Forbidden Fruit

During the first week of the second vacation from school, I headed up to Kampala, Uganda with two other volunteers. On the way up it was a pleasant, 10 hour bus ride passing first through the Northern Province’s misty, tea-filled valleys, and then through the Ugandan countryside. The landscape of Southern Uganda is similar to that of Rwanda, but the hills and valleys are flatter and there are more cows and fewer goats. But the most noticeable difference once crossing the border is the food. I had the same impression when I went to Tanzania during the first vacation. At first you can’t quite put your finger on what’s so different. You think, maybe the people are friendlier here. Or maybe it’s because people are speaking in English. But, while these may be somewhat true, it’s really all about the food.

In Rwanda, you never show food in public. There are a few small exceptions. At a market or inside a store, it can be visible. In a restaurant you can be seen eating food, but preferably with curtains covering all the windows. On a bus, you may eat peanuts or crackers sold by young boys through the windows. But this is only when you are on the bus, never while you are outside of the bus waiting to get on. You may also have gum on the bus, but it is impolite to have some without also buying some for your neighbors. When you go to the store, you must put your purchases in a purse or in a brown paper bag (plastic bags are illegal here). If you eat or drink anything, it will be done at a table, inside your house or at a restaurant. Even drinking water or having a water bottle in public is faux pas. After bringing a water bottle to the teacher’s room one day, I decided not to do it again because everyone either asked why I had it or asked to drink some of it. I once visited a fellow teacher and she gave me a giant squash to bring back with me to cook. I thanked her for it and cradled it in my arm, ready to bring back with me, but she protested. “You must have a bag!!” she insisted. “People will see you!” So I waited for her to hunt through her kitchen to find a paper bag big enough for it and then watched as she carefully stuffed it in, trying not to rip the bag.

At the Health Center, down the road, there is a small shop which sells Fanta. But there is no inside seating area and the returnable glass bottles are valuable, so you have to bring your own replacement bottle if you want to take one away. It would be unthinkable to stand by the shop and drink it outside. I have an agreement with the store owner that I will bring the empty bottle back within two days if I buy a Fanta. This is a special exception made for me because I’m muzungu. One Friday, I was planning a dinner of fries and pop to eat while I watched a movie, but forgot to bring a bag with me when I went to the shop. I had to carry the Fanta orange back home, bare to the world, while I tried to hide it in the crook of my arm. Never will I do that again. I got a few looks from some passing teachers and some serious harassment from some local teenage girls (that is another story altogether).

I’ve found the social food codes to be one of the most frustrating cultural things I’ve had to deal with, especially during long social events. After sitting through 5 hours of speeches and singing, its hard not to sneak a bite of a cracker from a purse, or to stuff a glucose tablet in my mouth. But even this would be inappropriate unless I can somehow sneak off to a bathroom. On a teacher field trip we left at about 4:30 in the morning. We were given a piece of bread at 10am and then couldn’t eat lunch until 3:30 because we had to go to a specific place where we could all eat inside. During the long wait for food one of the teachers looked at me and shaking his head said “Oh, oh, oh, I am very hungry. They need to let us eat. It is a crime!”

In Uganda, as in Tanzania, I found attitudes towards food to be completely different. Street vendors were everywhere selling cookies, watermelon, roasted corn, fried bananas, juice, soda, chapatti, boiled eggs, and meat on a stick. In the city, after it gets dark, rickety tables and benches are set out where you can sit and get a plate of hot rice, meat and veggies. You can order tea or buy a drink from one of the glass faced refrigerators in front of a store. But by far, the best thing to get in Uganda is a Rolex. A vendor selling Rolexes will stand behind a table with a large, machete-like knife. First he will chop garlic. Then cabbage and tomatoes and onions. With one quick motion, he will crack an egg with his knife into a plastic cup. Then another. After that, he will add the veggies and salt. A used plastic water bottle will be on the table, filled with oil and a small hole cut into the lid. He’ll pour some of this onto the hot metal plate sitting on top of the charcoal fire behind him. Onto this goes the egg mixture. After the omelet has cooked, a chapatti is slapped on top. When the whole thing is warmed through, it is removed from the fire and with a flick of the wrist, rolled up and slipped into a bag. It takes about 5 minutes to make and costs about 50 cents.

Tanzania has its own equivalent of this: The Zanzibar Pizza. It is dough with egg, onions, cheese, cabbage, tomatoes, and sometimes peppers or garlic inside. It is also made on a grill, street-side. But Rwanda has no local equivalent. Even though all of these ingredients are available just about anywhere in Rwanda (even up on the mountain I can get eggs), no one I’ve seen has ever gotten creative enough to combine them into something that tastes delicious. If you want eggs at a restaurant, you usually have to go to a hotel and pay a pretty penny. The most exotic Rwandan restaurant I’ve been to is unique because they cook their beans and carrots together instead of separately.

My teacher neighbors cook food out in their kitchen when they stay at the school. I’ve stopped asking what they’re making because they always say “Ah, rice and beans, always rice and beans. It is the Rwandan way.” My theory is that the shame about public food stifles creative cooking. It’s hard to appreciate food for being anything other than strictly nourishment if the only time you are allowed to see it is in the privacy of your own home. In Uganda, the air was filled with the smells of barbequed meat and sweet roasted corn. People were shouting food requests on the streets and talking with others while they waited for their rolexes. Wherever you go, eating and drinking with people is a kind of communion, it creates a bond. While people do eat together in Rwanda, I can’t help but feel like something is missing when it happens with such restrictions. What I really don’t understand is why tiny Rwanda (and possibly the equally tiny Burundi) are the only places in all of East Africa where there is this mentality about food.

I will say though that the lack of food floating around Kigali keeps it incredibly clean. The streets of Kampala were full of trash. One night when we were there, we were crouched on a bench on the sidewalk eating Rolexes and talking with a man passing through on his way to Sudan. He was telling about how Kigali was known all over Africa for its cleanliness. “Here, it is not clean. It is good you did not come during the rainy season. You have to hold your nose when you go outside!”