This past weekend I participated in an outside market as part of a large charity affair. A significant crowd travelled to the event eager to participate in a worthy cause. Everyone dressed up and there was pink everywhere. I mean everywhere.
Now, I do not have a problem with the colour pink in general, and I do most definitely not have a problem with the cause represented by the colour pink on this occasion, but it was rather bright and intense against the amber post-winter, not-yet-rainy season Namibian landscape.
Somehow, pink does not blend with brown and yellow and pale amber. Not on my colour wheel, anyway.
But this was not a class in the art of camouflage or artful concealment; it was an event to raise funds and awareness for the victims of one of the most dreaded diseases of our time: Cancer.
As I sat around waiting for the action to start, I could not help drifting off in deep thought about what was happening right here in front of me. I do that from time to time when I am bored or simply with too much time on my hands.
I was about to doze off, completely exhausted from the deep thinking when all hell broke loose. An impulsive, over-zealous gust of wind hit our little collection of market stalls with such passion that I feared they would have to cancel the event and send everyone home.
I mean, within minutes there was hardly a gazebo left that was not folded onto itself like a post-modern, deconstructed, abstract, artistic, aluminum version of the Eiffel Tower.
It was chaos as the wind blew these structures all over the place while the owners of said structures were shrieking and struggling to keep their skirts and dresses and little angel wings down as the wind tried its best to blow them heavenward. I kept looking down to avoid adding to everyone’s desperate embarrassment. I heard the women with the rusks mumble something about a “mannetjies-wind”. When I deemed it safe to look up, I saw that she had pushed her skirt into her tights. Clearly she had had enough and luckily she came prepared. Not everyone wore tights. They remained standing in the same uncomfortable, semi-twisted positions clasping and pulling their skirt hems in the downward direction of decency.
And with that, a single gush of wind, some stall owners had no shade and it was not even 10h00. Worse even, they were down about N$5 000 in mutilated gazebos before they could unpack their cars and start trading.
It was about then that I realised it was going to be rough day, good intentions or not.
Every market presents some risk to small market vendors. For food vendors the risk is a little more serious. No one knows exactly how many portions to prepare and how many will eventually be sold. Even regular customers at regular markets can be notoriously picky and even erratic. What sold last time might never sell again, and no angel in heaven would know exactly why.
Then there are those days, like this past Saturday, when the wind seems to blow away everyone’s appetites. And you have to pack your containers back onto your car, and you are stuck with all that food. And as we all know, food does not last forever, and not all food freezes well. Not for two weeks until the next market comes along, anyway. There is always the possibility that it will all go to waste. (How many wraps with chilli mince and beans and guacamole can you have before you start whistling in Spanish and calling your neighbour “hombre”?)
The point is thus: Whenever people are brought together, we prepare food. In doing so, we inadvertently create an opportunity to waste. But this Saturday helped me to see things differently. Some of the vendors whose stalls got mauled by the wind are cancer survivors themselves. I am sure compared to their personal encounters with a life-threatening disease, a gutsy wind is no issue at all. And a mauled-up gazebo? It can always be replaced.
Our stall sold next to nothing. Sadly so, no one else’s did either, but maybe it was important to participate to learn rather than to sell. For no single moment do I imply that vendors should not make a decent living, so please next time you attend one of these events, support your friendly vendor. They need it.
Remaining with nearly all the food we brought to market, I was left thinking how to best use the leftovers. Should we sell them to the late night drinkers next door? Should we offer them as bar snacks? Should we include them on the menu as appetisers?
None of these options seemed plausible.
So we decided to donate the food to an institution caring for some of our most vulnerable. Those of us in the commercial food business should all maybe adopt such organisations as our prime beneficiaries. Collectively as an industry we dump too much food. Supermarkets dump because they fear lawsuits. Restaurants and hotels often dump because they are lazy. If it lands in the trash, it becomes someone else’s problem.
Every Monday night when I put out the trash, I see and hear the homeless people going through the rubbish bins in the street, and sure, they leave behind a mess looking for food. Maybe we could leave them the food where they can find it without making a mess. Maybe we need to think about how to feed these folks with what we have rather than turning it into waste.
How much trouble and extra effort would this really be? Not much I think. It requires a change in attitude more than anything. Like looking past the disruptive winds and the damaged goods and seeing life. It is precious and it is fleeting.
Tuesday, 10 October was World Homeless Day. Did you know that? Have you done anything special for those less fortunate than yourself?
• 2 kilograms pork neckmuscle (located from behind the head down to about the fourth rib)
• 120 grams non-iodized salt
• 30 grams chilli flakes
• 7 grams black pepper
• 25 grams powdered dextrose
• Combine the salt, chilli, black pepper, dextrose and curing salt in a large container. Mix well, then
divide into two equal portions.
