I have always wondered why the death rate from diseases in most developing countries is so high. For example, in 2003 alone, more than 1,000... »
Friday Night Nshima!
As a Zambian I seriously can’t get enough of nshima! Funny enough when I was younger I did not like nshima. The only time I looked forward to eating was when we had rice, spaghetti or potatoes. I remember how at school if you brought nshima people passed terrible comments like, “cold nshima of all things!” Bring spaghetti, you and the whole world are friends! I prayed my parents would never mention boarding school, simply because I heard boarding school in Zambia meant nshima everyday!
I literally avoided nshima, but at 10 age I couldn’t avoid it because like any Zambian family learning how to cook nshima is a big deal. Scared of being burnt, my first attempt was disaster, it came out soft and lumpy; I believe my family ate the nshima out of respect! The next time it was so hard I had to add water. If anyone knows that was the worst mistake ever! The thought of throwing it away and starting all over before my parents came for lunch crossed my mind, but I could hear voices saying this is Gold; thou shalt not! I lived with that mistake.
Now every friday night is nshima night. I look forward to this day because it is friday and because of the food. If I could have nshima everyday I probably would but I have found that eating nshima and driving everywhere makes a huge difference to the way my body looks. I can only afford to eat nshima everyday if I can exercise or walk more everyday-very unlikely! So I make it once a week.
Every now and then you hear or read about someone who got physically injured because the nshima was not ready when they got home, or nshima was not equally divided. Sometimes I feel like shouting, people please its only nshima! But yet I am reminded of college days when my african friends and I would be cooking nshima at 12:00am. Yes you read right, not 12:00 lunch time, 12:00 midnight. Maybe studying does make one go mad, but I think in this case it was just one person mentioning food and we would all resolve we needed nshima with some kapenta or T-bone.
When mealie meal runs out in Zambia, or prices have gone up, its a guarantee that that the next day newspaper headlines will read, “Mealie Meal Prices Have Gone Up!.” I have never heard anyone make such a big deal about rice, cassava or potatoes. It could just be that these other foods are not considered food and therefore they will never run out or prices hardly go up. There are people that claim that rice no matter how much one eats it can never be filling as nshima. I have always wondered what mother nature thinks, it has given us rice, cassava, sweet potatoes, yams, yet we stab it in the back and say nshima only!
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