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I’ve been at my permanent site a week now.  Things move slowly here in the desert, and that’s a good thing for now.  The adjustment to site is harder than the move from America to my training village. I need to learn to deal with the harsh desert heat, the rusted metal outhouse, made hotter by the decomposing shit below it, the flies in my bedroom and the kitchen, moving over the food and my body.  Dozens of tiny itchy bug bites have appeared on my hands and feet and seem to be working their way towards my torso.  Meals here are variations on bread and cheese with potato, yogurt or egg.  Meat is for a special occasion.  On the night my arrival, I was given a ribby quarter of a small chicken in the broth of my potato soup in honor of the special occasion. I was feeling sick at the time, so I made excuses to avoid picking the meat from the ribs and wing. 

I haven’t eaten as much as my host family wants me to.  Last night, I picked at the potato pieces cooked in a pan with oil. 

Eat! Encouraged my host father

Eat! Demanded my host nephew, a 14 year old who tells his elders what to do.

Ok, ok. I said.

My host father dumped a spoonful of potato pieces on my plate. 

No, thanks, I’m good. I said

My host father dumped another spoonful of potato pieces on my plate.

I squeezed on some more of the ketchup I bought on my last visit to the nearby town with a supermarket, and kept picking.

Yogurt. Said my host mother

No thanks. I said

She ladled the watery yogurt into a bowl for me. 

Sugar. Said my host mother.

I don’t want any.

She poured sugar onto the yogurt.  Flies started landing on it.

I finished picking at the potato pieces. 

Thanks for dinner.

Eat! Said my host father.

Eat! Demanded my host nephew.

I’m full. I said

This is yogurt! Said my host father

I know.

It’s good!

Yes.

Eat! Demands my host nephew

I’m full.  I say. Yes, this is yogurt.  I know this is yogurt.  It is good. I know it is good, but I’m full. I don’t want it now.  Thank you.

I haven’t yelled or screamed, but I’ve told them directly that I’m not eating their food.  The table is tense.  I get up, and go into the house for my bottle of filtered water.  I think about Richard Shweder, an anthropology professor I had at the University of Chicago, an academic battleship who assigned the books he regularly published with names like “Thinking Through Cultures.”  He had done his fieldwork in a Hindu Temple town and taught “Cultural Psychology,” the point of which was to disabuse undergraduate students of the idea that any set of moral order could be considered universal.  “In the Hindu Temple town where I did my fieldwork,” he would open the first class, “it is considered a greater moral offense of a man to eat chicken after his father dies than it is to refuse medical care to a person who cannot pay.”  The rest of term would be spent examining the culturally-appropriate justifications for excising the clitori of pubescent African girls, executing tribal ne’er-do-wells for witchcraft, abstaining from or indulging in contact with the opposite sex, certain foods, certain bodily fluids and many other anthropologically relevant cultural practices.  For my final project for the class, I crashed a party of tipsy Singaporeans and interviewed them on how they would divide a family with six children, three boys and three girls into two beds.  I found that “the moral grammar of Singaporeans places a high value on The Sacred Couple but is unconcerned with the incest taboo.”  The moral I took from the class was that most of our customs and values are cultural, and quickly change amongst other peoples.  

The Armenians are very concerned about the welfare of their guests.  They’re also quite certain that this young, unmarried guy who can’t even speak properly is completely unable to take care of himself, and if left to his own devices would soon get lost, starve and die of cold, in dirty clothes.  If I don’t eat this food that they love and have eaten all their lives, something must be wrong with me, and that would be terrible, and would require much worrying and home-remedies. 

I need to release the tension.  I return to the kitchen.  My host father has finished his bowl of yogurt, after pouring sugar and torn up chunks of bread into it.  

Ahhh.  He says.

Eat! I say

I did! He says

This is yogurt! I say

I know he says, and my nephews and host Mom crack up.

I force the bowl towards my cousin.  Eat!

No, no, thanks, and my host father starts laughing.

This is good! This is yogurt!

By now they’re in hysterics.

Eat! Eat! Says the 7 year old nephew to the 14 year old

You Eat! He says

No, no, you must eat! I say.

No! no thank you!

Ok, I’ll eat then.  I take some bites of the yogurt.  The family is wiping their eyes from laughing so hard.  I eat about half the bowl.  I’m getting used to the taste.  It will take time, but I’m getting used to it.