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Food!! Food, so far, has been both the best and worst part of my semester. The food here is, generally, amazing. It’s delicious and so much better for me than anything I eat when I’m at school providing for myself. There are a few really annoying things about the food here though, and I really miss a few things from home (Pepsi, chicken fried steak, jalapenos).
Breakfast is strange. I’m kind of force fed a papaya shake each morning. This brings up my biggest problem with the food and a random point. First, the random: everything we eat here is “good for the digestion,” hence the force-feeding. Apparently my digestion is just not up to snuff unless I choke down hot papaya shake in the morning. Bleh. Not enjoyable—though, at the same time, not as bad as I’m making it sound. We also have “mate” after just about every meal, again, for the digestion. “Mate” is a hot drink, like a tea except with leaves from the hierba buena or coca plant. I’m still not entirely sure what the hierba buena is exactly… but the drink is pretty tasty.
Down to the biggest problem I have with the food here: temperature. Absolutely everything we consume here apparently has to be a certain temperature. My homestay mom just about has a heart attack every time I drink cold water. That is, when I can find it. We certainly don’t keep cold water here in the house and ice is a big no-no. Because, circling back to a previous point, according to them cold food and drink is bad for the digestion. Forget “free…” there is no such thing as a cold lunch.
Speaking of which, lunch is the biggest meal of the day here. It always includes a huge bowl of soup and then a plate of seconds which is usually a meal in itself. Everyone here eats so insanely much! They always finish everything. Lucky we have pets in the family—otherwise I would feel extremely bad for what I waste here. All of my leftovers are given to Nene, the dog, or the new kitten, Ping Pong. Dinner, then, is just a smaller version of lunch but not smaller by much.
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