Whenever we announced we were going to remote Africa for this mission trip, one of the most asked questions was about the food. We know some particularly picky eaters and they were rather concerned for our palates and stomachs. Just to ease their minds or to upset their stomachs I thought we might share about the food.
Most people think that the food adventure begins in the village. However, it truly begins when you get on an 8 hour international flight. On our KLM flights between Chicago and Amsterdam and Amsterdam and Nairobi we were served two meals, chicken or pasta. We tried both. I stuck with the pasta after the second meal.
KLM meals 1 and 2. It’s food on an airplane in economy class, you shouldn’t expect too much.
We survived those meals and anxiously awaited food in the village.
We anticipated that the meals would be simple. That part we were correct about. Here’s a sampling of what we got to eat for Breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Breakfast.
I must admit that this was often my favorite meal of the day. It usually consisted of some type of fried bread and a hot drink.
Picture 1- The drink looks like tea, but it tasted like the sweetest hot chocolate I have ever tasted.
We called it “fry bread” and a hot drink. The drinks usually consisted of milk and tea, which they grow locally in the village.
The breakfasts were really good and usually got us off to a good start in the morning. As soon as breakfast was served they started prepping for lunch.
Lunch
With no electricity, you can imagine that they don’t have a fridge and freezer full of food waiting to be cooked. Rather what they cook has to either be fresh or able to be dry stored and not go bad. This means that you will see lots of rice and beans and maybe some fresh meat. My suspicion is that most of the meat we ate was due to them hosting special guests and was not a usual part of the meal. Here’s a look at some of the lunches we ate.
Preparing rice in the “kitchen” which doubled as a bedroom for the boys at night.
This was the usual lunch meal, rice and beans. I will give it to them that they cook them well. This was the one meal we ate with a utensil.
The rice and beans were served en masse out of old, but clean 5 gal paint buckets.
This was our last lunch when we ate with the entire church. That is boiled goat meat, “vegetables” not sure what kind, and boiled corn meal. It was a very filled meal.
The lunches were super functional and simple. They definitely filled us up and kept us going until dinner time.
Dinner
This was when the variety came out. That usually involves lots of prep work and took a while to get done. Again there were some common staples, rice or corn meal, vegetables or beans, and then they would add meat at this meal. It was either chicken or goat this trip. And the goat they usually save for their Christmas meal.
This was boiled chicken and some flat bread, tortilla like things which were amazing! By far one of our favorites. They reminded us of really good hand made tortillas. Just like we do at a good Mexican food restaurant we stuffed ourselves with these.
This was an especially special meal. Freshly butchered and cooked goat, vegetables, and boiled corn meal.
It is a really special thing for them to butcher a goat and there was quite a crowd to help/watch.
They don’t let anything go to waste either. That means stomach, intestines, lung, liver, heart, it’s all there waiting for us to eat.
We tried most of it but our sensitive American palates couldn’t handle some of the more “exotic” parts of the goat.
Snacks
We did get a few snack while we were there, namely fruit and sugar cane. The fruit was somewhat like cantaloupe and the sugar can was interesting to eat.
You better have some tough chompers to get through the sugar cane. The little kids in the village eat it like candy!
And then there was this…
We found this little gem on our way back through Amsterdam. Needless to say after airplane food and trying new things in the village the Golden Arches were a rather welcome treat!
In the end, the people in Kimai village were amazingly hospitable and treated us so well. They always made sure we were comfortable and had plenty of food on our plates. We tried to defer to them to make sure they could enjoy the meal too, but they wanted us to eat first and eat the most. Thankfully our stomachs are still right side up so far. It is always fun to see how different cultures eat.
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