Pizza for 60 and Miss America

After the sobering realities of my site visit and accompanying blog entry, I figured it was time for a more lighthearted entry on some of the more humorous experiences I have had in Rwanda thus far.

One of the reoccurring themes, every time I go to visit my resource family here in Butare, is Miss America as a topic of conversation. Inevitably, we begin with a discussion on what shapes and looks are attractive in Rwanda and in America, and from there it diverges to the stereotypical American beauty standard of skinny Miss America. My family constantly asks me questions about the official requirements for becoming Miss America, the moral standards necessary to fulfill the role of Miss America, and the general public’s view of Miss America. I haven’t had the heart to tell them that in recent years many pageant contestants have come under fire for their public behavior or that a good portion of American society finds Miss America at the very least silly and irrelevant. If their aim is to encourage me to pursue a Miss America crown, I’m afraid that window of time has come and gone.

The meeting of American and Rwandan culture got even stranger this week when our training director asked a group of us to make pizza for a “pizza party” to celebrate being back at the convent. Interestingly enough, this fell on a day when the convent, which usually boasts the luxuries of running water and electricity, had neither. We began with a trip to the market in Butare, which consists of a series of permanent stalls dedicated to everything from kerosene to avocados to shoes. Six muzungukazi (white girls) walking into this hodgepodge of goods caused quite the stir, and was only increased when they realized the vast quantities of food we needed (30 avocados, 20 bags of flour…you get the idea.) If our time at the market was a series of errors, between the failed bargaining and the smashed avocados all over the Peace Corps car, our actual cooking adventure was a comedy of errors. Everything had to be cooked from scratch, including the dough, which was made by three volunteers who squatted around a large pot and kneaded the dough by pounding it with their fists. I was lucky enough to draw the cheese straw, and was given the task of grating seven wheels of cheese (small blessings- there actually was a grater!) The entire adventure took us eight hours, and finished with us in the kitchen in the dark, pulling pizzas out of the wood-fueled stove long after the 60 people we were feeding were stuffed full of pizza (and guacamole which, it turns out, goes wonderfully with pizza.)