Back to the source

I follow the example of the person in front of me: one scoop of rice, beans, chicken and a couple pieces of pineapple. The kitchen staff stands proudly behind each dish, eager for us to try the food. As I move down the line, I smile and thank each one of them — Bryan, Cinderella and Betty — for preparing our meal. When I sit, I eat slowly, savoring every bit and focusing on the conversation around me. At the end, we gather our dishes for washing before heading to bed. The whole process, from cooking to cleaning, probably takes over three hours.

This was a staple dinner experience in Uganda, where I spent the better half of two weeks with Notre Dame in January. We were working at St. Bakhita’s Vocational Training Center (SBVTC), a remarkable women’s school that you should go support (right now!). Yet, while we had come prepared with projects and goals to accomplish, unsurprisingly, I left feeling like I gained way more than I gave. There was so much to learn from their culture during our short time there.

One day, our group went around to share what practices from Uganda we wanted to bring back to the U.S. Many of us echoed some version of the same thing: how intentional the people there were with everything.

Dinner was a prime example. They only took what they were going to eat. They put their fork down in between bites, and finished chewing their food completely before talking. This mindfulness seemed partly due to the fact that they were closely connected to their food source: they had likely grown the rice and raised the chicken that was on their plate, or if they didn’t, then they knew the farmer who did. They were intimately involved in the journey that food took to end up in their mouth.

And they were more appreciative because of it.

This couldn’t be further from our experience in the U.S. Back at school, I am guilty of taking “to-go” cups of food from the dining hall, wolfing them down as I walk to my next meeting or class. At the grocery store, I don’t question how I can buy fresh bananas in Indiana in the dead of winter. I just fill my cart and keep going.

Beyond food, I’m disconnected from the production process of all goods I encounter. That cute mini-purse I saw at the bar? I could pull out my phone and buy it on Amazon in seconds if I wanted to. I don’t have to know where or how it was made, will never know whose hands stitched each stitch. Its entire creation is invisible to me, the buyer, who just benefits from the finished product being delivered to my door in 24 hours.

This invisibility of the creation process is what fuels food waste, fast fashion, etc. Despite what we think consumer culture is today — materialism, and an attachment to things — it’s actually the opposite. It’s a complete detachment from our things, a detachment from the people and places where they came from.

The SBVTC staff were so intentional with their food because of their proximity to its source. They wasted nothing because they understood the value of everything. I’ve decided that I want to bring that same intentionality into the new year: to use what I have, and use it well. To be attached to my things, not in a materialistic way, but in a way where I can appreciate the time and work that went into their creation.

None of this is revolutionary (and I’m by no means going to be perfect), but this is the year of using every last piece of food in the fridge, of fishing out clothing pieces from the back of my closet, of stretching things out until they break. Cooking for myself abroad, I’ve become creative at making my Sunday groceries last for the entire week, even if it means some criminal leftover combinations on Thursday nights (see: scrambled eggs and roasted carrots for dinner). My mom’s old hiking boots are perfectly worn-in and have already proved themselves on Ireland’s cliffs. I can explore new bookstores in Dublin, but I know my favorite copy of “These Precious Days” is waiting for me back in my dorm, ready to be reread whenever I want.

It’s a privilege that what I have in my room, in my fridge and in my closet is enough. There is nothing I need that I don’t already have, and it’s time to make good on that blessing.