Regarding Food

An easy trap to stumble into when describing an experience like mine is to only share the stories that seem sensational, and forget about the everyday stuff. There is so much that has become commonplace for me, but that I forget would strike all of my readers as new and interesting. So from now on I will try to spend more time talking about some of the many routine and often repetitive elements of what it means to be in the Peace Corps.

My diet here is much less varied than it was back home, but still delicious. The big meal of the day is lunch, which almost always consists of white rice, beans (red or black), and some kind of meat (usually chicken). There is sometimes a salad too. This meal is popularly referred to as ¨La Bandera Dominicana¨ (the Dominican flag) because it offers all the colors that are present on the flag. It is nourishing and delicious, and I am starting to think it might be addictive. Around mid-day, every day of the week, I get a craving in my gut. If the menu happens to be different that day, or if I am on the road and not able to sit down to eat, I experience a wave of disappointment at not getting my bandera. I am actually starting to get hungry just writing this.

Breakfast and dinner are made up primarily of what they call ¨vivres¨, what we would usually call starches. Green bananas, plantain, yucca, squash, potatoe, and yam are all common features during these meals, usually boiled but sometimes fried. The vivre will usually come with some salami (basically summer sausage, but not as good as it is back home), fried cheese, or an egg.

I live in a very lush tropical valley where agriculture is the name of the game, so I also eat a lot of amazing fruit. There´s a giant mango tree right next to my house that the kids are always throwing rocks at to get down whatever fruit might be ready. There are THOUSANDS of them on this tree, just waiting to turn orange and drop. Delicious. There´s also a lot of oranges, lemons, bread fruit, banana, and an amazing fruit called ¨guanabana¨ which I never had before coming here, and don´t know the english for.

Despite the fact that my community is poor, the fact that they are farmers means that there is almost always plenty of food. The food shortages that have been striking much of the world have been felt here with rice being more expensive, but fortunately there is no emergency. There have been problems in the past, as we live right in the middle of hurricane alley. When a storm hits directly, it has the potential to wipe out any and all crops that are in the ground at the time. Some of my work is going to focus on growing a greater variety of food to 1) keep the soil healthy and happy and 2) reduce dependence on one or two kinds of crops for income. We will be starting a community vegetable garden project sometime soon here.

Stay tuned!