As
I spent some time one afternoon this week perusing through a beautiful
cookbook, full of wishful thinking, I was reminded of the reason I often give
for enjoying such reading material so much. The reason my cookbooks need to
have pictures, the reason said books are dangerous reads for me. I always trace
it back to a Garfield1 episode I saw in my youth. John had no food
in the house, to Garfield’s grave disappointment. So the hungry cat pulls out a
cookbook, peruses each page, then tears them out one by one, crumples them,
crams them in his mouth, swallows. He can almost taste the lasagna in print.
Reason number one why I love to read through cookbooks: I am just like
Garfield.
Reason
number two: I’m addicted to trying new recipes. At least once a week, sometimes
every two weeks, I’d try a new recipe back home. Grandma Leone, still regularly
trying out new recipes in her 80s, is my role model. I hope I still love the
adventure of embarking on new dishes when I reach her age.
So
let’s see. If we don’t give me the benefit of the doubt, and we go with the
lower average of one new recipe every two weeks, that’s 26 new recipes a year,
52 new recipes in two.
* * * * *
I’ve
grown accustomed to think of our time here as a bookmark, a dog-eared page, an
intercalary chapter. Maybe even a minus sign. As if we paused our lives last
year, and now we’re waiting until we can Resume Show in 2014. We’re putting
things on hold, and merely growing older in the meantime. Two years without a
single salary between us (certainly not the best financial decision we’ll ever
make—as we spend without earning anything considerable). Two years added to the
time before we can become homeowners (see above: “no salary”). Two years more
before Daniel begins his doctorate. Two years less with beloved family. The sum
of all this minus fifty-two recipes. And were we home at this moment, I can’t
help but think I’d be painting a nursery. Instead, as if this were one big
Choose Your Own Adventure novel, we chose the road less-traveled, and left the
nursery-painting to our American doppelgangers. I envy these nonexistent doppelgangers
more often than I’d like.
If
I’m not careful, I listen to the voice of my idea of the world pressing me in a
condescending tone, What are you doing with your life? and I take it to heart. I stand stunned, stuttering
nothings. But more often, Christ steps in, interrupts that voice, and answers
for me: This. This is what she’s doing with her life, thank you. He helps me remember.
I
know it must offend God if I view the task He has given us, the hearts and
passions He has grown in us, as an inconvenient detour, bringing us to our
intended destination much later and more bedraggled than planned. Yet as a
constant analyzer with a handful of OCD, I can’t help but try to turn it all
into some ridiculous, irrelevant mathematical equation. I am constantly
evaluating: Is the sum of what we are experiencing here greater than the sum of
what we could be doing in our homeland? Or does this equal out to being a sacrifice,
the very thing I tried convincing family it wasn’t? And what if it is? Does it
change anything, really, or just the way I look at it?
* * * * *
So
allow me to walk you through the steps I routinely walk myself through, on
nearly a monthly basis:
Gain: At the very most, my
husband and I are a part only 3 hours a day. What more can we ask for? We love
this abundance of quality time and know that no other job or situation could give
us this.
Gain: We’re gardening for the first time, a
long-planned desire of mine. And it’s a garden of necessity:
with the exception of tomatoes, nothing in that garden is available in Adwa.
Gain: This lifestyle grants us ample time to
read and write, activities necessary to our desired careers. The trick is to
use it wisely.
Gain: Not too many things look more
impressive on a resume than JFK’s personal 2-year stamp of approval.
Gain: All food limitations aside, we can
still be creative and learn new things in the kitchen, poorly stocked though it
may be. We’ve made yogurt and ice cream. We’re perfecting delicious vegetable
curry in a land where you can’t buy “curry powder.” I’ve created my first
recipe from no reference, and it’s now a favorite weekly staple2.
And while I love to cook for people back home too, cooking has never meant as
much as it does here. Our fresh-off-the-plane-this-week homesick and mildly sad
volunteer who still detests injera texted me: “Your banana cake makes me feel
I’m home. Thank you.” The kitchen’s intended purpose.
Gain: We will never again eat this healthy
and organically. Ever.
Gain: We’re delving deeper into our
years-long relationship with spices, and becoming friends of substance. We’re
coming to know and recognize them better in their original and whole forms,
dusty and unlabeled in large burlap sacks. I suspect I’ll feel I’m standing among
strangers next time I find myself in the spice aisle of Meijer or Giant Eagle.
Gain: Coffee-making is more fun when you get
to roast and pound the beans yourself. Talk about aroma.
Gain: We are building our spiritual
immunities against ungratefulness and the calloused spirit of entitlement. When
we return home, nearly everything will be leagues easier, and we’ll be so
thankful for the seemingly “little things.” Our standards for our next home
have plummeted drastically; requirements: hot shower, flushing
toilet with working seat, electricity, oven. Wait. The place comes with a
refrigerator? And laborers (electricians, landlords, propane-sellers) will
actually come when you call—or at least come when they say they will. In short,
Ethiopia is making it difficult for us to ever complain easily again. Peace
Corps is something similar to Becoming Better People Camp.
Gain: And, of course, there’s all the obvious
gains. Learning a new and difficult language and alphabet; becoming
well-acquainted with a foreign, historically-rich culture by living with the
people; falling in love with a strange, delectable cuisine; being kissed on the
cheek and fist-pumped by loving children way-too-many-times-to-count-daily and answering
to their calling our names maybe 50 times a day; building amazing friendships with
good people so incredibly different from ourselves; seeing the world! (our
current travel plan—aside from our visit home—includes a hopeful 3 countries, 2
of which are in Africa); employing good people who have otherwise little income;
and, finally, filling a trunk-load of great stories and new cultural traditions
that we can someday share with our children. If nothing else, their parents
will at least be exciting and adventurous.
I
suppose that beside these great and numerous gains, the losses that most of our
American friends and peers are enjoying, have no choice but to cower under the
stronger shadow. And if I don’t visualize this cowering, if I don’t remember
Isaiah 58 (6Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the
bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go
free, and to break every yoke? 7Is it not to share your bread with
the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house…? 10if you
pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then
shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. 11And
the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a
spring of water, whose waters do not fail)
–if I don’t remember this, my heart grows unsettled. I will tell you again and
again how happy I am here, and it is the sincere truth. I believe we are
currently some of the luckiest people we know: this is life, the life God is
leading us in, and we’re living
it. I am truly grateful. But in the midst of all this happiness, a person’s
heart can’t help but to be turned towards home. And this woman’s heart can’t
help but to be turned towards motherhood.
So
maybe some of this is a sacrifice, a “fast” so-called in Isaiah—but it’s one I
am confident we will never regret, as it’s a worthy one. We are lucky and
blessed to be making a sacrifice for the very people towards whom Christ
couldn’t help but to turn his heart: the poor. So, what is our choice but to
“pour ourselves out for the hungry?”
And
Gains take the win.
Footnotes
1I know little about Garfield. What I do know is that the actor Nick Offerman, Ron Swanson in
Parks and Recreation, is the exact human replica of this cat. Am I right? See
for yourself.
2Aforementioned favorite recipe I made up:
Fried Rice with Indian Spices and Kolo
1 cup uncooked rice
2 small onions
palmful of chives
1 carrot, shredded (shreds chopped in half)
2 garlic cloves, minced
3 dime-sized slices ginger, minced
2 small tomatoes, diced
1 small lemon/lime (note: Ethiopian lemons are ½ the size of
American)
olive oil
salt, pepper
cumin
turmeric
ground coriander
nutmeg
garlic salt
roasted kolo (barley), to serve
Saute onions, chives, carrot, garlic, ginger, salt and
pepper in olive oil for 4-5 minutes. Add diced tomato and sauté further. When
rice is boiled, add to mixture. Add a few sprinkles of nutmeg, 4-5 pinches
ground coriander, 6-7 pinches turmeric, 1-2 TBS cumin, and squeezed lemon.
Sprinkle in garlic salt. After frying rice for 4-5 additional minutes, serve
topped with kolo.
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