Mama Frida and a hungry Leah

I made the grave mistake of telling my host mother that I was “very” hungry last night.

For dinner, the medley of starches served was condensed to two, rice and ubugari, a bread made of cassava flour. We had isombe, chopped and cooked cassava greens, as our sauce. I was delighted at my luck - what a delicious dinner to be served! - and took a very generous portion.

About halfway through my initial serving, my host mom carefully sets down her plate, my first warning sign. She reaches for the plastic containers of food as she says each dish in it’s Kinyarwanda name: “umuceri, ubugari, isombe”. My eyes widen as she heaps more of each food onto my plate… what have I done? After a moment of fright, I revel in my luck once more; Rwandans have a strong culture of leaving food on their plates, a very different tradition than the American “Clean Plate Club” of which I am proudly a member. Eventually, my pace slows and I finally succumb to the isombe, setting my dish with remaining food on the table to signal my defeat.

But then comes the light pink flask carrying the evening’s mysterious hot liquid. What will it be tonight? Porridge? African tea? Ah, hot milk. I take half of a glass while my host mom goes to her room. She returns with sugar in hand, setting it in front of me while chuckling… how could I be drinking milk without first adding sugar? And I will give her that; milk is much more delicious with a teaspoon of raw sugar. I gulp down my last few sips, gaze at my sated belly and wonder if I’ll ever be hungry again.

Postscript: promptly after polishing off this post, I was greeted with a beautiful breakfast spread of eggs, passion fruit and amandazi, East African donuts. There’s always room for delicious breakfast foods, right?