"Holy Eggplant!"

Earlier this week, I made my first trip to a grocery store here in the US since arriving back here from Malawi. Surprisingly, I wasn't too overwhelmed by the abundance of aisles, stocked full of food; at least at first. I went to the grocery store that I've been going to for my whole life, so the familiarity of it probably helped tone down the degree of shock I felt.

Though I wasn't blown back by shock, again, at first, I did notice that it took me a REALLY long time to go up and down the aisles. My mom had given me a list of things to pick up, and I found that I was having an incredibly difficult time trying to find the products she was asking for; there were just SOO many different types, brands, styles, and flavors of food. It took me about 5 minutes just to pick out a loaf of white bread for my mom. Why are there so many varieties of bread? I've never noticed it before, but there were probably at least 150 different varieties of bread in the bread aisle.

I'm also pretty sure the young woman at the Deli counter thought I had never seen a Deli before. I walked up to the counter somewhat befuzzled, out of practice with the whole procedure. I gingerly pulled off a number only moments before she looked up at me and asked me what I needed. A little startled, I hesitated, trying to recall what it was that my mom wanted.
...."uh...turkey?"
She laughed a little and asked me, "Okay, what kind of turkey."
"Shoot," I thought, "There's more than one kind of turkey?"
..another pause...
"Umm...which kind is the cheapest?"
"They all are. Today, we have three kinds of turkey on sale for $1.99 a pound." She then listed off the three varieties of turkey on sale that day.
Crap.
"Uh. Let's go with the honey one."
"Okay, how much would you like?"
Dang, there's so many freaking options!
"1lb is good, I think."
"And would you like that sliced thick or thin?"
Are you serious! "How about medium?"

She then sliced one piece, held it over the counter for me to see, and asked if the thickness was good for me.
"Yes. That looks great."

The woman laughed several times throughout the ordeal at my tones, facial expressions, and, I'm sure, my overall confusion at the whole process.

Everything else was going relatively well, besides the fact that I was taking forever and a day to get through the store. I used to go shopping for my mom in high school, and I would be able to fly through the entire store in about 30 minutes. This time, my mom went to run some errands when she dropped me off, and when she returned about 30 minutes later, I had only gone through three aisles. It was a good thing she came because by the time I hit the produce section, I was pretty much useless.

Our produce section is at the back of the store, on the opposite side of the door you come in. The designed the store so that it is the last thing to go through before you check out. When we rounded the corner into this area of the store, my eyes were instantly grabbed by the abundance of brilliant colors bursting from every counter, stand, and cooler. There were SO MANY FRUITS AND VEGETABLES! I couldn't believe it! And they were all so brightly colored! Probably spray painted with dyes, but still, they were BEAUTIFUL! And everything was so BIG! After meandering around for a bit, I caught my eyes on an eggplant the size of my head! In Malawi, we had eggplant, every once in a while, but you were lucky if there were any bigger than your fist. It was unbelievable! I'm pretty sure my mom had to do the rest of the shopping. I think once I saw all of the varieties of fruits and vegetables, my mouth just dropped open, and I floated around the produce section with my eyes wide open trying to absorb the shiny, colorful, bigness of the genetically altered, hormonally infused produce before me. I found I didn't really care what they did to the food to make it that way--I was happily seduced by it's abundance and it's beauty.

I'm guessing that in some time, after my initial excitement to be back in the land of plenty wears off, I'll probably come face to face with the dramatic disparity between what we have here and what much of the rest of the world has. But until then, I think I'm just going to enjoy the bounty we have here. I don't think I'm ready yet to allow myself to acknowledge the inequality that I have had the opportunity to witness. I think if I did so now, I would just become angry and bitter about it, and I definitely don't think that would do anyone any good. It's true we have been blessed with abundance here in the US. But I don't think we are supposed to feel guilty about that. I do believe we should be joyful about it. And we should be grateful of it. And we should try to share it as fully as we can. As a culture, I'm not sure how well we are doing at any of those three things. But I think that is where we should focus our energy, and, when I'm ready, I think that's where I'm going to focus mine. To be joyful, grateful, and to share. It's funny that little kids are so skilled at doing those things which are so critical to a good life, while us grown ups fail pretty miserably at them so often. Let's take some lessons from the little ones.

And a funny little note to end with: After leaving the produce section, we made our way to the check out. While waiting in line for the check out, I wandered into the wine and alcohol aisle. I had a very similar, though slightly less pure-hearted, response in the alcohol aisle as I did in the produce section. I was excited and in awe of the abundance, variety, bigness, and colorfulness of all of the beverages. I wanted to take a taste of every one! Good thing I didn't, though! I definitely would have blacked-out before I even made it a quarter of the way through the aisle. In any case, I think the same thing goes for beverages like that: we should be grateful for them, joyful with them, and we should definitely share. :)