Tables and Chairs

People ask me all the time what it is I miss most about America. The food? The people? The transportation? The music? Well, it’s none of these. It’s the act of eating dinner. You sit at a chair with a table in front of you at elbow height. You have a plate, with a little napkin folded next to it. On it is a fork, knife and a spoon. Behind the plate there is a glass of water, with ice. Generally there are people around to stimulate conversation. Then to top it all off, a glass of wine. Instead, I sit in my mud brick house on a stool. Eating out of the same bowl that I cooked in, out of a spoon. To the sounds of babies crying and my neighbors new radio blasting that he brought back from Nigeria. Oh the luxuries.