Food

Biriyani. Have you ever had it? I did and it was delicious. My god. It was delicious but they fed us three courses. Course after course after course and it was delicious but we didn't pace ourselves. I had biriyani until I wanted to burst and orange colored pastries that tasted like donuts and spindly greasy yellow pastries that tasted like sugared lemon. I left happy because for the first time in my life I'm grateful to be invited to someone's house for dinner. So much of life is lived over a plate and whenever I'm invited to share I always come and I'm always honored to be there.
With Setswana food, its a plate over a plate. Two plates stacked on top of one another to make a flying saucer filled with food.
At homestay I cooked once. My host mom was away campaigning (she's a councillor) and my older host sister was away doing something. I was home alone with the kids and I wouldn't let them eat until everyone got back. I think about it now, and it was appalling but that's an American thing. We think its cruel for old people to be served first. They thought it cruel that I made hungry children wait until the old people got home before they could eat. I saw it as spoiling their appetites. In Botswana, meals don't need to be eaten together. You just need to make sure you dish for everyone.
A year later I eat my phaleche and I enjoy it. I find myself seasoning food with pure MSG and liking it. Generally, I season food with the cornucopia of spices in my kitchen. I live close to Lobatse which has a lot of Indians and so the grocery stores have every spice imaginable and some I've never heard of. I've asked Indian ladies to teach me to cook Indian food and they always oblige. I'm welcomed into their kitchen to learn to make Sambusa, how to fold it like a flag. They teach me to make chapatis, how to rotate it as I roll to make it even and perfectly round. I've been taught how to make curry and the difference between garam masala and mutton masala. I cook everything from Mexican to currys, but from time to time I'll make a Setswana dish, sprinkle it with MSG, and enjoy it.
When my neighbor's maid sends over a bowl of beans, I smile and clean the bowl with my spoon. I wash it and then return the bowl with biscuits or maybe mashed potatoes. I'm not sure you'll ever understand how I feel when she sends one of the children over to give me fatcakes and so when I get home and I meet a foreigner, they're automatically invited over for dinner. I can't imagine the loneliness of being away from home in America---a country where we don't invite people over for dinner, but "entertain." I can't believe that I'll go home to a place where its unheard of to send a child to the grocery store by themselves to pick up milk and eggs or where if someone pulls over to give me a ride, I have to say "no" because its unsafe to talk to strangers.