Back in September, when I got my invitation to serve in Peace Corps Niger, I received a wealth of information about my assignment, including a suggested packing list. I took the list pretty seriously and tried to buy everything on it: including chocolate pudding.
My dear, insightful mother and I had a small discussion about this before I left. “Alma, you don’t even like pudding” she reminded me. “Mama, it’s on the list, and the list was made by volunteers who are in Niger now, and I want to be prepared” I argued illogically.
Of course as soon as I got to Niger I realized my mother was right, as usual. Why the hell did I bring two Snack Packs to the desert? Still, any and all food from America is considered a treasure by Niger PCVs, so I held on.
About a month into our training, my roommate Shelly had an especially lousy day, so to cheer her up I gave her one of my Snack Packs. We agreed we would eat them together when the emotional boost was necessary.
I thought about eating the pudding several times, and kept telling myself I needed to save it for a really rainy day, but the bad days I had never seemed bad enough to be worthy of such an extravagant American food item. Soon enough, training was over and my Snack Pack was still untouched, so I packed it up with the rest of my belongings and headed off to Zinder. Two weeks later, it was time to leave, so I packed up again and into my suitcase went the lonely Snack Pack.
By the time I arrived in Morocco, my Snack Pack has been to more countries than the average American. At this point, I didn’t even know what to do with the pudding because I felt so ridiculous still having this incredibly processed, chemically manipulated food item, and yet too attached to throw it away.
The Snack Pack traveled from Philadelphia to Niamey, to Zinder, to Rabat, across the Saharan Desert on camel until it reached Hostel Canaria in Agadir, where the need for a wine glass finally compelled me to eat it. Turns out it was pretty delicious, and the plastic container it came in served nicely as a make shift wine cup.
Thank you, Snack Pack! 
You put wine in a used snack pack container... seriously? You could also just drink out of the bottle--classier?
ReplyDeleteUniverse rules: Eating Snack Pack and drinking wine out of it is legitimate and wonderful use of Snack Pack.
ReplyDeleteDon't hate, Cristina. I had lunch with Nora yesterday and she said how much she enjoyed her time with you two, and I was oh-so-jealous.