Snacks on Snacks?

I grew up in a house with a Jewish mother. Any time any of my friends came over, my mom was quick to offer snacks and ensure that we were all properly fed. In my four years of college, I received very few care packages that didn't contain at least a few granola bars tucked in for good measure (although I did get one containing just chocolate and underwear "All the life essentials!"). At least once during my childhood my mom told us "food is love". Long story short, food has always played an important role in the Silver family way of life. I can't claim to have adequately researched Cameroon before I stepped on the plane, but I definitely looked into the food situation. One of the guidebooks I found described Cameroonian cuisine as "functional". I was worried. Almost a month in, I can't claim that these claims were entirely unfounded but I have definitely been happily surprised more often that I would have expected. The diet (at least in Bafia in the Central Province) is relatively starchy and a meal usually consists of a carbohydrate/sauce combo. Some of the names are a little deceptive; I wasn't too worried when I heard that we would be eating a lot of couscous and gumbo. I was in for a bit of a surprise when I was served these dishes, as neither of them are the same as their American counterpart. The advantage to this cuisine is that it's been quite easy so far to keep up my vegetarian ways. The downside is that my palate is quite confused and doesn't yet know what to make of all these new foods. And for the first few days I was pretty sure that the only method of cooking here is deep frying. Not exactly my jam. Although fried plantains are pretty delicious. But in all seriousness I've been eating a lot of rice, fish, beans, and sandwiches (see section on peanut butter). And they serve us lunch every day at the training center that usually contains some pineapple (anana in French) and avocados/tomatoes.

            I have had a few culinary successes already. Early on in staging I expressed my love of peanut butter and my host brother Peggy and I scoured the market for it. We were unsuccessful (although we did find both jam and ketchup!!) but Peggy showed me how to make my own and it's relatively easy to make and delicious. We've made it consistently since then and whipped up another batch tonight. Another success came this weekend when a few of us set out to make a cake for a friend's birthday. We decided to make it at Anna's house and she went to the market to get the ingredients with her host brothers. Word got out about our project to all of the boys of the neighborhood and before we knew it the kitchen was filled with small children cracking eggs into the bowl. The cake turned out miraculously well and we brought it to our group's soccer game (word also got out about that-there were probably 15 Americans and 35 Cameroonian boys present). A few days ago one of our current PC Volunteer trainers told us that a motto for PC Cameroon is: 'Cameroon-where nothing seems to work but everything seems to work out". This is sounding more and more accurate the more time I spend here, and it's oddly refreshing. At no point during the cake baking did we ever panic-not when Anna went shopping without a recipe, not when the kitchen was swarming with children, and definitely not when Anna's host sister showed us the toaster oven that we would be baking the cake in. No powdered sugar? No problem, nothing a little chocolate and milk powder can't fix. And the language barrier just presented a whole other set of of obstacles. But we ended up with at least three cakes and the one we tried wasn't too bad at all.

Did I mention that I've been eating avocados almost every day? There's really no problem to speak of here.

TL, DR: I've got my work cut out for me in terms of getting used to the food here. But at least I know how to make peanut butter now!