December 3, 2012
I stand waiting in a human traffic jam.
Twenty-four Indonesians, seven Americans, one door. As we slowly file into the
Indonesian ‘fast-food’ restaurant, I again feel so out of place. I tower over
the huddle of Indonesians, and in the midst of their artfully colored kerudungs
and ebony locks my rust-shaded curls spring in every direction (my hair color
was recovering from a more than mild identity crisis in which I had decided to
‘discover myself’ in a box of L’Oreal café-colored hair dye). We finally make
it to the table, and I nestle myself into a hard red plastic chair. Almost
immediately, two rows of fifty small traditional dishes are delivered to the
table. In front of me, various types of what can only be described as soft
orange lumps wait expectantly. My friend Ocha dives right in, carving off half
of one of the orange lumps and scooping it into her mouth with a satisfied mmmm.
She swallows and with brown eyes wide and expectant, says: “You need to try
this!”. I mean, it was an orange lump not a chocolate-banana milkshake, but
hey, her enthusiasm couldn’t be for nothing, right? I scoop up the other half
of the dish and toss it in my mouth. I bite down hard and my tooth falls on
something chewy, wet and (I swear) a little wiggly. I immediately reach for my
water and wash the whole bite down without another taste. I eye Ocha
incredulously, wordlessly pleading for enlightenment.
She shrugs and answers: “It’s the brain
of a cow.”
~
I turn off the
lights, snuggling deeper into my comforter as I open my book and promptly stuff
five pieces of Dove dark chocolate
into my mouth. I savor the taste as I turn the page. God, will Remy and Dexter
just get back together already? The past thirty pages of my novel have been
romance-less, and I have slowly stopped trying to avoid my daydreams in which I
give Remy a good talking to for letting the love of her life go. I mean he
sings, HE IS ADORABLY CLUMSY and god he always…. My phone rings, interrupting
my perfectly outlined discourse of the reasons-why-Remy-should-love-Dexter. I
roll over to see that my host mom is calling me. 10:02 pm. I answer, and she
rambles quickly in Spanish. I hear something about dinner and give my standard,
¡por
supuesto mamá!
Fuck. I really should
not have smuggled those last eight pieces of bread. I slide into my
Birkenstocks and softly consider putting a bra on, but in classic Fat Amy
fashion, I eventually decide hmm, better not. I climb the five floors down to
my family’s restaurant. We eat every meal in the restaurant; in fact, our
apartment only hosts a half-full liter of Coke, a couple rolls of bread and a
few pieces of dog feces. I sit at the family table as I wait for my host mom to
join me. The restaurant is cluttered with a few dozen tables, each dressed in
orange and green flourishes with white plastic seats. A Brazilian telenovela plays on the TV. My host
sister (a fabulous, beautiful 23 year old) is adamant that Brazilian soaps are
far superior to their more popular Mexican counterparts. To me, they all seem a
little over-dramatic. I mean how many sneaky mistresses and evil twins could
there be in the world and the music really is so overdone and … On the screen,
the main character shoots and kills a man. AND NOW HIS GIRLFRIEND HAS THE GUN.
I take back everything I’ve said. This show is life.
My host mother
eventually interrupts my newfound state of hypnosis by placing a plate of food in
front of me. So far, the food has been great. Fried chicken, various forms of
potatoes, this one perfectly seasoned steak and of course, more chicken. I look
down at my plate and see one skewer of a chicken and pepper kabob. Yum. The
other skewer hosts five pieces of dark meat, and I can only assume it’s carne de vaca. I start with the chicken
kabob, savoring every bite of pepper (vegetables are few and far between here).
As I chew, I glance at my host mom. She’s really a great woman: sassy, spunky
and fiercely independent. She points at my other skewer and tells me the meat
is of the heart of the cow.
And suddenly I’m
back in that ‘fast food’ restaurant. I almost believe Ocha is sitting in front
of me, brown eyes and orange lumps glistening.
I take a deep
breath. Trying new foods abroad has always been difficult for me. I have
continually fallen prey to the seduction of travel- a simple wanderlust that
has tugged me across the globe. But in this moment, the tug from deep in my
stomach did not feel so seductive. The heart is a delicacy in Bolivia and a
specialty of my family’s restaurant. I really wish I wasn’t so into labels, but
right now, those titles of praise were the only things pushing me to pull the
skewer to my mouth. I take a piece and bite down.
A burst of
flavor floods my mouth. The spices are sweet with an innate saltiness; the two
taste compounds swirl into something only slightly short of divine. I chase the
piece with a grilled potato, and the flavors merrily engage in a foreplay riquísimo. (Okay here, I do admit that
perhaps I have been reading too many romance novels). The texture is dense and chewy- the only trigger to remind me of
what I am actually eating. I hesitate a little as the growing, pounding image
of a beating heart competes with the pleasure of my taste buds. A crossroads.
Late last night,
I took a taxi home. Taxis, unlike trufis, do not have a fixed route. The
streets are often littered with numerous legitimate radio taxis (company names
splattered on their flanks) and other, rusty white cars with neon stickers
claiming “TAXI”. One can only guess which taxi leads to home and which leads to
a closed dark alleyway; so thus, hailing a taxi becomes a life-sized match of
Russian roulette. Anyways, in my (hopefully) legitimate taxi ride home last
night, my taxi driver began to ask questions about my life and my time in
Cochabamba. Another crossroads. My practical memory recalls years of safety
trainings, and I tighten up, too aware that this man could drive me into
darkness. Yet, another piece of me- that simple wanderlust- wants to fall into this
friendly conversación... So here’s
the question:
Do I follow what I ‘know’ or what I never
thought I could know?
Do I give a
clipped answer (wrapping further into myself and the binds of insecurity) or do
I meet culture with the beautiful informality of a giggling head nod? Do I eat
the heart?
~
I start the
conversation: Estoy estudiando a la
Universidad de San Simon, ¿y tú?
I take another
bite of the heart and finish the skewer whole.
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