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79 Biographical sketch. Maria Cattell has done research among Zulus in South Africa and older white ethnics in Philadelphia, but Kenya remains her first love. She lived among Abaluyia in rural western Kenya for two years and has made a number of four- to six-week return visits to renew friendships and carry out short-term research projects on issues of current interest, such as place and identity (Cattell 2005). When she returned for the first time in 1987, Maria was amazed when people hugged her. Kenyans are publicly undemonstrative, and these were big hugs—in public! Finally someone told her, “Now we know you really love us because you have come back.” And so Maria has gone back, many times, and has shared many more meals (and hugs) with her Kenyan friends. Adventures with Termites One day my co-researcher, John Barasa “JB” Owiti, and I were walking through the Nangina Hospital’s grounds in rural western Kenya. As we approached the outpatientclinic,JBrushedtothesidetoalargeholeintheground.Hesquatted, C h a p t e r F i v e Maria G. Cattell Globalization of an Indigenous Food System among Abaluyia of Western Kenya Termites Tell the Tale Maria G. Cattell 80 then reached toward the hole, and put his hands to his mouth again and again. I squatted beside him. JB was catching little white-bodied insects as they flew from the hole—and he was indeed eating them! “Termites?” I asked. “Yes,” said he, throwing a few more into his mouth. I watched for some time, longing to try them because I was born with an adventurous palate and love trying new foods—but termites? Do they bite? Taste awful? An image popped into my head: the man in the seat ahead of me on the country bus who bought a bag of live termites from one of the women who appear at every bus stop to sell snacks like bananas, popcorn, and roasted groundnuts (peanuts). As the man popped handfuls of the termites into his mouth, some escaped and crawled over his head and the back of his neck. He paid no attention to them. But I wondered, how can he eat those things? And how can he let them crawl all over him? But in spite of that memory, suddenly my hand reached out, almost on its own, grabbed one termite, flung it into my mouth—and I ate it. Just that one, but I ate it. When we stood up, I heard a voice behind me: “Maria, did you eat?” I turned around. “Yes, I ate!” I told the inquirer, my friend Fosca, a nurse’s aide. She was with a small crowd that had gathered on the veranda of the outpatient clinic to watch the musungu (European or American) at the termite hole. I am sure word quickly spread far and wide by “bush telegraph” about my exploit: “The musungu eats termites!” For the most part I had no problem with Kenyan foods. The staple ugali (in Swahili; obusuma in Luyia), a stiff porridge made by boiling white maizemeal and water, was easy. Ugali is similar in flavor to grits, which my family ate often although we lived among meat-and-potatoes Pennsylvania Dutch farmers (my father was a Southerner). When people served “black ugali” made with millet or sorghum or stickier ugali made with cassava, it was no problem. Goat meat—again, no problem; we had eaten goats on our Pennsylvania farm. The ubiquitous sukuma wiki (collards or kale), chopped, boiled, and seasoned with onion and tomato—no problem; my father grew these greens in his garden. New foods, like emjombola (a fruit) and “slippery vegetable” (omutere), also offered no challenges because of my eagerness to try new foods. So after eating that one live termite, I was sure I could eat anything my Kenyan friends offered me, including termites. So I ate termites, lightly fried and salted, as often as I could. I ate them with pleasure, enjoying their flavor and preserving my selfimage as someone who can eat anything. But then I met my comeuppance. Occasionally I visited Gladys, the eighteen -year-old “matron” who supervised the boarding students after the day scholars went home from Nangina Girls’ Primary School. One day, as we drank the super-sweet tea she always served, Gladys opened a paper bag and took out a largish insect, about an inch long, which she popped into her mouth and [3.144.212.145] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 21...

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