Too Much Food (Jazon Mraz, anyone? No? Ok, then.)

About the amount of food I ate yesterday. . .

It was ridiculous. Somewhere my grandmother is looking down upon me, giddy with joy because I ate five meals in the same day. Yea, I said that. Five meals in the same day.  Let that sink in, let the wave of shock and/or disgust/approval wash over you, and then also consider the ice cream, Jell-O and three pieces of cake I had after that fifth meal.

It wasn’t my fault, allow me to explain:

Panama happened.

First, I woke up like any other lazy Sunday. I had been my definition of productive (kind of) during the other six days that week, so I thought Sunday might be the day to sleep in, catch up on some laundry, maybe pasear a little bit. I contemplated going to mass with my host mom, but laziness won over. Instead, I stayed home and washed the mountain of dishes in the sink and cleaned my room while blasting some clean-up music. I had a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast, which is normal, but then after I cleaned up the kitchen, I thought to myself “Hey, I’m already here, it’s about noon, maybe I’ll fry a couple of eggs and a hot dog, because why not.” My host mom came home and decided that this would go well with fried plantains (because plantains go with everything and are a superior alternative to eating eggs and hot dogs alone or with bread), so I finally fried my OWN plantains for once. (They were delicious.) After eating all of that, I was fuller that I wanted to be, but that’s cool, because I just wouldn’t have to eat again until dinner, right?

Anyway.

A girl that lives down the street from me called to invite me to her house for Father’s Day, so of course I went. I didn’t have anything else important to do that day. I didn’t take into account that that her family would feed me my second lunch in the middle of the afternoon. And it was Father’s Day. This was not just any lunch. There was beef, pork, regular rice, rice with coco, and potato salad. If you’ve never been to Panama, let me just tell you there’s not really a way to opt out or say ‘no thank you’ when someone invites you over their house and offers you food. I ate it.

THEN I came home, and within a couple of hours, it was dinner time. I had a birthday party to go to that night, so I ate a little dinner just so I wouldn’t be hungry at the birthday party. On Panamanian time, you never really know when those things are gonna start/end, and I don’t wanna sit around hungry or be rude and leave because I need to go eat.

Eating dinner at home was another HUGE miscalculation on my part. If she had drawn upon her useful Panamanian stereotypes, our protagonist would have realized that at EVERY family celebration in Panama, arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) and potato salad WILL be served, no joke. When you’re the guest, they always serve you first. A HUGE portion. So what did I do? I shoveled it down. All of the potato salad, and then about half of the rice was all I could manage. I took my leftovers ‘para llevar (to go).’ And then they served me cake. There were THREE CAKES. I was anticipating being served a single slice of ONE of the cakes. Instead I was served a good sized slice of each of the three cakes, PLUS chocolate ice cream and raspberry Jell-O. Even as I write this the next day, mid-morning, I feel really full. My host sister and I came home with our stomachs about to burst and went to bed immediately.

For anybody in the States who may have been worried that I’m not eating enough: Just don’t.