Greetings People! 🙌
Just like they always teach us in sermon, they said there's no standing in the middle of Christ or the devil; it's either you're this way or that way. That is how life is; it's very hard to be in between the high life and the low life, there's every tendency to sway from the high to the low life from time to time, and being able to maximise this swaying and keep it on a not-so-far away standard is what we are all aiming for.
I grew up in a family that was not flamboyant with cash; things were tough, but we managed to survive the struggles, especially with the daily feeding and school fees.
For food, we were cultured to abide by the popular African food "garri" (eba, fufu, generally known as swallow). This food stays longer in the stomach, and as such, it carries us from 6:00 a.m to 6: 00 p.m if well taken.😄
Also, this food was very much available in our house because we have a farm that produces it. It was our signature, and you'll barely see us taking tea for breakfast or rice for breakfast. If we try to take these food(tea & rice) for breakfast, then we should be ready to have another round of meals in an hour because the stress of working on the farm would walk the food out of the system.
Isn't it better to eat what will last longer in the stomach and cover up more hours than to eat what will make you visit the kitchen in the next hour to waste food and resources? That's how we were cultured, and this lifestyle became part of me.
When I gained admission into the tertiary institution, the lifestyle followed me to school and I had challenges with it because I lived with two roommates that we eat from the same pot. These guys were from rich homes, but were living a low-key life too.
At the initial stage, I was in charge of the kitchen because I love to cook and also know how to manage funds. So, I was going on and on with my particular pattern of food at a regular interval in a way to save us from spending much.
I would go to the market, buy fresh meat, fish, and some other items to make a large sweet pot of soup, and we would be boiling water to make "garri" (eba) whenever we were hungry and this lasted longer in our stomach and saved us enough resources. Even our gas lasted longer, but at some point, my roommates got tired of the whole process.
"Guy, I'm tired of eating 'eba' the way we've been eating. Haaa!" One of them lamented, and I knew my pocket was about to be frustrated.
"I understand, but eating this saves us a lot. If we should go for the 'sweet mouth' type of food, we'll be spending much," I said, trying to kill the idea he was initiating, but he refused.
Own Image, designed on canva
I allowed him to take over the kitchen, and guess what? We began eating like English people; we were eating Noddles in the morning before going for class, returning from class and eating beans, then eating rice in the evening. Mind you, all these stages of feeding were connected by their different cooking, which consumed a lot of gas.
I was able to survive the first stage because I fought so hard to meet up with the finances, but at a certain point, their 'excess' money began to reduce more heavily than the way it was when I was cooking, so their eyes got cleared and we fell back to our normal routine.
Although, this time around, we sat down to mix the feeding pattern, and it helped us a lot.
Thanks for reading.
This is my response to #KISS writing prompt in THE MINIMALIST COMMUNITY.