By Steve, A Volunteer in Tanzania
The day was long, like so many before it. We’d grown accustomed to the walls of our CBT, our desks suspended in the middle of the room like a little oasis of beings among the concrete floor. It was routine for us to see each other day after day, and it’s a wonder how we didn’t grow tired of each other. We’d joked from the beginning that we’d reach a breaking point, but if we ever did it passed over without so much as a whisper. It’s safe to say we’d grown fond of each other in kinship. All of us had found we enjoyed teaching and enjoyed relaying stories of our latest lessons and the witty comment or questions we’d be absconded with by our students. Something else we, surprisingly, found to enjoy was the labour of cooking food with our host families.
The kitchen, or jikoni, was a room operational for most of the twenty-four hours, turning out chapatis, pots of rice, beans, and cooked spinache. There was always enough to eat in our host Tanzanian homes, and we’d usually be prodded by our families to eat more past the point of satisfaction. We’d take turns hosting a sort of dinner party at each of our houses. First was John, who’s host mother made more of a feast for an army rather than supper for four Americans. I took a turn next, making a simple spaghetti and tomatoe sauce; but last night was Calista’s turn, and she dared to venture into making fajitas.
After our school day, I walked with John from the center of the village, where he and I lived, to the fringe of its border where Calista’s house sat atop a small hill. We entered her house observing an incapacitated chicken on the floor of the kitchen, and progressed out to a common-area where Calista and Devon were already at work cooking chapatis; which would serve as our tortillas. Calista’s dada, Teddy, sat with them. She was no more than three or four years old, and had the innocence that came with that age. She’d sweetly shy away whenever John or I would ask her what she did during the day, or how she was, or if she even liked her sister Calista.
Chapatis were finished after some time. They were a labor intensive kind of food, one had to mix the dough, tear off chunks of it and then roll them out into circles before applying sunflower oil and rolling them up again into shapes resembling cinabons. You’d then roll them out into circles once more and apply them to a ripping hot pan with more oil. The process was similar to tortillas, but chapatis have a different texture all together.
We moved on to the chicken from before. Calista’s family brought it out to the back of the common-area where they inteded to kill it; John took the oportunity to witness the event. I assumed there were few chickens where he was from in New York. We took turns plucking and butchering it after the fact; though, Calista was definitly the tip of the spear in this project, and proved she wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.
The chicken itself was on the smaller side, more suited for soup than for anything else but like most other challenges we’d encountered thus far we made due with what we were given. Liberating the flesh from bone was an ordeal, but she did so with a dull knife and stubburn determination. I pittied whoever had crossed her before and hoped I never would, as the eyes she wore while butchering that chicken could’ve cut it with the daggers they stared. The meat was soon cut and I was put to cooking it over the jiko; I obeyed.
John set to making guacamole while Devon cradled the baby in the corner. Within no time we set to the vegetables and cooked those up as well before adding the chicken pieces back in the pot. We tried our hands at making spanish rice but were told that we’d made a muck of it and that there was already a pot of pilau waiting and ready that we could use; almost as if Calista’s family had anticipated we’d dissapoint on the rice. The last step was to mix in the coveted taco seasoning which Calista had brought from home. She’d brought twelve all together, but they may as well have been gold bars by how much we’d valued their usefulness. We used one that night.
The table was already set by the time we were done and we were ushered to sit. Baba led us in a short prayer and we dished outselves. The chapati made a nice substitute for the usual tortilla you’d get. It held the foundational guacamole well and didn’t shift around the rice too much. The fajita mix of bell peppers, onions, garlic, and chicken had the aroma of what I could only immagine God’s kitchen smelled like. Or perhaps it was the fact that we’d not had a familiar meal in three months. I rolled up the chapati and bit down into the ensemble we’d facilitated.
There’s a film called “Big Night,” about two Italian immigrant chefs who live on the American East Coast and run a small Italian restaurant. Long story short, their restaurant isn’t doing so well and the movie is about their “Big Night” in throwing all their talents and best recipes into one big dinner party for Louis Prima, who was supposed to show up. In the scene immediately after everyone was done eating hand made pastas, antipastas, and a specially made timpano, you could see a woman sobbing at the table. When prompted to see what was wrong, she replied “My mother was a terrible cook.”
My first bite into that fajita was that moment from “Big Night” for me. Even though my own mother is a fantastic cook, in that moment I could’ve cried. I’d forgotten what it was like to forget the goodness of something so simple, to forget how the texture of the avocado counteracted the natural bitter of the Hyvee-bought taco seasoning, to forget how the rice blanketed your pallet in after-effect almost as if it was putting the flavors to bed on your tongue; and then all at once be reminded by the fruits of our labor wrapped up in that chapati. Christ, it was so good. I had two servings that night.
We’d talked after dinner for a bit. John took a turn holding the baby while Devon and I sat in comfort while the TV showcased the latest episode of “Matter of Repspect.” I saw Calista with a sated and silly smile on her face as she scanned over the room with her host family and us seated about. It was the kind of smile us Midwesterners got when playing a round of bags, downing an ice cold beer, or even fishing out on the Mississippi; contentedness. She seemed happy we were all together in the experience; it was one that we wouldn’t get to have again for a while after we’d left for our sites. We didn’t stay for long afterwards, and Devon, John and I rode home better people than we had been upon arrival.