A Peace Corps Diet

You might be surprised to learn that for me and many of my fellow Comarca volunteers the most difficult parts of being a Peace Corps Volunteer have been food related. As Peace Corps mandates, PCV's must spend their first three months living with host families, working with them, and eating their food. Everyone gets sick. Bacterial infections, e-coli, giardia, and amoebas are all common (i've had three of them) and essentially unavoidable. They all lead to uncontrollable and uncomfortable bowel symptoms. I know at least five people just from my group in the Comarca who have pooped their pants and nearly everyone has been very close. One pooped herself twice in less than half a hour on her way to pooping thirty-two times in a single day. As my friend Chris says, "I never thought it would happen to me but then I literally could not pull my pants down fast enough."

We volunteers find these stories hilarious to the point of tears. It's all in the details. In the Peace Corps you get comfortable talking about your bowel movements. For me, though, the biggest problem with the first three months was the amount of food I was getting. I come from the Mortensen clan of impressive eaters and two meals per day just wasn't enough. Between sickness and "starvation" I lost fifteen pounds in two months.

That all ended nine months ago. Now my weight is back and I cook for myself, although I am still given a lot of food (I consider this the perfect combination). The culinary highlight of every day is breakfast. I make a big bowl of oatmeal with sugar/honey, bananas/raisins, crunchy peanut butter, dried milk, and cinnamon. Compared to the rest of my diet breakfast is D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S. Lunch and dinner are almost always a variation of rice whether I cook it or not. Rice with beans, lentils, wild meat, squash, sardines, and noodle soup are very popular foods. I usually prepare my rice by throwing some fried or steamed veggies on top.

Recently harvested rice with sardines. Very popular. Not very good

There are also foods that are prepared for special occasions such as birthdays and holidays. These include spaghetti made without meat and my favorite, fried rice with chicken and vegetables (called "arroz con pollo"). This new years we are going to kill and roast a pig my neighbors have been raising to celebrate the return of their daughter from Switzerland.

Lela showing Kate how to make "arroz con pollo"

Kate serving two bowls of the delicious dish

Fruits available here include pineapple, banana, mango, orange, guava, passion fruit, and "mamun chino".

"Mamun Chino". Bitter, sweet and delicious 

Wild meats include paca, armadillo, agouti, iguana, peccary, squirrel, birds, river shrimp, and "conejo pintado". Many of them are endangered.

Three "conejo pintados". Cute, endangered, and good eatin'

Delicious non-rice staples are cassava, ñame, ñampi, otoe, and pixfae.

Pixfae with salt.