Tuesday January 29, 2013
Breakfast
Breakfast was as I knew it would be;
porridge flavored only by any residual contents in the cup you drank it from.
Porridge in the States (as I remember it) is eaten with a spoon but here it’s
liquid enough to drink, unless you let it congeal which is why everywhere you
look students are swirling their breakfast around in their cups. The only thing
it has going for it is that it is warm, yet that seems like an affront to one’s
emotions, tricking the unsuspecting into eagerly drinking the warm porridge only
to find disappointment with each mouthful, like a predator luring its prey into
a corner before it strikes.
Lunch
Kayunga
and beans. This is the meal I know and trust whenever I’ve eaten with my
students previously. It’s made of colorless corn mush formed into a giant ball
of regret. It’s only redeeming quality is that the dull heap can take on the
flavor of anything that it touches, in this case salt and beans. A drawback to
the absorption of flavor is that it also absorbs the liquid the beans are in,
causing it to take on a sponge like consistency, which we all know leads to an
increase in appetite and disposition to ingest more of the now mildly flavored
but mushier ball of regret.
Dinner
Same deal as last night, sweet potatoes
and beans (read: I only ate beans). The salt attack from last night must have
scared my lips into quick action healing for fear of another assault because it
was less bothersome this time around. The lack of variety of food was quickly
made up for by the quality of conversation however. Most of the talk revolved
around the military though and how Rwandans aren’t allowed to have a gun unless
they’re in the military or police and how they’re shocked with the ability
Americans have to access such powerful weapons. I felt it strange how in a
post-conflict country that also has the constant threat of M23 lingering on the
horizon they would have a much stricter view on gun control than in the States.
But that’s a topic for another day.
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