The Diet

About three weeks ago I made the bold declaration that the relationship between Katrina and Rice would end. No more. Kaupt. Finished.

Allow me to relay the seriousness of this situation. To say one will eat no rice here in the Philippines is on par with declaring that the mountains of the earth must shift their positions to form a giant smiley-face shape visible from space, and, in effect, give that stupid man on the moon a run for his money and show him that Earth cannot be beaten in the planetary faces game. The no-rice decision came at a hefty social price as well. In refusing to eat it, I traded my relatively solid image of sanity for a lesser image of idiocy and lunacy, and my host family on the mainland looked at me kind of like all those kids in high school did when I made the mistake of cutting my hair short, effectively making me look like a 10 year old boy.

On top of no rice, I also gave up meat entirely and relegated myself to eating only fish as my main protein source. The impetus for this “diet,” as I have dubbed it, was the training I went to several weeks ago. There, in the presence of 30 other American volunteers, I ate what can only be described as the closest thing to American food I have eaten in three months, including: pizza, pancakes, peanut butter, french fries with tomato ketchup, spaghetti Italian style, not the sweet Filipino style, and delicious wheat breat with REAL BUTTER THAT HAD BEEN REFRIGERATED. For three weeks I ate no meat and no rice, and after the training I was spoiled rotten, like a spoiled little American in the presence of lots of Americans. It was then and there, at training's end, that I decided it is entirely possible, if not downright easy, to eat whatever I want. So I declared it. I said no more meat and no more rice, and I was serious, too.

My plan was genius until I returned to my site and indulged in fiesta. Oh no.

But the “diet” was to return in full swing immediately following fiesta, because, as I'm sure it was declared in the Bible or some other really important historical document, everyone knows that all diets are off in times of fiesta and vacations. Sadly, immediately following fiesta was also vacation, which involved gentle persuasion by my chosen travel companion to eat the “most delicious food for its value in all of Asia, no, wait, make that IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.” I thought it was impossible for said travel companion to have eaten the best food for its value in all of the restaurants in all of the world when he hadn't been to more than about 7 countries of, like, at least 70 total, so naturally I had to try the food to see for myself. And yeah, it totally is the best food for is value in all of the world, but it did involve rice. One must eat rice with curries and sauces from the best-valued restaurant in all of the world, musn't one?

So anyway, the rice aspect of the diet was put on hold. At this point, I might have declared the diet a complete failure, but because I was staying relatively strong on the meat front, I felt that I was doing okay on a scale of “horribly bad” to “super excellent.” And then. Oh, and then....sometime between the diet declaration and me breaking the diet on multiple occasions, a tiny Filipina named Nanay Flor approached me with the dullest knife in all of Asia, no, wait, make that IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, I AM SO SERIOUS, and asked me in sweet Filipina-doesn't-speak-English-so-good fashion, “Do you like to kill?”

Insert roaring laughter here.

And then I killed my first chicken by slitting its throat like I was flippin' Rambo. The fact that it was with a dull knife has little to do with the story, except I think it made the task all the more third-world and therefore better in the telling. But the fact that Nanay Flor and her husband Tatay Bal insisted we kill a chicken, well, that's important. They don't exactly kill chickens all the time because they are very poor and simply can't afford to. Only on the most special occasions and for special guests, and maybe even sometimes when a lost chicken wanders onto their property like a little Hansel or Gretel, they find the event of killing a chicken for a meal appropriate and perhaps even necessary out of respect for the occasion or individual visiting.

It was truly my honor to be able to do “the deed.” The experience of the killing was one that invovled a bit of exhileration, a bit of fear, a bit of queasiness, and, in the end, a bit greater understanding of the life of a rural Filipino on my part. I don't know that I'll replicate the act (although that's what I said after my first videoke attempt, and now, four months later, I'm in the ranks with Barry Manilow for musical performance), but in its own right, my brutal murder of a clueless chicken will remain as a special memory for me for a long time to come.

I was able to witness and participate in an experience known to few Americans. It was difficult for me to do, and as the pictures will show, my eyes were closed for most of the time. I didn't know that chickens don't stop moving for minutes, minutes, after their throat is cut, or that their blood isn't smooth like water as it flows out, but more thick, like a mixture of corn starch and water. In some ways the whole process downright scared me, but in a greater way, and I know this is going to sound so cliché, I finally saw where the meat on my table comes from. Moreover, for all of the chickens that I see on buses and yards and streets around my municipality and beyond here in the Philippines, I now realize that to kill one of them for a meal means taking away just a piece of its owner's livelihood, just a piece of a future meal. That notion of sacrifice makes my role in the killing and, naturally, eating of the chicken afterward all the more valuable to me as a part of my experiences here. And thus, it was at this realization that the diet officially ended.

I bring this experience with me back to Himokilan Isla, where fish and rice are the staple, and where chicken and pork are also a very special and rare treat. Strangely enough, it took a training event, a brutal killing, and about 4 months at my site to truly realize what a luxury it is to be able to afford both the food and the things I love. Be it on an island in the Camotes Sea with 550 people, or a rural mountain barangay, or even the slums of a dirty city, to have the choice for your next meal or your clothing or your livelihood, well, that's something you may need to be an American to really understand the value of, because in some parts of the world, a person has no choice about what her next meal will be, and therefore the fantasy just ceases to exist.

I once asked my host mother on Himokilan Isla what her dream job would be, her most fantastical of fantasies. Her reply: a house maid in Manila. No, Mila, if you could have any job, in all of the world, and if whatever job you chose would make you rich beyond your wildest dreams, what job would you want? What job would you chose? Yet again, her reply: a house maid in Manila.

To afford to dream of diets and of jobs...what a wonderful thing. How sad that some people can't afford the luxury.

I returned to Himokilan last week. Rice and I have been reunited. Fish and I remain together, though I'm sure when the next oppourtunity for a slice of ham comes along I will spare the calories and the concern for high blood pressure and just indulge with everyone else.