The title of this blog comes from the window stickers on the back of a certain trotro that I've seen several times on my way to work. Pretty much all trotros and taxis here have stickers spelling out some kind of cryptic message - many times religious, often time hilarious, and quite a fair few - this one for example - probably demonstrating less than stellar spelling skills. The first time I saw it I snickered to myself, without giving it much though. But the other day I saw it and I found myself thinking about what it could actually mean....I mean, it's kind of a interesting (if accidental) comment on this obsession we (the west?) have on waist size, and perhaps the amount of time and energy that is wasted on this particular compulsion (I also just love puns). These thoughts were probably influenced by a reminder from our program coordinator to start thinking about body image in preparation for coming home. It's apparently very common for participants to struggle with weight and body image when they come home, and I'm really starting to understand why. There's this expectation that if you go to Africa to live as the poor do, you'll come back all thin and emaciated. But, poor doesn't always equal starving, and we certainly have not been in such extreme conditions. Instead let's consider Bennett's law: that as income rises, reliance on starchy staples for caloric intake decreases. IE when you're on a limited income, you eat a lot of starch because its cheap, and gives you lots of energy....not the most nutritious diet though, and also not one you should partake in if you're trying to lose weight. So many of the staple foods here are balls of some kind of dough; the banku, fufu, and kenke; other popular dishes are white rice (mmmm, empty calories!) and rice and beans (slightly more nutritional content), both served usually with tomato stew. Yams are also a hot number. And Ghanaians do eat a lot, especially in one sitting (whereas I think North Americans eat a lot, but over longer stretches of time through constant snacking). Our host families are also extremely hospitable and generous and eager to see us well fed. More than well fed. I struggled a lot in the village with portion sizes - I felt constantly full but fought to eat as much of my meals as I could because I was afraid of offending my family. This fear was well founded because even though I LOVE fufu and soup, my family thought I hated it and kept trying to buy me eggs or bread or something because they thought I wasn't eating enough on fufu nights - and trust me, I was eating A LOT. I did end up gaining a bit of a "fufu gut" (well, a lot of a fufu gut actually) and I can't say I was very happy about it. I'm not hugely self-conscious about my weight normally, but I do usually wish I was just a little thinner, with a little less muffin top. It can also be tough because Ghanaians are very frank about weight issues - and telling someone they are fat can be a compliment. Thank you? Not that that really helps, because when you're being told you've gotten "nice and big"; it's hard to shake the North American connotations. It's also just not fun to constantly feel like you've eaten too much when you're body's still adjusting to the change in diet anyway. Anyway, that was the village, and at some point I just did the best I could, ate as much I was comfortable with and tried to explain to my family that I loved the food I just wanted to make it home without exploding first. And as for weight, I let it go and accepted that I would have to relinquish control over my body for a short period of time and I'd deal with it when I got home.
It was a relief though to get to Accra, and to be able to control my portion sizes, as well as what I eat. We are on a budget of 2 cedis a day - with a goal close to 1.80. This is totally enough food for me, even though it sometimes means limited options. Having the budget has also forced me to think a lot about food - in a different way than I thought about it at home. Yes, I've been on a student budget, I've had to shop carefully, and I have sometimes even exemplified Bennet's Law....lots of pasta, and pretty much vegetarian -but not to the same extent. Everyday I weigh my options for each meal - do I get milk in my rice porridge, or do I save those 20 peswas for a snack later? Is it better to get the calcium and have a more filling breakfast, or to get a bofruit (delicious ball of dough fried in coconut oil) on the way home from work. Should I get salad in my wakye for 10 peswas, or a bigger portion of rice? Would I rather feel more full, or get a few vitamins and fill my craving for veggies? Just as with shopping, my attitude is no longer - do I want it and can I afford it with the money I have now? Rather it's, do I need this, and what am I giving up if I do buy it. I also find that I'm usually pretty hungry when I eat, and so my meals are really satisfying - yet I'm satisfied with what I eat instead of totally binging out (which I can't afford to do). Not that I'm never hungry at home, but usually I'm not too hungry before I just eat something. Sometimes I'm not even hungry, I just feel like eating because food is delicious. And it's delicious here too and often I wish I could just eat more, and sometimes I splurge and get closer to the 2 cedi maximum than other days. But its made me slow down and think through each purchase and to be content with enough.
Being in Accra and having smaller portions has also meant that my fufu gut has shrunk somewhat - though it's still with me. And I'm sure it will come back in full force once I return to village portions int he next couple of weeks. I visited Michelle last weekend in the town of Assessewa (not spelt right, sorry), where she lives with her host mother, and it was a shock to be fed by a family again. I'm still recovering from the biggest bowl of oatmeal I've seen in my life...well, since I was last in my own village, actually. Yet I've also gotten used to not carring as much about my weight. I'm surrounded by people who just really don't seem to care as much about it, and really, caring about weight usually means caring that other people are judging me. The girls here don't seem to obsess, and even actors in movies, models on billboards are so...normal looking? What is normal, right? But they arn't stick thin and its been refreshing. I also partly realize that people are far more concerned with my skin colour than with my waist size; or for that matter how frizzy my hair gets in this heat and away from my arsenal of conditioners and gels; though the skin breakout from the heat and sunscreen use have caused some concern about how much the mosquitoes bite me...sigh. Anyway, the point is, it's been refreshing not to always look in the mirror and immediatly mentally note how fat or thin I look and what that will mean for my day. I'm ok with my weight right now. But I'm worried I won't be when I get home. I'm worried that it will all come back to me and my clothes won't fit, and I'll feel that everyone will be judging me especially because I just came back from Africa. And it doens't help that despite the fact that I LOVE Ghanaian food, I often feel like I'm in the cast of Oliver!, dreaming and fantaszing about that wonderful array of food that awaits us in Canada - land of plenty, thanks to food imports. There were chocolate covered pretzels in my care package from home and I nearly passed out from tastebud overload. My point is, I'm worried a) that I'll lose this new attitude towards food, in which I eat primarily out of need, not want and b) that I'm not exactly going on a diet when I get home so it'll be hard to shed these extra pounds. I want to emphasize that it's not that I'm happy I'm eating less. I think I'm just more aware of what I do eat and things like nutrition, and whether I'm full or hungry or just eating because I want to. I don't want it to sound like I'm on a poverty-diet or anything. Because I eat plenty! It just feel like a healthy attitude; unlike the constant pulling between satisfying my every cravings or denying myself to lose weight.
Another thing I love about the food here is how much of it is local - at least, how much of what is available to me is local. I know that there are all kind of crazy processed foods available in the supermarkets, and I've bought biscuits as a treat, or crackers when I was sick - which are not local. But so much of what I do eat is farmed nearby, and brought to market and sold without going through the various steps of transport and processing. In WisiWisi, most of what I ate was grown on the farm, dug up before my very eyes. I'm torn because there are tons of foods I love at home that are only available to me because they have come from far off...orrr beacause they've been insanely processed. And I don't think I'll give them up completely. I just want to make more of an effort to know where my food comes from. I've never been one for farmers markets because hardly anything will get me to wake up that early on a weekend...but I see the appeal now, of knowing the person who grows your food, of knowing what went into it. And just, feeling more connected to it somehow. I probably sound like a bit of a hippie. That's ok. It's just something else to think about and figure out when I get home. Who knows how it will go. Perhaps I will revert to my old ways.....probably I will, at least sometimes. But maybe I will also start being more aware of what I eat - not in a calorie counting way but in a what exactly am I putting in my body kind of way. And hopefully I will think a bit more in terms of needs instead of wants and I will probably be healthier for it. And hopefully I will also be able to eat healthily and keep a healthy weight without obsessing over it or feeling like I have to conform to the North American stick insect ideal. More than ever I really know how artificial that is.
Side note on health issues - I do get enough to eat, as should be demonstrated by the fact that I have gained not lost weight. And it may not be the healthiest diet as far as nutrients are concerned, but I do take vitamins every day, brought from home. It's one of the many ways that this program is artificial and I am not really going through what "the poor" go through. Anyway, there's that. So, don't worry about my health. But...if you see me when I first get home and I'm looking rather well fed please don't think that it means I wasn't really living in solidarity with the poor. I've been pretty honest I think, about the ways in which I haven't been, but I have really kept to this food budget and the weight stuff has more to do with the type of food, I think, than the amount. It goes to show also, that poverty isn't always what you think it is. And of course, it doesn't mean that poor people everywhere are well fed. But food security is a complicated issues, and my experience has been based on my family, in my region, in this country. Also, the program is not ever going to force us into such extreme poverty that we are literarlly starving. Food security is one of the most complicated issues I've ever studied so I'll just leave it at that. What I'm taking out of this experience is better understanding of the difference between rural and urban food security, and an awareness that it isn't just about calories and starvation, but also about nutrition. For myself, I am also more aware of how indulgent we are in the West and am perhaps better prepared to struggle through that. And to navigate the complex relationship I think women especially, struggle with in the west - between giving into our cravings and desires, and also struggling to stay thin. Like anything else, it's a work in progress. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I'm going to continue enjoying the amazing foods that I know I'll miss once I'm home. I'll continue to be excited about the foods I miss now, which I get to eat in 3 weeks. And I'll try to focus on being healthy and well fed and having enough, without concerning myself too much about my waist size.
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