Real Missionaries Eat Porridge

My parents keep asking if I’m getting enough to eat. I am!! The food here is good and despite what my family might think I’m really not a picky eater.

However there is just one thing I have said I will not eat and that is soukuma. It is just like cale or cabbage and served boiled with butter and some spices. I just can’t…nay won’t do it!! So I have everything else.  

I am reminded almost daily that real missionaries eat porridge. And while that may well be true the only thing that encourages me to eat at least some porridge is the fact that it makes my bolt sized malaria tablet go down easier. Tim makes me eat some every morning and its at the point now where I’m even bribing my students to lie for me…I’m not proud of it….

You see, breakfast here at home is when the masses in the chapel and the church are over at 8am. But, I have classes each morning at 8am so I have breakfast alone before the porridge is ready. It has been a running joke with my students about the porridge so I told them that I had told Tim that I was taking porridge at school with them…it transpires that they are rubbish liars and my cunning plan was foiled when he questioned them about it after our mass on Satuday. I got that “you’re rumbled” look from Tim and now I actually think that he may have asked the cook to come earlier now so that my porridge will be ready before I leave at 7:40ish. There’s just no getting away from the damn stuff.

To make matters worse our friend Ann Grace often comes for breakfast or lunch and she just LOVES porridge and soukuma. It’s like having a really annoying older sister who is just perfect! (I mean I do already have an older sister who is just perfect but I’m pretty sure she’d draw the line at soukuma too). 

The words “you should be more like Ann Grace” and “real missionaries eat porridge” are ringing in my ears!!