Besides just walking around Bilbao for its history and culture scene, I had a practical reason for the tour. I was actually running low on food that I had carried with me to Spain. The previous 2 days were marked by cooking some skimpy Black Eyed Peas with a local pumpkin and Black Pepper into a soup just to get by. I was therefore more than delighted when the first person we asked if there were any organic or agro ecological stores in town suggested that we check in the old part of the city. The second person we enquired from was a fishmonger and he knew exactly where one of the stores was. We therefore headed towards the direction of that store.
My guide pointed to the various African shops we passed by. I went into a few of them to find out whether they carried any organic or agro ecological products. Sadly, I found none. Even if there were so some products that were sustainably grown, they were not clearly marked. So I just had to leave empty handed. I was now facing the challenges I theorize about in real life. Why is it that African stores did not carry healthier options products yet Africa is the continent with the oldest history of both agriculture as well as the longest history of what I call Just Food ( the idea being that you can’t have food justice without food that is free from injustices in the whole food chain). It is not a simple or minor issue. The lack of healthier products has serious health disparities implications both abroad and at home.
That issue weighed heavily on me as we continued with our walk towards preliminary destination. We were quiet for a while and I took the time to savor the historical buildings, the cobblestones sidewalks probably centuries old and the changing smells as we passed various spots like the coffee shops.
We finally made it to our highly anticipated Viva la Vida store. It was so small that I couldn’t hide my disappointment. Yet it had a cozy feeling that took me back to my childhood. A polite young lady was seated behind the cash register and stood up as soon as we entered. I was delighted to learn that she could speak some English. I was equally energized to see Arborio rice, my favorite of all time. I even bought a few other types of rice just to explore their flavors with my family upon returning to the U.S. Arborio rice once inspired one of my favorite essays titled Abaai and the Thieving Birds. The essay often comes to mind occasionally whenever I see Arborio rice. Besides, the Italian rice was part of an era of a futuristic movement in Italy during the reign of Bonito Mussolini. Mussolini was part of a food campaign that promoted the local rice instead of foreign grains such as imported wheat. The title of my essay started with the word Abbai, a term of endearment amongst male age mates amongst the rice-growing community in Central Kenya. Those memories primed me for a pleasant shopping experience.
Since I knew that it would be a while before I could make it to the kitchen to cook, I decided to buy some dry apricots for a snack. My guide looked attentively as the 4 types were weighed and the prices entered on the cash register. I picked a few other items to go with the rice in anticipation of my first full meal that was essentially going to be my First Full Supper after a few days of barely getting by. I couldn’t wait to taste something familiar and therefore reached into the beautiful brown waxed bag and picked two dried apricots, then extended the gaping bag to my host.
She turned it down on account that it was too expensive. She claimed that it was both a form of disrespect to me and a waste of my money for her to eat such expensive organic food on that day only and then revert back to chemical foods which she has been eating all along. While I turn down unjust food, she turned . I always turn down unjust food but had never had anyone turn down just food when freely offered. There are some that distrust its benefits and all but that was not the case. It did come as a surprise and raised a few questions in my mind.
It’s tough for me to eat by myself and it is culturally inappropriate. I would get the urge to extend the bag of apricots to my guide every time I reach for some more as a natural instinct. I actually asked twice just to confirmed that my guide had not received the agro ecological holy ghost. She was not budging. I grabbed the reusable shopping bag with my groceries and hung it across my right shoulder. I could feel it bulging on my back, especially from almost ten pounds of rice. It became more clearer how the bifurcation of our food by the introduction of fiat or unjust food has deeply affected how we think about ourselves and how we relate with each other relative to our food system.
That was tough but I understood why the proverbial garden of Eden could only be inhabited by those who eat just food. Fortunately for us, there is redemption and grace for a smaller price by simply eating right. The Garden of Eden had no second chances. That is not the case with our food or better yet our political system.
In activist, academic and intellectual circles, the main focus is most commonly the matters of inequalities and access to healthy, nutritious and culturally appropriate foods. I have honestly been suspicious of that simple position and have raised my objection publicly. My position is that the issue of food injustice is seriously under estimated and poorly studied. Here is my first anecdotal evidence that someone can have access to the food and yet opt to turn it down. The reason that could contribute to a person being so removed from just food and therefore to be so comfortable with what poisons them and their posterity is a topic that deserves the utmost attention as a matter of urgency.
To be clear, it was painful for me to be making this observation in Spain and a few minutes away from the statues of the 4 Segueras, statues that commemorate the enslaved African women, who worked on the dock pulling iron-loaded ship through the estuary for off loading with their bare hands. How can African women be pulling the modern ships full of poison that will undermine their own health and that of their posterity? Just like the era of 1850 when there were free and enslaved humans, today those same segregation between political and racial groups are being perpetrated most subtly through food.
The matter gained greater urgency when I remember that in the same country, Hannibal Macca, the African military genius had managed to occupy Spain in 220 B.C during the Punic Wars against Rome. To this day, the town of Cartagena carries the name of Carthage to mark that historical event. History records the battle of Cannes in Italy as one of the biggest defeat in history. Hannibal managed to kill between 50,000 to 60,000 Roman soldiers in one afternoon. Rome had a total of 80,000 soldiers in total. By comparison, it is more soldiers killed than all the American soldiers who died in the Vietnam war between America and Vietnam in a war that lasted almost 23 years. In America standards, the most significant battle in its history is the Battle of Gettysburg where fifteen thousand soldiers died in three days of fierce fighting. I am not a big fan of war, though I study it in all its dimensions. If Hannibal is the greatest military general of all times, I am willing and ready to learn from him in the hope of stemming the slaughters of people across the world in numbers that exponentially bigger than those killed in the Battle of Cannea. That vital task calls for a strategy on the level of Hannibal.
I wondered if I should name the loss I experienced in the same country where Hannibal left an indelible mark in military history. The Feast of Black Burden maybe? I chose the word Black burden as Black is a word with double meaning. The term is used in business to denote a profitable status and also in families to denote a wayward sibling, as in the business is in black and the black sheep of the family.
However you eat, we will be all be Black, but we get to choose which one. The type of Black we choose to be will far reaching consequences for thousands of years to come. Remember that Hannibal and Carthage finally lost the three Punic Wars, leading to the complete razing down of Carthage by Romans. Africa and many indigenous communities paid a heavy price at the hands of Roman Empire that dominated a significant part of the globe to this day. Eat like a military genius and vote with your stomach at every single meal, whether free, grown or purchased. In short, I stay away from any feast of black burden it surely can’t be for nothing that my ancestors were treated as beasts of burden.