Freedom and Choice

So I was thinking about freedom and choice a few days ago, and here are my new perspectives from being in Kenya.

First of all I need to point out that I am the kind of person who loves to make food, and who obviously loves eating food. I don’t like eating the same thing twice in a day, simply for the fact that I like getting the most variety in my diet as possible. I don’t like eating leftovers, which my housemates from last year can verify. If I had a leftover of a meal I would often try to give it to someone else so I could make something different for myself. So I love variety of food.

Before leaving I would often go into supermarkets like Sobeys and Fortinos and think, “These places are huge, we don’t need this much food, why do we have all this food and some people have none?, no wonder obesity is so prevalent, etc”. I thought of how people in other parts of the world, like Africa I assumed, definitely didn’t have this much access to food. The consumerism of food is just so high in Canada, it is a little ridiculous.

Maybe you can pick up on my hypocrisy already…

My first week in Ugunja I had a drastic change in diet. I had ugali (corn flour mixture) kale (stringy green vegetable) and oily meat (chicken or beef) twice a day for 7 days. I ate it because it was the only thing available. I had no choice. For breakfast I would eat plain white bread with margarine, or fried dough called mandazi, or chipati. All of which are not that healthy, and food I would never choose to eat on my own at home. Again, I had no choice in this, it was what was given to me.

I began to miss food like brown bread, milk and general complex carbs (oats, flax, nuts, etc). I thought, “This really stinks, I love eating those healthy foods and now I don’t have access to them”. Eventually I did find that there was brown bread here, one loaf in the whole supermarket (which is as big as maybe half a regular sized Shoppers). I also found there was milk, however it only comes in flavours – like banana and strawberry, which contain a lot of sugar – but still it is milk.

Anyways, here is the crux of the matter:

1. I love variety in food
2. In Ugunja, there is little to no variety in food.

Hence my internal dilemma

So I began to think about freedom and choice. Why do I love variety of food so much? Because I was raised in an environment that allowed me to eat a wide variety of foods, I grew up in a house where my dad made different meals every day, therefore that became part of who I was, and who I am. I love baking – and this is because I have access to food, money to buy food, and a natural love for variety of food.
So then I thought about Kenya. Here, there is little variety, because variety means money, and most people do not have a lot of money. Food that is cheap is flour, kale, rice and small pieces of meat. There is fruit available, but it costs money, and if you need to choose between fruit and protein, obviously you will choose protein. So people in this environment are used to eating the same thing everyday, maybe twice everyday, and they don’t complain. That is how they were raised, and that is part of who they are here.

So then I began to feel bad – am I being selfish by not being able to adapt or fully accept the diet here? How can I make the transition from having full choice and full freedom in accessing a wide variety of foods to having no choice and no freedom in deciding what kind of food goes in my body?

What is freedom? Is freedom defined only by choice? It reminds me of the book 1984, where there is one word for everything. Can a human be happy with only one choice? I guess if they didn’t know of anything else, if they didn’t know there COULD be more choices, then yes you could be happy. But if you know, and you have experienced full freedom in choice, then is it even possible to fully adapt or fully accept an environment that gives you one choice?

Then there is the money. I was thinking that if the people in this community had more money, would they really spend it on having more variety of food? Would they buy fruit more often, or chocolate bars from the supermarket? Would they eat a different meal every night? I highly doubt it. Food isn’t a huge deal here. It is what gives your body energy, but that is it. Money is important for school, or health, or clothing, and some food.

I would say the people here are happy, because they have been living this kind of lifestyle for their whole lives. They don’t know of Sobeys and Fortinos, and frankly, I think most of them don’t really care.

I am trying my best to be accepting and not think about food so much. But I do realize that my love of food, in ways of cooking and baking, is a part of who I am. I know my stay here in Kenya is only temporary, and that thought it what makes it easier. I know I will return to Canada and enjoy a large variety of foods, because that inclination is just part of me, being raised in the environment I was raised in.

So those were my thoughts. What do you think?