Supakanja, White Trash and First World Problems
(Based on actual events)
(Joe and his Peace Corps buddies on trek along the Gambia River to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS)Even though the Gambian diet tends to be a bit monotonous and repetitive, I can generally manage most meals and usually have a pretty good poker face when confronted with the contents of my food bowl. Unfamiliar textures, fish bones and other foreign matter have become commonplace and I like to think I have the stomach to handle whatever comes my way. I drew a line in the sand, however, with a dish called “supakanja,” a Gambian favorite. Kanja is the local word for okra, a vegetable that despite not being frequently eaten north of the Mason- Dixon Line is harmless enough. Supa is a sort of stew. Served on the ubiquitous bed of white rice, supakanja resembles cat food and upon closer inspection, smells like it too. Even though I have never actually tasted cat food, I have opened a few cans and this dish is what I imagine it tastes like after being dried in the sun and then remoistened with a generous amount of palm oil. It’s heinous.
When presented with this dish for the first time, I felt horrible rejecting it, especially because my host family considers supakanja a treat and knowing how expensive the ingredients are and how time consuming the process is to make it only fueled my guilt. Nevertheless, I could not choke it down and as much as I hate to admit it, there are some things I cannot do. Seeing my barely touched food bowl, Kebba, my host father, became concerned.
“Samba, you do not like the diet.” He said.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I just…..” Then I resorted to mumbling, my most irritating tendency when I cannot recall the local words to respond. Finding some lost vocabulary, I managed “Do not be concerned. I am not feeling hungry. Really. I will take some exercise now.”
“We will change the diet, Samba.” He told me. Then he shouted something to his wives that I couldn’t quite make out but am certain it pertained to my rejection of the meal.
Not wanting to hang around the compound, I hopped on my bike and went for a ride. Luckily, it was a beautiful day and I really wasn’t very hungry so I enjoyed a very long cycle through the African bush spotting exotic birds and being called “toubob” (white person) by small children when passing through neighboring villages.
Much later that evening, after returning to the compound and taking a bucket shower in my back yard, my host father appeared at the door of my hut carrying a covered tray.
“Samba, do you eat beef?” He asked.
The question gave me pause. Having been served and eaten animal parts I had only previously seen consumed on Fear Factor, I wondered if this was a trick question and hesitated, not wanting to commit. As the silence was becoming uncomfortable, I responded.
“Yes. I eat,” and Kebba presented me with the tray. I opened it to reveal the contents – a roll of tapalapa (local bread) and pieces of tinned meat sautéed with white onions. “Oh my. Thank you. This is nice.” I said as he left to leave me alone to eat. Ravenously hungry at this stage, I returned to the tapalapa and tinned meat/onion combo and proceeded to create and devour the most fantastic sandwich I had eaten since stepping foot on African soil with an ingredient that I would have never considered eating prior to arriving in The Gambia. Tinned meat, is it even food? WTF? In the US, I wouldn’t even bother walking down the tinned meat aisle at the grocery store. There’s no point.
Anyway, after consuming what I later came to call “The White Trash Sandwich” guilt, combined with concern for my health, consumed me. Processed meat, nitrates, sodium, cholesterol, most likely trans fat – I ate it all and went to bed wondering if protein deficiency posed a greater health risk than the contents of a can of meat. Having passed the cholesterol test during my Peace Corps medical examination with flying colors, I worried that the dinner I just ate would pull down my average and ruin my chances at a healthy middle age. As fate would have it, the next morning at the market I ran into a health volunteer who works in a nearby village. After catching up on the status of each other’s projects, I posed my question.
“So. What’s worse – eating tinned meat or being protein deficient?” I asked, admitting nothing.
“Why?”
“Just a hypothetical.”
“Well, in my opinion, unless you have high blood pressure, eating the meat is better than not getting enough protein. So what’d you have?”
After spilling the details of the previous evening’s dinner, we began to compare notes on how our standards have changed since beginning our assignments. “Give it time. They’ll get a lot lower.”
Lower. While relieved that I hadn’t destroyed my health with a single sandwich, I worried it was just a matter of time. Seven months into my 27 month commitment leaves plenty of opportunity for low standard eating. Bothered by my tinned meat situation, I sent a text expressing my concern to a fellow PCV and quasi foodie posted in the Kombo region near the capital.
“You have such ‘first world’ problems up there in Basse.” Came his reply.
“Oh please.” I shot back, not at all defensive.
“I could mail run you some Dijon mustard.”
So it went, and in the midst of this exchange of cheap shots that continued for a while, I considered for the first time that my tendency to worry about my health is not simply a personality trait but a privilege of being born in the United States. Perhaps not accidently, this realization came while living in a country where the locals consistently refer to the months of October and November as “the hungry season, “a sort of catch 22 situation in which the crops are not yet ready for harvesting and cash from the previous year’s harvest has run out meaning little food and no money to buy it with anyway.
In the way my mind tends to wander as well as time travel, I hear my mother reminding me about the poor starving children in Africa when I would turn my nose up at the dinner offerings as a child and her stern warning to watch my mouth when I sarcastically suggested we send them whatever untouched item that remained on my plate. I also realized that I have never experienced real hunger. Even when I had the habit of smoking cigarettes and drinking instead of eating or when the economic situation of my family qualified me and my school aged siblings for free school lunches, I never went without food and never experienced a hunger deeper than one that could be cured with a sandwich, white trash or otherwise.
I’m afraid this message is becoming sanctimonious and dangerously close to turning into a sermon so it needs to stop. With a touch of levity and an attempt at humor, I’m trying to make sense of a seemingly insignificant experience that occurred on my family compound and the dangerous neighborhood of my psyche. In spite of my time in Africa, I doubt that I will ever stop being concerned about my cholesterol level, sodium intake or weight for that matter, nor will I likely lower my standards in food selection upon my return to the US. I will always like Michael Pollen’s writings and choose anything fresh over anything processed. The difference for me will be a new awareness of the abundance and easy access to variety and the food options we have in the US and I will replace the feeling that I have to take care of my health, with the idea that I get to take care of my health – because I am educated and aware and wealthy enough to have the concern in the first place.
So really, I’m not starving, not even close. Even though the meals regularly lack adequate levels of nutrition by US standards, I do augment them with fresh produce and additional food items available at the market and take a daily prenatal vitamin supplement courtesy of the Peace Corps Med Unit. Because I can.
So that’s the story of supakanja and its affect on my food awareness.
So that’s that. Thanks for reading. Until next time, all the best, be well.
Peace,
Joe
