If You Know Me Well You Will Truly Appreciate This

The traditional way of eating (and the way my family seems to eat lunch and dinner) is “around the bowl.” We all sit on the floor (adults sit on stools) on a mat around a giant bowl. The bowl is covered with rice or couscous. Each person has an invisible pie slice shaped portion of the bowl that they claim as their own. In the middle the meat is placed, which typically is eventually distributed among the people eating by the head of the house. Other things like vegetables (carrots and eggplant are common) are also in the dish. If they fall in your section you move them towards the center to be shared with everybody.

In the past three days I’ve had fish twice, rice a lot, and 4 cups of tea (well more like shot glasses of tea but you get the point). Yup. This is me bragging. I’ve eaten fish (which I’m not particularly fond of…though there seems to be one that doesn’t have much flavor and might be good if you were eating it not with rice.) I’m actually liking some of the fish more than I thought I would though steak will always have my heart.

I have eaten rice in small amounts but without a doubt more than I’ve ever eaten in the rest of my life combined. Nor has it been simple white rice. It’s been spicy. Yeah…not such a fan of the flavor or texture. Def not something that will be worked into my home diet.

The tea hasn’t been bad although once again it’s not something I would actually spend money on. A note on the drinks in general, it seems like drinks are not actually consumed WITH the meal but AFTER. To me who needs a coke or pepsi WITH every meal, this is difficult. I don’t mind the flavor of some of the tea that I have been served (when they are sweeter I have less of a problem). However there are some that have more of a mintyish (and I use that term loosely just because I can’t come up with a better word) flavor and I’d rather not drink those. Fortunately the more bitter teas are followed by the sweeter flavors so all’s well that ends well I suppose.

Trying all of these things and eating even very small portions is really a huge step for me. However that’s difficult to explain to people who tell me to eat more or ask if I don’t like it or if it is not good. But to me it is such a big step that it is actually exhausting.

I am quite confident of loosing weight while I’m here. Guesses anybody? <3