i eat goat

Got the funniest e-mail from Richard the other day... He was talking about what was going on in his llife and then out of the blue, he stops and says, "Enough about me, what kind of food are you eating? Do you like it?" I just laughed, then realized that I have made significant diet changes. I'll start with the morning. I'm up at 5:40, yes sister, 5:40. For breakfast I have some kind of cereal, but they eat it with warm milk, so sometimes I do too. They have these great wheat bisuit things called Veet Bix (wheat biscuits). They are dry. You add some hot water and then wwarm milk to them, add sugar, stir it up and you have a cream of wheat type cereal. It's great, and so good for you! I also drink coffee or tea- like 5 times a day here. It's a staple. And the coffee, it's instant- but good. Add whole milk and sugar and it's like a warm cappucino. Nice. I add 1 sugar, they usually have 3-4. uggh.

Next is brunch. I guess we can call it that. Brunch is between 9:30-10:20. The whole school has a break. My host mom makes my lunch for me everyday. nice. She makes me a variety of sandwiches from a cheese and butter sandwich to chicken salad or bologna. They are usually very good but she loves the butter- loves it. I get slabs of that stuff on my sandwiches everyday. Dad, you'd like that! No mayo. I usually pick some of it off. The lady who makes tea at the school brings me tea.

I also pack some friut, either apple or orange, a yogurt and maybe some crackers. Yogurt is amazing here too, by the way. It's so creamy and yummy. My family said it's kinda expensive but they still buy it for me just cause they know i like it. They're really great.

We get out of school at 1:00. We eat again! Jeanette, host mom, usually makes us something. Sometimes we just have bread and some kind of meat and tea or coffee. Sometimes we have something hot from the store. Lately we've been getting these meal of the day things. They're not always great. Yesterday I got this curry lamb meal. I don't really like those. They don't make me eat anything I don't want to which is nice, especially with Namibians and their meat. Meat is very important to Namibians. It's IS the meal. It is life. She is so attentive to make sure I have something before I go back to school for the computer training with the teachers. It's really nice.

We often have a cup of coffee or tea sometime in the afternoon. It's actually nice. Everyone takes turns making it for each other. We sit and talk and drink our coffee and tea.

Then, dinner is usually around 6:30. Gotlieb, my host father gets home around then and we eat as a family. It's nice. It's always fun when he comes home. He likes me and we have fun together. He's either teaching me Afrikaans or we're laughing about something funny from the day. I enjoy his company.

Jeanette makes great food. It's always so tasty and good. She always makes a meat dish, usually goat or lamb, rice or pasta, a cooked vegtable or two, some kind of sauce for the meat and/or vegtables and some kind of cold salad. It's nice. Dessert is saved for sundays. It's nice because she knows I like chicken and the pasta she makes, so she makes it more often for me even though Gotlieb prefers the red meat and rice. :)

I was talking to one of the other volunteers this weekend and we decided that food tastes better here!! It just does! We couldn't decide if it was because we were expecting it to taste bad, or beause they start with better ingredients and they don't have factory farms for meat. Not sure which, maybe both. My mom always says it tastes better when someone else makes it, maybe that's part of it too. Either way, i'm not suffering.

So that's what I eat. Goat, lamb, coffee, tea, yummy yogurt and slabs of butter on things!