- mwanamuke moja
Dishing Up 02: "Tu va prepare pour tulmonde?"
"You will prepare for everyone..."
I’m only supposing it was a question, in the way the statement lingered in the compact and unoccupied kitchen air. "You will prepare for everyone”, when you translate it to English it sounds less like a question, that’s probably because beneath the lingering of the words, both of us, him man of this house and me woman, niece to his fiancé, know that there’s an implication with my presence as a woman here.
I prepared food for us all, reluctant to do so, I burnt one of the dishes, scrambled another, left another unspiced and unsalted, having only one succeed through my chopping, spicing and frying.
Dishing up : one good dish, another decent, the third passable, one barely edible, one boy, one man and two women. Precedent has taught me to give serve first the male.
- mwanamuke moja
Dishing Up 01: Tu va vous servire quand?
" When will you dish up for us?" - Beauf
My time in the kitchen today was 1 hour. There are two porcelain bowls in this house, there is one boy, one man and two women. A family of father, son and mother along with a female guest, me. Precedent has taught me to give serve first the male, that they're ones that are priority. That theirs were to be served in porcelain. Part of this I followed, the father received his first. The rest of the precedent I resisted, on the place mats, I placed her dish in porcelain and the boy's in Tupperware.
I used to call it buyi bwa mu Congo, porridge from Congo.
Uji Ya Congo
- mwanamuke moja
“Ukona sombe” - Da Bibiene*
You have cassava / do you have cassava?
It made me recall the day when Beauf spoke out loud to no one in particular, how he wondered how those people who say they only eat Congolese food, he wondered how they were faring.
"those people, who say they only eat Congolese food, I wonder how they're doing " - Beauf
Something about how he said it made me feel as though when he said "those people" he actually meant, "those men".
We woudn’t be those people. “Ukona sombe” Da Bibiene said as she was on the phone, the lady who she buys Cassava from.