Written by a Cafe 1040 Student

After our first week in base town, I decided that I wanted to invite some local friends over for dinner so that my roommates and I could make them an American meal. I ended up deciding on tacos, because in the States it is a pretty simple meal to whip up. I quickly learned that living in a culture completely different from my own would make a simple meal a little more difficult to make. 

During our three months here, we are shopping at a local market for our groceries. Let me tell you, every trip to the market is an adventure and scavenger hunt wrapped up into one. As we turn onto the street that leads to the main market, vendors line the streets on each side. They lay their variety of fruits, vegetables, live chickens, tofu, and much more on the side of the street and crouch behind their goods. With vendors lining both sides of the street, there is little room for pedestrians to walk. Motorbikes with families of three or four weave through pedestrians in the streets and pull up beside the vendors to negotiate prices for their goods. 

As my teammates and I try to squeeze our way through the main market, locals stare at us as we tower over them. With my list of ingredients in one hand and my paper with all of my translated words in the other, I begin searching for my ingredients. I pass by rows and rows of colorful vegetables and fruits, as the smell of freshly chopped meat fills the air. Attempting to speak the local language tends to not go very well for me. Even though I feel like I am saying the words correctly, the locals aren't able to understand me because of the specific tones that their language requires. After using my best efforts to speak to locals in their language, the vendors are unable to understand me. I quickly learn that it is best for me to just point to the items that I need. 

The last item on my scavenger hunt list is chicken breast. Originally, I thought that this item would be the easiest to find since there are women left and right butchering meat, but as I move from vendor to vendor, I learn that all of them have run out of chicken breast for the day. How would I make tacos without my main ingredient? My mind raced to find a solution. Beef is rare to find and is expensive to come by. I thought that another option would be to make fish tacos, but the market only provides live fish and I would have to end up skinning the fish myself (which I was not about to do). My teammate suggested that we replace the meat with potatoes, so that we could still make some pretty tasty tacos even though they would not be nearly as good. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon making pico, fajitas, tortillas from scratch, beans, rice, and skillet potatoes. After all of my stress and worries, my roommates and I were able to get food on the table by the time our guests arrived. Even though the tacos did not turn out how I wanted them to, my local friends were just thankful to be invited over to our home for an American meal.

I enjoyed getting to see their faces as we passed around the food "family style" and seeing them eat tacos for their very first time. We even had to teach them how to fold the tortillas the correct way, so that the contents of the taco would not fall out. We spent the rest of the evening talking, laughing, and teaching them how to play the card game "spoons".

Even though making my local friends delicious chicken tacos did not turn out the way I expected, we still were able to have a special and fun night. A meal that would take me an hour to make in America took me a full day to prep and cook here. This experience quickly introduced me to the differences in the culture from my own and helped me to understand how to adjust when things do not turn out the way I expect them to.