“I’m Eating Eyeballs”

Let me take a short reprise from more serious matters to describe a unique lunch episode I enjoyed this week:

When Frank (our master chef at the Island Leadership School) queried whether we would enjoy “mukenne” in our beans this week, I much too hastily replied in the affirmative, my comment followed closely by a flood of not-so-pleasant memories of the smelliest town I’ve ever stayed four nights in. You can read all about our YWAM adventure in Lambu here, but for now let’s just declare that nine vomiting young adults and a fishing village that reeks of dead, putrid fish drying in the sun is not a happy mix. Needless to say, I’ve never tasted nor seen that these bite sized corpses are any good for ingestion, and until this week I had staved off any propositions to partake. (Last year I had also successfully avoided eating “ensenene” (grasshoppers) until a student gifted me a small fortune of the expensive snack).

But now, here I was with a sizable bowl of sweet potato and poscho (solid state cornmeal) awaiting the beany mixture I had previously requested. I assumed the little fishies would surely be mashed or pounded into powder like the small protein deposits in our German Shepherd’s dog food, but alas, their full bodies were intact–somewhat flattened and curled by the sun’s heat, now soaked in yummy bean juice, beckoning to me with their silent open mouths.

I tried to play it cool. Most Ugandans really love the stuff and the two teachers visiting the island with me were gleefully anticipating their midday meal, plotting with the local pastor how to commandeer some quantities of dried delicacy for their wives. As I took the first bite, my teeth ground the small chewy things as the familiar stench of Lambu filled my mouth and nostrils. “I’m eating eyeballs” was the first thought to reach my head, and devoid of any like minded white folk to share the experience, I exuded a quiet smirk and pressed on through a difficult meal.

Halfway through the monstrous bowl, I remembered the varied species of small ant in my dinner last night that I had discovered just following the large lake fly in my hot mug of sugar-sweet tea. And just then the realization came to me that this disgust for “visitors” in my nutriment is really fabricated in my psyche only and has no bearing on the quality of actual sustenance or even real savor. These things don’t taste so bad really. If I were blind and/or had super dim light to chew by, I would ingest more insects without my knowledge and therefore would be a more satisfied customer. And if mukenne were not indelibly coupled with a sickly experience in my recent past (as well as staring me in the face), I wouldn’t mind eating their eyeballs for every lunch. I think.