Sharing is Caring

When on an expedition to Borneo at the age of sixteen, and having been a rather fussy eater growing up, it’s not surprising that I experienced many foods I'd never had before. To be honest, there were times I struggled with the new cuisine - and I never quite got the hang of having noodles for breakfast. But there were some real joys in experiencing the new foods I encountered there.

Some of the foods were loved by almost everyone in the group, like a steamed banana cake we helped to create. Some had a Marmite-style ‘love it or hate it’ effect, like the fried banana fritters that we had as an afternoon snack. And some were not very popular at all.

But the most heart-warming memories of food I have from that trip were not necessarily elaborately prepared dishes or exciting new snacks. They were simply foods that were shared with a smile.

Playing with local children was undeniably a highlight of the trip. Having spent a pleasant afternoon on the edge of a volleyball court in the village of Narawang, laughing and placing stickers on each other’s foreheads, it seemed a connection had been made between me and the children I’d befriended. They handed me a fruit I'd never seen before and told me what it was called in Malay. They said it meant ‘spikey fruit’, which was accurate for the appearance of the red fruit I was now holding. The children also told me it was their favourite, meaning I became rather excited to try it, and honoured that they were willing to share this with me – an outsider. They showed me how to break the skin to reveal a small white fruit that was sweet and tender when I bit into it. Having seen their smiles as I tried it, and thanked them for their gracious present, they went home with their brand new sticker books clutched tightly in their hands. On speaking to my teacher, who I believe had been watching the encounter from a slight distance, no doubt with a smile, I learnt that I had tried my first lychee.

The other shared fruit experience was of one not so foreign to me: watermelon. We ate it quite a lot over the course of the trip, so you may wonder why this was so special. It was a scorching afternoon, and a handful of us were waiting for a boat to arrive to take us from the small island of Mantanani back to the mainland of Borneo. We were waiting next to a scuba diving centre that had stopped to have lunch outside on long tables. There was a buzz of chatter as people tucked in to their midday meals. A man who worked at the centre had seen us waiting, and walked over to one of the girls from my group with a large plate of watermelon pieces. He told her: “We like white people. And white people like salad. So take this to share with your friends!” We all smiled at the wording of this kind man’s sentiment, and were extremely grateful for the refreshing plate of cool fruit – even if it wasn’t a salad. This encounter was a reminder of how heart-warming it is to receive kindness from a stranger, and how a plate of watermelon, like the lychee, can be so much more than fruit.

My final food memory is not one with locals, but with good friends. Dinner one particular evening was prawns in a sweet but sticky red sauce. Neither I nor my friend were very experienced with eating prawns, and we watched someone who knew what they were doing show us how to remove the shell. It was messy. Terribly, brilliantly messy. We got sauce everywhere trying to remove the shells, but I decided it was more than worth it for the taste. My friend on the other hand decided that it was creating a little more mess than it was worth. So, he picked up the prawns and ate them with their shells on, much to our amusement. He said they tasted good, that "it added an extra crunch", but he was the only one to eat it that way. The rest of us soldiered on, peeling sticky red shells off of the delicate fish. But I have to admit that because of my friend, it was, at least for me, one of the most memorable meals of the trip!