The family was watching me and when I had finished without eating the meat the second day in a row, they picked up the pieces, stuck them in my face and said, “EAT!” Not knowing what to do, and not wanting to offend, I responded, “YOU EAT!” And so they did. They popped those big pieces of testicles in their mouth, chewed, swallowed and smiled at me. And I responded, “A diiyata?” And they responded, yes, delicious.
Peace Corps Volunteer Life with Evo writes: Not For the Faint of Heart
December 10, 2008
WARNING: Not For the Faint of Heart
Or for the weak of stomach. I’m warning you. If you continue reading on your lunch break, do not blame me for ruining your appetite. But don’t you dare throw that sandwich away. There are starving children in Africa. I know. They live in my compound.
Ok, so if you are still reading, let me share a little secret with you. I had testicles for dinner. Twice. Two nights and counting.
Want to know why? Tobaski.
First, let me tell you about the food. Food here is actually delicious for the most part. No sushi, no Taco Bell, no Chipotle, but they do have rice. And sauce. From fish. It’s not quite fish sauce like the Vietnamese eat and I adore, but everything has this fishy flavor to it. For me, it’s amazing.
There’s also a lot of peanuts. Peanut sauce and rice for dinner. Raw peanuts to snack on. Roasted peanuts to burn your fingers on. Peanut butter. Peanut soup. Peanut porridge. Please don’t ask me why I chose to bring peanut M&M’s instead of plain. And why do I have a million peanut butter flavored granola bars from both Quaker AND Nature’s Valley? Why did I not pick fruity things???
Occasionally I will get coos, also known as millet. Millet is used as bird feed in the U.S. Here it is a substitute for rice. It has no nutritional value but does fill up the stomach. Thankfully the Mandinka peoples I live with do not like coos, but once in awhile it shows up. To me it tastes like sour sand.
Food is served in enormous communal food bowls. It is eaten with your hands. No chopsticks, no forks, spoons, or knives. Squish and squeeze and form a little ball and stuff that into your mouth. There are about five people per bowl, but the family I am living with in training gives me my own mini-bowl and I eat from it by myself until I see that they have eaten all their sauce and are working on plain rice and I convince the old lady sitting next to me to take some of my share.
So, what about the testicles you say? Well, if we take inventory, we see sauce. And rice. And peanut sauce and rice. And coos. Notice the lack of meat? Well bring on Tobaski! Tobaski is a Muslim holiday celebrated in the fashion of Christmas back in the U.S.. New clothes, big feasts, dancing, and of course, the sacrificial ram. Or sheep, or goat, depending on the level of affluence of the family. Muslims do not eat pork, which makes risk of brainworm a moot point. I did kill pigs in Bolivia to eat, but I don’t remember ever killing a male. Just the girls.
Well, rams are male sheep. (I did not know a lot about farm animals before Peace Corps, so the clarification is for those of my friends who I know have no idea either.) Male sheep have testicles. Since I had only killed/roasted/eaten female pigs, the only animal I saw roasted whole, I have never had to deal with eating certain body parts. And let me remind you, in America people have the luxury of eating only whole, skinless, boneless chicken breast. Here, we eat it all. The whole chicken. The whole goat. The whole ram. Testicles included. Before dinner I saw them hacking it apart. Then at dinner I was confronted with mystery meat. And I just stared at my bowl…
And let me tell you! I am game! I am game for eating with my hands. I am game for tasting cow heart. I am game for moving to a Muslim-African country I knew nothing about as I was ripped away from the Peace Corps life I built for myself. I will eat bird feed. I will try other strange foods that are handed to me, at least the first time. But I am sorry to say, am not game for testicles! I just couldn’t do it. Not the first night and not the second night either. (I must confess, I did stick a piece in my mouth but promptly spit it back out when no one was looking.)
The family was watching me and when I had finished without eating the meat the second day in a row, they picked up the pieces, stuck them in my face and said, “EAT!” Not knowing what to do, and not wanting to offend, I responded, “YOU EAT!” And so they did. They popped those big pieces of testicles in their mouth, chewed, swallowed and smiled at me. And I responded, “A diiyata?” And they responded, yes, delicious.
