Schawarmas?

My heart swelled with excitement as I saw this word on the sign for Jack's Corner, along with "hommus," "chicken gyro," and "farafel." But I hadn't seen or thought about the word "schawarma" in a looong time. Back in Africa, at my boarding school (called ICA) our dorms would go on dorm outings once a trimester. We would load onto the school bus and ride into town to a nicer pool than we would usually go to on Saturdays.

We would bake in the sun for 3-4 hours while we slathered baby oil on our bodies and lemon juice or peroxide (not recommended) on our hair. Sometimes we would order a coke by the pool and the waiter would bring it with a wedge of lemon and a serving of peanuts. Some of you are saying, "That's the life!" Well, it gets better. At noon we would pile into the bus and drive to a restaurant or sometimes we would just walk out to the street and buy street-food. Some of these items included questionable cuts of meat fried and on sticks, fried plantains, fried sweet potatoes, roasted corn on the cob, bags of sugared peanuts or donuts. But one of our favorite places was the "Schawarma Shop." This was the name we gave it. You would walk up to a huge rotisserie of some kind of meat and they would cut off of it with a huge machete, place it in the wrap with sauteed onions and such. Yum! Yum! Yum! and with a cold bottle of Pepsi (Coke tasted better in Burkina Faso, but Pepsi tasted better in Cote d'Ivoire--don't ask me why...the only explanation for us was that the Coke factory in Burkina also made beer and they may not have thoroughly cleaned the vats?...hmmm...makes me wonder how thoroughly they cleaned the empty bottles we had to return to get more Coke...I'm still alive, I guess that's what counts!)

After lunch we would go back to the pool to bake ourselves some more. We would take naps by the pool, play Marco Polo and Keep Away, make up water ballet routines, have diving board competitions and sometimes we would even skate on the open cement floors near the hotel. And yes, I mean the big bad metal-wheeled-fit-over-your-shoe skates. Because we were so cool!!

So these are the memories that one word brought to my mind. May you never read this word the same way again. May you always think of me in Africa, in the hot, hot sun eating a schawarma and lovin' life!