The Infamous Smiley

Since Peace Corps apparently doesn’t like to give trainees time to rest, the very first Saturday after our exhausting first week in Namibia was another training day. Though thankfully it wasn’t a typical session they had planned for that morning of February 28, 2009, it was a cultural food day.

The morning had an interesting start. Since I lived in town and walked to training every day, I was usually early, and this day was no exception. I had beaten all of the trainees to the training centre, and my “reward” for that was getting to watch the old woman in the kitchen prepare what some call smiley (spelling?). I was all excited to watch, and actually be the first to watch, someone prepare a traditional Namibian dish, especially one as cool sounding as smiley. The name is very deceptive however, because there is nothing at all smiley about a dead goat head. I was horrified to watch as this lady shaved the hair off the grey disgusting looking goat head floating in a bucket of water.

Within a few minutes the other trainees arrived in the kombi, just in time to give me an excuse to leave and save my appetite for the rest of the day. I went over to the driveway, as far away from the goat head as possible, and after talking for a bit, we started setting up. After we finished, the host families came to join us and the cooking began.

Because of all of the various cultures in Namibia, particularly the seven represented by our languages, we had many different stations. It was really quite cool to see all of the different tribes cooking their various dishes. Some were even dressed in their traditional attire. We walked around from station to station, sometimes observing and sometimes actively participating in the cooking and meal preparations.

The trainers had purchased three live chickens to slaughter there and use for a few of the different tribal groups, so a couple of the trainees assisted with that. I stood back and observed. I figured if those poor chickens could go through the pain of beheading, that I could watch to further reinforce my vegetarianism. It was such a sad thing to see…the chickens were afraid, and as the executioner would bring the knife up to cut off their heads, the chickens would close their eyes, bracing themselves for the atrocity to come. After I finished daydreaming about jumping on the “guillotine” to stop the carnage, I said a silent prayer for their poor little chicken souls and was on to the next station.

At the Afrikaans station they were making brai bread which is one of my favorite things in Namibia. It’s grilled bread, but it’s so much more too…I just love it. The other love of my life is the fatcakes. They are basically fried bread, so they’re not at all healthy, but they’re absolutely delicious. Pop or porridge is very typical dish. It is like mashed potatoes, but is made from maize (hard corn) or mahangu and is somewhat more jello-like in the sense that it holds its form. There is also another dish made from maize that I really like. You grind the casing off of the maize, and then boil it until it’s somewhat soft. I forget the name, but it’s really good.

From there the rest of the food was all downhill. One station had caterpillars to eat, they were just sitting in a bowl soaking in water (I just imagined them being slimy and cold). This one pot had all sorts of various chicken/animal parts and my knowledge of anatomy isn’t developed enough to name them all. I think some of the trainees tried some chicken intestines at one point (that’s when I had to get out of there for a bit it was just too much). There was this one traditional drink that tasted like sandy watered down milk, which I ended up “accidentally” knocking over. And then there was the Herero station, which had mostly just various meats. It was also the location of the infamous smiley, of which they eat not only the facial tissue, but the marrow and brain as well (I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth).

After lots of cooking, and lots of eating, cultural food day was over. I had managed to avoid the majority of questionable foods by sticking to the breads for the most part. It was a nice finish to our first week in Namibia. It was fun, interesting, and an overall really cool experience. I’ll just have to remember to not get there so early next time, and to not be deceived by a name as innocent sounding as smiley.