Growing up in Pakistan, a favorite food was the local flatbread called chapati. Cooked on a griddle, it is a staple eaten with curries. The American in me liked to eat them on their own, slathered with peanut butter and jelly! To this day, I love a good chapati (and its sister foods, paratha and naan).
Fortunately, chapati is a common food in Kenya, thanks to the influence of immigrant communities from South Asia and the Arab Gulf states. While I’m in Kenya I’m taking every opportunity I can find to have a fresh chapati.
Yesterday, while relaxing on the gorgeous beach in the coastal city of Diani, my niece (who owns a house down the road from our hotel) mentioned that there was a restaurant a short walk down the beach that made great chapatis. “Let’s go!,” I said.
What happened next was one of those classic cross-cultural communication events that so often go awry. That noise you hear is the sound of cultures clashing!
We walked to the counter and engaged a waiter. The conversation proceeds as follows:
Niece: We would like to order 4 chapatis. Takeaway.
Waiter: Ok. (the waiter then walked over to the kitchen)
Waiter (upon returning): I’m sorry, but we cannot sell chapati by itself. You must order a main dish.
Niece: Why?
Waiter: The chapati is only an accompaniment with a main dish.
Niece: How can that be? It is listed on the menu as a side, something that can be purchased separately. And I’ve ordered it that way in the past.
Waiter: I’m sorry. The chef says it has to be ordered with a main dish. Why don’t you just order a main dish?
(Note: At this point, my cross-cultural antennae are springing to life and I remember that in situations like this, there is usually something else that’s really going on. Are they out of flour? Is the chef in a bad mood and just doesn’t want to go through the hassle of making 4 chapatis? Is there a designated chapati maker who has not shown up for work? The possibilities are endless, but there’s no way that the stated reason is the actual reason.)
Niece: I don’t want to order a main dish. I want to order 4 chapatis.
Waiter: I’m sorry. That’s not possible. Please order a main dish. (To be honest, at this point, he just wanted us to go away!
Niece: Ok. I’ll order a plate of beans in coconut sauce. (the cheapest main dish on the menu)
The waiter, his face crestfallen as he fears the beans are not going to pass muster with the chef as a main dish, trudges back to the kitchen. He returns 5 minutes later.
Waiter: I’m sorry, but the chef says that they are out of beans. Maybe you can order something else.
Niece: But I don’t want more than beans. I don’t even want any beans. I just want 4 chapatis. This shouldn’t be so difficult. Please go back and ask the chef again.
The waiter, a pleasant fellow, is clearly unhappy that he now finds himself in the position of chief mediator between the Swahili-speaking mzungu (slang for white foreigner) and the probably increasingly surly chef. But it is now his lot in life so off he goes, returning 5 minutes later.
Fearing that the chef might agree but then slow-walk making them, leaving us sitting under the tree in the sand for the rest of the day, we decided to abandon our attempts to get 4 chapatis and free the poor waiter from his burden. This was not an easy decision, mind you, because we really wanted chapatis and others were counting on us to bring them back as well.
My niece went over to the waiter and got in the final word:
Niece: We have become tired of all of these stories. We will now leave.
What a great Swahili phrase: “We have become tired of all these stories.”
Need I say that the waiter was thrilled to see the back of us?
Defeated and still hungry, we walked back to where the others were. We could see the disappointment on their faces. We had gone forth for chapatis but had returned empty-handed.
My niece, who has lived here for 12+ years, was as baffled as I was by what had just happened. To our American brains, nothing about this made sense. We had cold hard cash we were willing to give them in exchange for chapatis. They weren’t interested. Well, at least the chef wasn’t. Maybe if a business manager had gotten involved……
As disappointed as I was, it was fun to see my niece, who was 8 months old when I went to China for the first time, navigate the joys and frustrations of cross-cultural living like a pro!
“This is Diani!,” she said.
And since we will be here for another 3 days I’m sure I will have another opportunity to find a chapati!
Bonus: a few pictures of the beach.
Update: The day after I wrote this post, we ordered local food for takeaway. Of course, we had to order coconut beans and chapati. Success after all.
Love the negotiations! I can picture the same conversations happening in Karachi in the old days. Hope you eventually get some chapatis and find out the real story. I guess every country has their soup Nazi. Or chapati Nazi! 😂
Have fun!!
Reminds me of a time my brother and I were at a Dairy Queen. My brother wanted a chocolate sunday. He asked for peanuts on top. The young kid said, “the chocolate sunday” doesn’t come with peanuts. My brother asked if they had peanuts. Of course we have peanuts, but “peanuts don’t come on top of a chocolate sunday”……… this went back and forth with the willingness to pay for a few peanuts, but we all now knew that “the chocolate sunday doesn’t come with peanuts on top”………
When I was studying for my finance degree we were told of the “Pickle Principle”
The Story Behind the Pickle Principle
In the 1970s, Bob Farrell, founder of the Portland, Oregon-based Farrell’s Ice Cream Parlour and Restaurant, received a letter from an upset customer. The customer had been going to his restaurant once or twice a week for three years and always asked for an extra pickle slice with every meal. Then one day, a new waitress refused to give him the pickle without paying for it. When even the manager sided with the waitress, the unhappy customer left the restaurant and wrote a letter to Mr. Farrell.
Mr. Farrell would later thank this man for sending the letter. Soon “Give ‘em the Pickle” became the rallying cry for his company. It was all about doing that little something extra to make the customer happy.
Mr. Farrell would go on to become a motivational speaker, sharing his pickle philosophy with audiences throughout the nation. Catseye Pest Control is only one of many companies who have adopted the Pickle Principle.
I smell opportunity – If a chinese entrepreneur rolls in to Diani they’ll be made fresh on a cart and the hook will be tossing them to customers like a frisbee. Like those throwed rolls in Sikeston. There’s a fun outfit here that serves pancakes that way at special events. Business name: “Chipati à la Carte “ Maybe the girls should set up a cart on the beach! That would be some good walking-around money for them! Success is the best comeback!
Hey Joann,
Not to be a stickler or anything, but “muzungu” is not slang. It’s the Kiswahili word for a white person. There is not another word. There are different words for different nationalities though.
“Mzungu” originates from the word zunguka which means to spin around in the same spot or go in circles, then it was applied to people by adding the m at the beginning (which indicates a person in swahili) and shortened. When the white explorers showed up the locals saw them wandering around. Over time it came to be the word that refers to white people even though that is not its denotative meaning.