It wasn’t quite Thanksgiving yet, the weekend before, but Katie had made a pit stop on her way home from our district capitol to chez moi. I’m on her way home, sort of, only ~8K round trip off the road, but after biking 30k to town and back what’s 8 more kilometers? She had gone to the post and picked up 5 care packages- yes 5- it seems the post had been hoarding all the packages sent to her in the last 3 months and delivered them all at once. I had recently been living off of care packages myself, since it seems the well has run dry and the village marche has all but nothing to offer- boiled potats, or white sweet potatoes, and if I get there at the right time and am very lucky, watermelon. While our marche is always small, right now is in between harvests. Since Katie had an abundance of delicious things to share, we decided to make a mini- Thanksgiving feast. Someone had sent her a brick of Velveeta cheese, so we made real mac ‘n cheese with collard greens (a very lucky find at the marche, and the only time I’ve been able to find them) and watermelon for desert.
While we were cooking we were both bubbling with the anticipation of eating Velveeta macaroni and cheese, and once the food was prepared we couldn’t sit down fast enough to eat. We both sat in silence as we gobbled up the delicious meal. Once we had gone back for seconds and all but licked our plates clean, the conversation picked back up. We both admitted that in the States we never ate Velveeta, too processed. I, like my grandmother, am weary of orange cheese- just seems unnatural. Nothing in nature is that color. But in Burkina, a brick of Velveeta is like a brick of gold. A gift from God. I have dreams about Velveeta cheese.
At home and on a local level, I am all organic and natural. I’m the girl who would only eat locally produced, organic, free-range, hormone-free animal products for the last year and a half before the Peace Corps (I question the health benefits from main stream American meat and dairy industry), but now, if you can find a way to send me any kind of meat or cheese I’ll love you forever! Now, I couldn’t be more thankful for food science and the ability for foods to spend weeks being shipped in over 100 degrees and still be editable. Pump those chemicals in if that means I can receive it in Burkina! So this Thanksgiving, Katie and I are thankful for processed foods, and our loved ones that send them to us!
Please don't give in to the chemical laden food. The more I get rid of those foods, the more I can see how my body doesn't want them and neither does anyone else's. Give your body nutrition over taste and you will come out of your journey, the better for it. All the foods you are missing will be here waiting for you upon your return. In the meantime, you will develop your brain during the time you are there.
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