Blog: Thanks to Indiana Jones (2009)

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Thanks to Indiana Jones

2009

Let me just admit it right now: half of the reason I’m in this line of work is Indiana Jones. More specifically, there’s a scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom — which I saw when I was 14 years old — when he’s sitting, cross-legged, in a poor village in northern India. A small portion of unappetizing-looking food is brought out to him, buzzing with flies. His companions turn their noses up at the offered meal, to which Dr. Jones simply says, “That’s more food than these people eat in a week. They're starving.” Then, without hesitation, he uses his fingers to scoop that food into his mouth without changing expression.

"I want to be that kind of man," I thought right then and there. And while I don’t brandish a whip when I travel the world and can’t quite pull off wearing a fedora, I have had the chance to eat quite a few really exotic — and mostly delectable — things in some far-flung places.

Wherever I go, I am amazed by the generosity of families who obviously don’t have much to spare, but still invite me into their homes to share whatever they can offer. Some of my most memorable meals have been spent sitting around a table with the courageous and hospitable people that Mercy Corps is helping.

And I always feel like they’re giving me much more than I’ve brought them.

One of the best lunches I’ve ever had in my life was at the rustic cottage of a 26-year-old dairy farmer named Stepan near the town of Brus, Serbia. Stepan and his wife laid a feast across a wooden table and invited me, my colleague Rados and several local dairy farmers to join in. Over the course of a couple hours, we talked, laughed and partook of local cheese, homemade bread with kajmak, pickles, eggs and chicken fried steak. Having been raised in the American Midwest, I know how to appreciate a good chicken fried steak — and I did, a couple helpings’ worth, in fact.

After we’d all finished eating, Stepan stepped into the kitchen and reemerged carrying a tray laden with three bottles of rakija – local plum brandy - and the tallest shot glasses I’ve ever seen. “Careful,” Rados whispered, “these guys drink like Russians.” So they did. We all did. And, besides this picture of Stepan, his father and two neighbors, I don’t have any evidence of the aftermath — just a great, if somewhat patchy, memory of a noontime meal spent around a rough-hewn table in rural Serbia.

A year and a half later, I enjoyed a somewhat less bountiful, yet lovingly prepared meal around a lot smaller table inside a tea plucker’s house in India’s Assam state. Our hostess, a kind and hard-working woman named Moni Das, brought us small plates that were adorned with dollops of colorful vegetables and sauces around a mound of rice. With the exception of the rice, all of the food she served us came from her own garden or the nearby forests. Though I didn’t know what most things on the plate were, her warm welcome and proud smile let us know that this was the very best she had to offer. And it was amazing.

Just a few months after that, I found myself in an environment that was the very opposite of Assam’s humid lowlands: Mongolia’s Gobi Desert. The food there was — in the spirit of Indiana Jones — an adventure.

I sampled airag, fermented horse milk, from tiny paper cups and ornate silver bowls. I ate buuz, mutton fat dumplings, at meals alongside just about every nomad family we visited. From strong yogurt to something called “black soup,” I was always prepared for whatever food Mongolia laid before me.

That is, until one day inside a nomad family’s ger — or portable home — in the countryside of Mongolia’s Arkhangai province. I was sitting with our translator, Bayar, when our hostess brought out a big plate of what I thought were cookies. I took a big bite — it was pungent and crumbly. It filled my mouth with a stinging sourness that didn’t taste at all like flour and sugar.

“Camel’s milk cheese,” Bayar said as he tried not to laugh, taking a bite of it, too. “I bet you didn’t expect that.”

The taste wouldn’t leave my mouth. Thankfully, a cup of hot tea had just been placed in front of me, so I took a swig. Unfortunately, the tea was thick, greasy and salty.

"Mutton fat tea," Bayar explained. "I'm not kidding."

And so, inside a ger in the Gobi Desert, I finally had my Indiana Jones moment, and I smiled.

As Thanksgiving Day approaches, I am thankful for all the generosity that I’ve been shown, from fried lake-caught fish in a Honduran village to a tiny cup of water in Congo’s displacement camps. I am thankful to all of the families who have invited me into their homes to share something meaningful and — usually — delicious.

And I thank Indiana Jones for getting me started on my way.

(Cover photo by Thatcher Cook. This story originally appeared on the Mercy Corps website: https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/thanks-indiana-jones.)