I will make back the cost of this room by drinking all the tea possible.
I don’t have time to write a witty and informative post about development; nor can I give away all my project details to you (it’s cool and interesting I promise). Thus I’ll give you a quick update on being vegetarian in non-Lusaka Zambia.
There are two options here. There are also pizza restaurants but I haven’t succumbed to the temptation of lactose.
First, grocery stores. I like eating potato chips (crisps) in bread, which makes a delicious and completely not nutritious meal. Our Field Coordinator constantly makes fun of me for the amount of crisps I eat, which, fair, is not good for me and must be balanced by copious amounts of running. There are also apples, bananas, and other fruits. Unfortunately mango and guava season has ended, but juice is always in season.
Second, local food. Local food is pretty vegetarian/vegan friendly, if the person who catered it/made it isn’t excessively into meat. There’s nshima, which is a maize flour paste and pretty delicious, except I can’t eat a quarter of what Zambians eat without feeling like I’m going to explode. There are tons of green vegetables which are SO GOOD. One is pumpkin leaves and one is rape (rapeseed? Swiss Chard? trying to figure this one out) and there are a few others. They can be made with groundnut (peanut) stew or by themselves. There is also coleslaw and other cabbage- don’t know how local this is but it comes with a lot of catering and is good. There are also beans, which range from delicious, cooked with onions, to pretty bad, cooked with imitation ketchup. Wherever on the scale they are, they’re a good source of protein. There is also meat but I don’t eat that; ask someone else. Finally, trainings usually come with tea and baked goods!
The more I eat local food, the more I like it. Today I had a choice between rice and nshima, plus the choice to use a fork. I chose the nshima but got a fork. Then after two forkfuls I realised it felt weird to use a fork, even though no one was watching and judging me, so I started eating with my hands like one is supposed to, making a little boat out of the nshima and scooping up the vegetables. It was nice.