Food Observation（SE3）

This weekend, I went to Brett Gray Ranch which is in Rush, Colorado for retreat with my ILLC (International Living and Learning Community) members. Actually, this big ranch belongs to one of my community member. Her parents live here and work here, so we don’t have to worry about sleeping in tents with snakes and insects. Although we have place to sleep, we still have to worry about another thing which is eating. Cooking food in the ranch is not as convenient as in Denver, and if we want to cook food, we’d have to make a fire, and cook food by ourselves.

Also, we’d have to know it is dangerous to make a fire on ground, so all the eat food have are not need to cook or bake. So that, sandwich can be a good choice for us to full fill our stomach. As a community, we always work together, making food can’t be the only exception, so, some people are responding for washing vegetables and fruit; some people are responding for cutting vegetables; some people are taking charge for making beverage. For me, I take charge for cutting pepper and tomatoes. You can’t say the work is interesting, in contrary, the work is kind of boring, but when I imagine that people will eat vegetables was cut by me, then, I will feel full of motivation doing the work.

Except eating sandwiches, we also have fruit to eat, such as banana, apples, and strawberries. We also have peanut butter, chocolate cream, which are used for making sandwich, few eggs and some chicken and beef. We have a lot of food to eat, but sometimes, cooking can be a real problem for us, not just for making fire, but also we are not really good at cooking food as well. As I said, we have chicken and beef to eat, but we have to make them be able to eat. We can’t eat chicken and beef without cooked, so we decided to roast them on fire. First, we dug a pit, and then, we found some firewood and made a campfire in the pit. We use tinfoil to cover the chicken and beef to protect them not be burned. After 1 hour roasted, the chicken and beef are able to eat. Although they tasted just so-so, it is also better than nothing to eat. While having food, we are watching sunset, it is fabulous. Despite of chicken and beef, we also have eggs to eat, and I want to say the eggs are all from kens in the ranch. The eggs tasted different because we are able to feel a kind of nature from eating these eggs. While eating dinner, our group members talked about accent about different people speaking English. In our community, there are three people from China and one people from Brazil, so accent can be a good topic for us to talk while eating. My friend and I also taught our group member how to speak Mandarin easily, but they said mandarin is too hard for them to pronounce, but they also said they are willing to study Mandarin in future. After dinner, we walked outside for finding branches because we are going to eat S’more at night. I used to have S’more once, it was delicious. Some people may ask what S’more is. S’more is a traditional and popular nighttime food in the United States. A S’more consists of three things, marshmallow, graham cracker and chocolate. People have to put marshmallow on the branch and roasted the marshmallow on campfire. Then, put the roasted marshmallow, chocolate and graham cracker together, and finally, eat it! We have already made a campfire, so, all of my community members sited together and roasted the marshmallow. During roasting the marshmallow, some people were talking some scary stories, some people were talking funny stories, and some people were talking embarrassing stories. People listened and laughed and talked about each stories, although it was very cold outside at night, it seemed no one want to go back to home very early. About one and a half hours, we ran back home and slept.

I think it is hard to say the food we had during this retreat is delicious and tasty, I am still satisfied the food very much because when we are having food, everyone can communicate with others. The food we had is not just the food itself, but also a bridge to connect each other as well. Communication is one of the most important behaviors for human beings. For me, the more I communicate with Americans, the faster I can use English well. Also, communication is necessary for human beings because people need to exchange their opinions and make improvement. In work, people need to exchange their working experience, so that they can work better. In games, players have to communicate with teammates and coach as well, so that they can win the game. To sum up, people can’t live without communicate with others because communication is a way to help people living better. This is what I observed during this retreat, having food is one of ways for people to communicate with each other.