Or will I…
May 3, 2011
I’ve been having a real problem getting my eating and food situation under control. Yes it may be nice that I have lost about 30 pounds since I’ve been here but in America we would say I haven’t lost it healthily. I can’t find anything to eat. At first in Muntugula my host family was cooking for me. It was good food and I ate 3 meals a day but I really watched what I ate. They eat an awful lot of carbs…for lack of anything else. Here in Bugula for the first week I was eating with Miriam. Her food was ok but a lot of carbs…and a lot of reddish brownish vomit sauce. Sometimes it tastes ok and other times it tastes like it’s a week old. Which may not be far from the truth…and without refrigeration that’s not a good thing. But now I am cooking for myself. Between not being able to get to the market and the fact that there isn’t anything there to get besides rice and stuff to make reddish brownish vomit sauce it’s been hard getting a routine together. And of course no refrigeration. It’s not like I can stock up and everything is “fresh” somewhat so what do you do.
So when I go each week into Bougouni (the big town) I try and stock up. My shopping list consists of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, potatoes, tomato paste, canned peas and a couple of bags of pasta. Eat the fresh stuff at the beginning of the week and resort to the dry and canned stuff at the end of the week. If I’m lucky I can find an eggplant or some cabbage. So in my village I can buy eggs…sometimes. So I figure I could get some protein in by eating some eggs a couple of times of week. So I bought 6 eggs. Hard boiled 4 of them. I figured I would eat a hard boiled egg sandwich for lunch and another one for dinner. I make enough at lunch time to feed me at dinner as well. Since you can’t save leftovers it sounded like a good idea to me. The other 2 eggs I was saving for breakfast. I made my egg salad. Eggs, diced onions and mayonnaise (which as you know doesn’t need to be refrigerated…even in 120 degree weather). I put it on some French bread with slices of tomato and ate the death out of it. It tasted so good.
“Get to the throwing up part” you say. Well about 2 hours later I could still feel that sandwich sitting right in the pit of my stomach. I started sweating really bad…I thought it was because it was hot, but then got a little shakey. I figured I better go lay down for a while. I spent 6 hours sweating with the chills and feeling like I was going to vomit. It was so bad I blacked out at one point when I tried to stand up. I thought as much as I hate to, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve thrown up in my life, I had to do it. I had to get the egg sandwich out of me. So down went the fingers and up came the sandwich. Apparently when it comes to egg sandwiches in Mali the 3rd time’s a charm. After 8 hours and throwing up 3 times I could finally go to sleep.
I can’t help but wonder, what if it wasn’t the eggs. Maybe it was the mayonnaise. Maybe it was the cucumber. There are no good ways to find that out. But eggs during hot season is the first thing I’m eliminating. Yesterday for lunch I had a tomato, cucumber and onion salad…and waited…nothing. Phweeww…it was the eggs. I gotta figure something out about what I’m going to eat. I can’t survive on a diet of tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and pasta for 2 years. Today for lunch guess what I had. A tomato, half an onion and half a cucumber. For dinner guess what I had…a tomato, the other half of the onion and the other half of the cucumber. All I have left is 2 half pound bags of pasta, one small can of tomato paste and one onion. It’s Thursday and I won’t be going into Bougouni again until Monday. What to do…what to do!!
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