Food Sharing

So the other day, Jade's English speaking teacher friend brought up an interesting point. In this culture, they eat together out of the same bowl to show love to one another, and show that you can be close with another person. They eat with their right hands. The left hand is the hand used to wipe yourself in the bathroom. They do not shake with that hand, until you are leaving. If you are leaving a place, they will shake your hand with their left hand, as an insult that you must come back to them later for them to correct that insult. Anyway, Jade and I do not eat with the family because we eat out of our own bowl and also with utensils. So this makes Jade and I, assumedly, people that are not capable of making close friendships and possibly selfish as well. Go figure. We tried to explain that it's simply not our culture to eat out of thesame plate/bowl with someone, especially if we don't know them. You don't know if people's hands are clean, or if they are sick or anything. But it possibly goes past the germ issue. All we know is that it's just not something we regularly do. Interestingly enough, Jade's host dad Moussa also eats in his own bowl. They call him a Tubab (white/french person). He is a pharmacist, so he understands germs and stuff. He also eats with utensils as opposed to his hands. Jade said he doesn't eat with his wife. She usually eats after him or on the side. This is because she prefers to eat with her hands and also sometimes prefer to eat toh with the family instead of rice or ceri (porridge-like food) with Moussa.

Another difference is the call to eat. Before eating, you should call others to eat with you. Even strangers walking by! For the most part, people will say "nay fa le" (I'm full), which is basiclly saying no thanks. But some people will actually come eat your food! Anyway, when Jade first got here, they teased her like "oh Americans don't call people to eat!" And they are right, we don't do that the same way that they do. I had to think about if we do that at all, because people here were making it seem like Americans are selfish. But I thought about it and realized like if I was in my house or was around friends and I got something to eat, I would definitely offer them something to eat as well. But not directly out of my own bowl! Something seperate, for them! The other day, we were at a street vendor getting food, and these random guys came to buy food. Jade got her food first and as SOON as she got it, the stranger says to her "you didn't invite us to eat". Usually, you offer once you are actually about to take a bite, not as soon as you get it. But these guys just totally jumped the gn. Jade was like umm, well you are also at the street vendor, so what are you buying? It was so crazy to us. Like clearly you are about to buy your own food, why would you try to eat ours? And the more annoying thing is that the whole call everyone to eat thing is just the ideal malian way. In Jade's family, i have very rarely been called to eat. But they expect that model behavior from us. They will even walk by us and say "nay fa le", which in this case, is a rude way of saying "you didn't invite me to eat, but i'm full anyway". Or they will flat out call you out, like you didn't invite me to eat. I wanna be like um well you neverrrrr call me to eat. It's so bold.

The other day this girl came in our midst with mango and offered it to Jade's host mother and baby but didn't offer us any. I feel like they try to make us feel like Americans are stingey but I know we would have offered mango. At least offer. It was bold. They say it's their culture to shar food, and they get on us for not offering, but they don't hold themselves to the same standard, at least not to us or not what we see. Jade did say that early on, she explained that she wouldn't eat out of the same bowl, so maybe that's why they don't bother inviting her? Who knows....