30 | March | 2013 | Sabethville

Uncooked, polished, white long-grain rice grains (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am exiled to a private island,I am allowed five foods daily.Food is not what comes to my mind. I am thinking why am I here in this island and for how long? Of course food is one of the most important thing a human being will think about just to survive.

These captors seems to me are very considerate.They are actually giving me a choice of five foods I can pick for my daily consumption. There is something odd about this whole thing. Anyway while I am thinking what can I pick,one of the captors a big burly fellow who seems to have little or no patience ,gives me an evil look.While all the others have made their choice,I am the only one still trying to make up my mind. He takes his whip and hits me and says: “woman you have taken enough time, tell me at once what you want or you’ll get nothing to eat”. This scares me a little,suddenly I have a mental block,I cannot think of anything.I get a second warning,’you have five minutes to decide’ I get anxious and spit out five foods ever so quickly,’I want tea,okra,egg plant, guava and rice’. The man gets impatient,’are you sure this is what you want’? I say,”yes, besides you only gave me five minutes and my brain is in knots.I cannot think .” After making my choice known I began to feel terrible.I wish I could think of more appealing foods than the ones I listed. It was time for breakfast,I noticed the others were having mouth-watering food and I was served tea and guava.I do like guava, but not for breakfast. The evil man came around to watch us eat,he noticed I was sitting quietly.Immediately he bawled and said,’ Why aren’t you eating, you got what you wanted,I’ll give you two minutes to finish your food? I felt like crying, I knew it was not going to make a dent in his system. I did what I had to do,drank my tea and ate the guava which was hard and green and totally bland.

I didn’t look forward for lunch,my choice was either okra ,rice or egg plant,out of the three rice was fine but out of egg plant and okra ,my fear was how are they going to cook it,do they know how to cook these vegetables. I didn’t have to wait too long,my lunch was rice and okra.The cook never saw okra before,he had no idea how to cook it.He took the easy way out,he boiled the okra. I was served sticky boiled okra with rice. Okra is a vegetable which is prepared with special care,it requires spices,oil onion and salt,if you want to eat it with rice.This was beginning to be a nightmare for me.To avoid being bawled at or whipped by the giant,I slowly started swallowing the food.This was worse than medicine.

I knew what was left for me to eat for supper.I sat on the floor of the room and began to visualize what I want for supper.I would like some beef biriyani, a cucumber salad and for dessert a slice of cheesecake and water.I felt sleepy and went to sleep on the floor.I dreamt I was in a large dining hall,there were all kinds of food for us to eat.The waiter to my dismay brought me a large purple eggplant on a plate and handed it to me. I immediately screamed and told him to take it away,’I am not going to eat this useless thing’,I said.Suddenly I heard a thundering voice,’Yes you are,this is your choice.’ I slowly opened my eyes and saw him standing on top of me and pointing at the egg plant he said,’now eat’. This time I could not control my tears, I said ,’Oh God please don’t punish me,I’ll try to be a good person’. The whole five a day seemed to be a test for me.