Got Beans?

 When I go back to the States, I usually joke that we eat beans and rice for breakfast, rice and beans for lunch and beans with rice for dinner.  I sorely regret that joke now because that is exactly what we ate on the pioneer route!  Sometimes we would have a local cheese or fried plantains with it or an egg.  (I learned how to split two eggs between five people with a little ingenuity while I was there.)  Also, there was a vegetable truck that came through every now and then with tomatoes, potatoes, onions and a few other things.  And for a real treat, the sister would kill a chicken or we would get meat from a local house that I discovered towards the end of my visit there.  But, the staple for every meal was beans and rice.  I was fine with beans and rice for every meal for about the first month and a half.  We called it our "manna" :-)  But then, I started having an Israelite moment of looking back.  Not for leeks and watermelons but for Burger King and donuts!    I don't even eat that stuff in the States but you always want what you can't have.  Every day, I would look under the lid of the two pots as if something different was going to be there.  Somehow, I thought I could will something else to be in the pot.  One day I really had to laugh because we had gallo pinto (beans and rice mixed together) with a side of beans!  Whenever I tried to cook something different like spaghetti, or even add seasonings to the beans and rice, it didn't go over well at all.  So, I learned not to stray too far from the norm.  At least I finally learned how to make a good pot of rice :-) As odd as it may seem to us, it's quite normal to eat the same thing all the time there.  I arrived after lunch one day for a Bible study and I asked the student what she had cooked.  She seemed perplexed before slowly answering, "Beans and Rice" as if to say 'What else would I have made??!! Duh!'  I asked several friends what their favorite food is.  Almost every person told me beans.  But when they answered, they said it with their mouths watering, describing hot sauce or sour cream on it like they could go for some right then.  I definitely learned to be satisfied with simple food...and I never went hungry!