Our Diet

We were on the plane for about twenty hours. I wondered each time I got one of those hot British Airways meals if it was a "good" meal. I would think to myself, "Well, I don't much care for this plate of beef tips and gravy, but I wonder if this is a chicken-fried steak compared to African food." But, the food ended up being familiar actually. We didn't have much of a variety, but maybe that's a good thing huh? Our meals consisted of a variation of the following dishes:

• Goat stew (we didn't each much of this, though)
• Rice
• Spaghetti Noodles
• Spinach
• Carrots
• Cabbage
• Tomatoes
• Miniature Bananas
• Green Oranges
• Chipates (equivalent of tortillas, and a favorite)

We ate some variation of this every day, for lunch and for dinner. Occasionally, we were given beef. They kept wondering why we weren't eating the goat. "You don't eat meat?" they would ask. "Uh...well, yea, we eat meat, we mostly eat beef, chicken, fish..." So we did eat beef a few times.

Breakfast was a pretty sure-fire thing. We were given eggs (either fried or hard-boiled) and bread (either sliced bread or mmdazis, a fried bread similar to a doughnut). We also had a fruit platter for breakfasts; they came with each meal. So, combine that with a few beloved spices, including salt, Tony Roma's, Tobasco and sugar, and you have my diet for the month of August.

Our main drink was "Highlands" bottled water. There were two "tea breaks" each day. (Between each of the meals.) During these, they would set out about four or five thermos bottles on a table, some with hot milk and others with hot water. We would use this to make either hot tea or coffee. There was a lunch tray in the dining room that held all of the spices, Kenyan tea bags, coffee and chocolate powder. (It didn't take us long to learn how to imitate Starbuck's: 50% hot milk, 50% water, chocolate, coffee and sugar. Wooo baby.) In addition to this, they serve sodas in a bottle as a treat. Coca-Cola was certainly there, as well as Fanta and something called Krest, which is a "bitter-lemon" flavored soda. You can forget ice-cold anything...well, except showers.