Anecdotes

Three anecdotes about cooking in Kenya that I wrote for the Wycliffe Cookbook.

Dish Washing

Free-range chickens are a nuisance—especially in the midst of a campground out in the Kenyan bush. I’m not sure why my team set up our tents and cooking supplies next to a chicken coup, but that was the way it was. As the last person to select my bed in the tent, I ended up sleeping with my head just feet away from the coup where the chickens slept. Early in the morning they would begin their squawking, and I would snuggle deeper into my sleeping bag in an unsuccessful attempt to block out the noise. Once the chickens were let out in the morning, it was impossible to keep them away from our dish-washing basins and portable gas stovetop. And so, we were always shooing them away as we tried to cook, secretly wishing that one of them would decide to take a bath in our pot of boiling water. We decided they were cannibals when they feasted on our scrambled egg crumbs, and one of the guys even set up a trap with the wash tubs to catch an unsuspecting chicken. Try as we may, it was impossible to “train” the chickens to stay away, as they seem to have zero short-term memory, so we learned to laugh and took lots of pictures of them “cleaning” our dirty dishes for us.

Long rice

The Maasai people aren’t scared of much. They live extremely hard lives out in the bush of Kenya. One summer, I was living in camping-like conditions among the Maasai. We had no refrigeration and could only cook using a portable gas stove top. One of our staples was spaghetti—noodles with tomato sauce, onions, garlic, and Italian spices. One day, one of our team members overheard a Maasai lady talking about how Americans didn’t like to drink their curdled sour milk. It was true—we were terrified of being served sour milk instead of the more customary chai drink. And we soon learned that she felt the same way about our spaghetti—the thought of eating it made her want to run from the room. To the Maasai, this strange “long rice” looks a lot like worms.

Bush Cookies

While living out in the Kenyan bush one summer, my team and I had to survive with no refrigeration and a portable gas stove top. As Americans, our sweet tooth was deprived, and we craved baked goods or chocolate of any sort. One day, we discovered that we could make cookie dough using our staple supplies, and then fry little cookie patties in the pan over the gas burner. It was heaven on earth. I perfected the skill on a later trip back to Kenya when I was leading a team of college interns, expanding the idea to include frying up oatmeal cookie dough along with apple slices to make apple crisp. Our Kenyan translator, Jackson, especially loved it and made up a song entitled “I love bush cookies” to the tune of “Where is Thumpkin?”  I found that bush cookies were the perfect solution to getting the team to engage in a book discussion or just finishing up a long, hard day.

Bubba “Armadillo” Gaspareaux

We did a writer’s exercise today at work, where we made up a name, passed in on to the next person, and then had to write a sketch about the name we were given. Here’s what I did with the name Mary picked out for me:

Bubba “Armadillo” Gaspareaux

He never really understood how he came to be called Bubba. His real name was James. James Dillon Gaspareaux, but ever since his baby brother Samuel could start talking—and boy could he talk—James’s real name was forever forgotten by everyone but his patient, loving mother. Sammy was never able to say James very well, so when he started saying “Bubba” one day, that’s what all the aunts, uncles, and cousins immediately adopted as well, and they always said it in that obnoxious baby voice that James couldn’t stand. There wasn’t a whole lot James could do about it, and he wasn’t about to complain and make it worse. Everyone had always loved Samuel from the day he was born and “just popped right out with the cutest baby face you ever had seen.” James was pretty sure that some would claim his baby brother was born with wings and a halo the way they doted over him all the time. He himself had long been forgotten as the favored child of the family. His curly red hair, freckles, and glasses embodied the face that only a mother could love. And thankfully she did. His mother was the nicest person he figured he would ever know. She would let him curl up in her lap after a long day, even though he was a bit old for that sort of thing by now. But she didn’t care. She would sing to him and read him stories about the old west where cowboys and Indians ruled the day. He always wanted to be a cowboy with a real horse, leather chaps, and a bandana to keep the dust out of his face while he rode off into the sunset. His favorite book was about a cowboy who had earned the nickname “Armadillo” and so, that’s what his mother had nicknamed him since it sounded much like his middle name “Dillon.” It was her special little name for him, and he loved it. No one else knew about it, and he liked it that way.