Food and drink

It is refreshing to be in a low-trash society! There are no trash cans in the studio where we are staying. There are none in the conference room or the bathrooms. There is one out in the courtyard and, surely, some in the kitchen. But then, there isn’t much of anything to throw away either – except plastic water bottles. And there are a lot of them! We only drink bottled water; I brush my teeth with bottled water. That means that each of us uses 3 or 4 750 ml bottles per day. Cold drinks are only taken from sealed bottles and cans. So they make up the essential part of what is thrown away. For hot drinks, we add boiling water to powdered coffee, tea, or chocolate.

All of our meals are served buffet style. Breakfast consists of cereal (hot or cold, depending on the day), slices of white bread, sausages, bacon, eggs; butter, jam, and peanut butter are available on plates on the tables. Lunch and dinner offerings are similar: soup, white patties made of finely ground maize, rice, potatoes, three different vegetables, and three different meat choices (beef, pork, chicken, or fish in various forms). Once in a while there is a dessert. Other than milk in the morning, there are no dairy products and we haven’t had any fruit. I prefer the meat that has been cooked in a sauce since it is usually tenderer than the individually cooked pieces. The cooked vegetables are wonderful (tomatoes, peppers, onions, eggplant, cabbage, sweet potatoes, carrots, green and yellow beans, sweet potato greens, zucchini…) There is a certain variety and the food at the center is both good and nicely presented.

On Thursday evening the regional synod of the Zambian church (United Church of Zambia – UCZ) treated us all to a meal in a restaurant in Kabwe. The center in which we are meeting is nearly 2 mi out of town, so we had not previously gotten out anywhere. The UCZ pastors working here were invited to the meal, along with the officers of the presbytery and regional synod. Before eating, the chef told us about the various typical local foods being served. It was again served buffet-style by a staff in white uniforms and chef’s bonnets. Some new varieties of fish and meat were offered and a couple new vegetables. I found the cooked pumpkin leaves very good. However, with my taste buds already being challenged by so many new things, I decided to pass on the fried caterpillars. One of the seminar members who ate some reassured me by saying that they were much too salty!