The Art of Reusing

Since my time in Sudan, I have learned to be very frugal and often reuse things. Since money and supplies (especially things that people send from the US) are precious and often hard to come by, we are in the habit of reusing them. It’s not just me, but everyone here. People are very resourceful. At first, it was strange and hard for me to adapt to. For example, in Africa, they reuse oil that is leftover. As far as I know, no one does that in the US (I never cooked much while I was there, so maybe I am wrong.). Well, I had a hard time doing it because I thought it was gross. If they fry anything, the leftover oil is poured into a container and used the next time. I am used to the US where we are blessed with abundance and don’t think twice about throwing things away. Now, I am so used to reusing oil that I don't even think about it. Another thing, we wash zip lock bags and reuse them (I know some people do that in the US). Also, empty milk and formula tins are used as sugar containers. When we buy a crate of eggs, we ask the vendor to just put them in a plastic bag for us to carry home. We don’t want to pay for another crate when we have one at home we can use.

Anyway… you get the point. Everything is recycled and nothing is taken for granted. Last night something funny happened that made me think about all this and how it has become second nature to me. Since we received our container contents, we have had use of a fridge that someone donated. I can’t tell you how amazing it has been to have cold drinks. Because most people don’t have a fridge, I couldn’t find any ice cube trays here. Although, I have been loving the cold drinks, I have also been craving ice. I haven’t had ice in a year and a half.

While in Kenya, I found an ice cube tray and immediately bought it. Last night, after several previous attempts (thanks to power outages), our first batch of ice was ready. I added some to my Crystal Light Fruit punch and had a delightfully freezing cold drink with dinner. I drank it so fast that my ice cubes were still left when the drink was gone, except that they had decreased in size by 25%. By then, George was just getting his drink and started to get up to get ice cubes when I said, “here take mine” and I dumped my ice cubes in his cup.

It happened so fast and without thought that later I realized how funny that was. There was no reason he needed to use mine. We had more ready. I just thought they were precious and didn’t want to waste them! I was just in the habit if reusing leftovers that it naturally extended to my ice cubes too!

(Side note – one time in Sudan, I made a classic Stacie cooking goof with reused oil. I didn’t like to use the reused oil for certain foods. When I made pumpkin bread, I always used fresh oil. One time, I made the pumpkin bread from scratch as usual and was horrified when I tasted it after it finished baking. It tasted awful. After talking to Mercy, the cook, I realized I accidentally used the reused oil which had been used the night before for making grilled onions. So, I made Onion Pumpkin Bread. I thought it was terrible, but it got eaten anyway!)