Food Rules

Post by Lara

23 Feb 2014

Yesterday I went out with two volunteers, Lindsey and Brooke, to Med's Fast Food, a little eatery on a busy street in downtown Freetown. We sat upstairs in a tiny air-conditioned room and ordered egg burgers, fried chicken, a beef shawarma, and cold sodas, and we talked about food. 

For anyone who comes from somewhere other than here and enjoys food other than rice, spicy sauces, and fish, you can expect to spend a fair amount of energy thinking about what you used to eat and pining after it.  When we make it to larger cities with supermarkets and imported goods, we indulge, and we savor it. 

I told the girls that I'm mildly fascinated by the food culture among us volunteers, which is unlike anything I've experienced before.  I summarized our Salone Peace Corps food rules as follows: 1, you don't ever feel bad about eating what you're eating; 2, you get tons of good karma points for sharing what you're eating with other ex-pats; 3, if someone offers you something and you want it, you accept it immediately and without guilt; 4, you do not help yourself to anyone's food.

Lindsey, who's been in the country since June of last year, disagreed about the guilt-- she said she still feels bad about eating food and not offering it to others.  Brooke and I, who came a year earlier than Lindsey, assured her that she shouldn't feel that way.  Food is a big comfort here, and we savor every familiar taste we get.  That doesn't mean it's ok to resent a fellow volunteer for having something delicious and choosing to keep it to him or herself.  Every morsel falls in the positive column. 

Rule 4 is the one that can bring bad blood between volunteers-- we have a rather small shared space in Freetown, and the agreed-upon rule is that no matter how delicious and wonderful someone's food looks, it belongs to that volunteer unless it's offered.  When a story circulates about the volunteer who helped himself to someone's candy or  took some peanut butter from another volunteer's stash, it's met with hushed tones of, "you just don't do that."  Open food containers in public spaces are a little more ambiguous-- we tend to assume that if someone left a bag of Doritos on the verandah table, they are implying that they're willing to share. 

For Kevin and myself, sharing imported food items with other volunteers makes us feel good. As a couple, we tend to have more spending money available than those who are single, and we also have been very fortunate as far as receiving packages and visitors who help us maintain what I consider to be a healthy level of processed sugar and salty goodness.  Passing a bit of prepackaged love around is a nice way to bond with our fellow volunteers, and this is one of the few times in our lives that we don't worry even a little bit about the empty calories and unhealthy ingredients in our processed foods of choice.  For this brief period, we can gain a moment of pure, unadulterated gladness from a bite of beef jerky or a single Oreo.  That's worth taking advantage of.