Skip to main content

Fresh fish


I ate a fish, on the beach. Just a slab of fish on a plate. It was great.

It was grilled, of course, and slathered with a delicious sauce. And I was going to say I ate all of it, but that wouldn’t be true either. Lerry (Cameroonian girl) looked at me strangely a few nights earlier when I was eating bar (a kind of fish) with rice and dodo (fried sweet plantains, mmmm) at Hot Spot, and asked “Why don’t you eat the bones?”

Ummm, because a) I’m a wimp, and b) I’m Canadian, so it’s not really standard practice anyway?

This is a big step for me to just be eating fish like this, all fishy looking and all. But it was really good, especially at dusk on the beachfront at Limbe. We went up to the crude grill, picked out our fish from the selections given, then they were thrown on the grill and served up to us with a roasted plantain (mmmmm!) later. I tried to be more responsible this time and eat at least some of the bones, but only some. And I couldn’t bring myself to eat the head; I’m sorry, but that’s just too much. That’s where I draw the line. Fish on a plastic trencher I can do — I even ate shrimp on a skewer, shell, legs, tail and all! Also deliciously roasted with delectable sauce. But sorry, still not culturally adaptable enough to eat the bones.

*Post script: the thing on a skewer is calamari — so they say. It was really tender, melt-in-your mouth, and fat-like in texture; nothing like the rubbery calamari I've had before. So either it's just different, it's the real stuff, or it's not calamari at all. The sauce is good old spicy Cameroonian pepe. Sorry the shrimp didn't make it on this photo.

Comments

Tom said…
Fish bones aren't too bad. I've only eaten one (smallish) head which was quite toasted and crunchy. If you get a shrimp with a head, however, try not to eat the brain; it's really bitter. At least, the one I had sure was.

Keep up the awesome blogging!

Popular posts from this blog

Living stones in the holy land

I met Jesus in Israel-Palestine a few years ago. I found him not in the rocky, desert ground he trod, nor in the ancient stones of the towns and cities he visited; not in the subterranean grotto in the Church of the Nativity, nor in the mammoth Church of the Holy Sepulchre, encompassing the traditional site of his death and resurrection. No, I met him in the lives of Palestinians who incarnate his spirit, in humble, passionate people who are convinced that love is the only way. I met Jesus in people who spoke like this: “We need to be soaked in the love of Christ. Love is not a hug and a kiss. Love is to seek the life of the other that the cost of one’s own.” --Labib Madanat, coordinator of the Palestinian and Israeli Bible Societies “Love is not an opportunity to overlook justice. Love is an opportunity to pursue justice…. [But] we want to resist any form of evil with the heart and mind of Jesus Christ.… There is no love without justice. And there is no true justice without lov...

Broken people...

After reflecting with one coworker on how often churches in all their forms really mess up and hurt a whole bunch of people in the process -- and how "we gotta do better" -- I stumbled into another conversation with a coworker which highlighted our brokenness, and I suddenly realized what was wrong with my take in the first. I wanted the church to be better at fixing our mistakes, or better yet, at not making them in the first place. But maybe this "fix-it" attitude is partly the reason we keep blowing it again and again! My friend recollected an experience when a church community was in a terrible place: compounded mistakes, hurts, and frustrations had blown up, spewing pain all over all parties. (I'm sure anyone with a long history in the church can think of one, if not several, such occasions in their past.) A new Christian who observed all these goings on responded in an unexpected way. Instead of "you people are a bunch of screw-ups! How could this pos...

Deep breaths, just relax

I am immensely relieved to have my visa application in the mail...except I won't be free of trepidation until I have my passport back, visa approved. Sending my visa makes me realize it's actually going to happen -- sooner rather than later. Just one more day of work at the newspaper, 2 1/2 more shifts at the bookstore. Training the new guy today went well for me; I hope it went well for him as well! Thankfully, I have news that I will not be wandering around Douala by myself upon my arrival in Cameroon. (Okay, not that that was going to be the case, but it sounds more dramatic.) The original plan was that I'd meet Dan and Lisa at Charles de Gaulle and continue with them from there in on. Just the way I like it -- being "adventurous" within the safe parameters of responsible and experienced oversight. However, the U.S. government got in the way of those plans with delay after delay with Joshua's paperwork. To say I was worried about arriving in Douala all alo...