Can’t You Smell That Smell: November 17

Now that we are cooking most of our meals on our own we have been trying to make a conscious effort to visit Ma and Dora every evening, although this is much harder then it sounds due to Ma’s extremely busy schedule. We keep an eye out for her return each night before we go to bed and if we are lucky enough to catch her, we drop by. On this particular night, however, we wish we had just stayed home. Upon opening the door to Ma’s house, we were immediately greeted by the foulest smell we had ever encountered. It was so powerful and indescribable that it actually resulted in a full body ache. After a few minutes of small talk in which we were trying to mask our dry heaving with coughs and laughs, Ma informed us that she was cooking amatumbu for dinner. No wonder our eyes were watering and we felt like we were going to die. She was cooking cow intestines in the kitchen! If it hadn’t been for the fact that we hadn’t visited Ma in a few days and she had been giving us a guilt trip about it, we would have run screaming from the house. Instead we sat in the living room hoping that our bodies would eventually adjust to the tortuous stench. Joe sat there wondering who in the world observed a cow relieving itself and thought to themselves “wouldn’t it be great to cook its’ large intestine and serve it up for dinner?!” To our dismay, the smell continued to get worse as our breathing became labored, our heads throbbed and our noses experienced horrors that they previously thought were impossible. After what seemed like two hours and on the verge of passing out, we begged out of our visit by telling Ma that we had to get some sleep. We clamored for the door, now feeling the stench in every pore of our skin. Appreciating fresh air with a new found joy, we were shocked into silence on our walk back home. Although we were able to rid ourselves of the stench after a few bucket baths and lots of scrubbing, our bodies will never let us forget that god awful smell. Joe still doesn’t understand how Kelli ate that stuff during training? [Aside: As part of our language and cultural training, our instructors cooked amatumbu, a traditional food served at important functions, for us to taste in the safety of our class before being confronted with it at a wedding or funeral. However, the cow intestine was cooked outside over a fire, prohibiting us from smelling it at the time.]pictures: Kelli attempting to enjoy cow intestines