Me, The Fake Missionary....

Lately, due to a build-up of many happenings in my life, i have stopped eating red meat.  Why, i prefer not to discuss!  :)  In any case, i was safe - meat is scarce here in our village, or so i thought!

In this month of fasting things really do go topsy-turvy!  For one, the people are off the road as soon as the sun sets to go and eat (or rather feast), which makes it much safer to travel at night!  Another fact that shows things are upside down is that the stuff that would normally happen in the day-time now gets shifted to the evenings.  I didn't think that would make a huge difference and so off i went to partake in the 40day-cut-shorter-to-7days end of funeral ceremony.  Happily me and my husband walked in the full moon over to our neighbours......ignorance is bliss, they say.....

I joined the women and straight off noticed that almost the whole village was present!  Not a good sign!  When they have this kind of ceremony outside the time of fasting you get a cup full of very sweet, runny porridge - not extremely tasty, but fine for any semi-vegetarian.  Lots of people meant only one thing - MEAT!

Yes, sure enough, the cooking fires glowed red and the heaped and steaming plates were being passed around already by the time we arrived.  I tried finding a spot where no one would take any notice of me, but momentarily forgot i have a very white face which kind-of shines in the moonlight.  (Let your light shine?)  In any case, after giving a passing man the fright of his life when he suddenly looked up into my very white face, i was seen and brought closer to where the food was!  So much for my 1st plan!  But then, me being me, i already had a second plan!

The food was placed in our little circle and "luckily" in the darkness of the little half-hut.  Although the moon was bright, where the bowls stood, it was quite dark!  And another thing, here we eat from a communal bowl, so no one really knows how much you eat (or don't eat, in my case!).  So, this was my plan - i first asked what the mboga (sauce) was and they promptly replied......goat!  The one lady took a small piece and nearly stuffed it into my mouth, but just as i thought i would have to swallow she ate it herself - phew! Life was getting stressful! I had to put my plan into action and fast! ....i would pinch off a good sized ball of chima (stiff maize meal) roll it around like a professional and then make as if i dip it in the sauce, pop the dry chima into my mouth and voila! it would seem like i was eating!  Thus offending no-one!  Does this make me a fake?  Does it mean i have no integrity?  Or is it just trying on to hold on to “me”, but not wanting to offend anyone?  It is so hard always having to do stuff that you don't like, please forgive me this one?

bella, the strange outsider.