Life without a fridge

When I first moved to Mompiche, the tiny cabin I rented was pretty basic. It was a small 4m x 4m grass-roofed hut with a tiny balcony, and it had a bed in it. Soon after I moved in, I bought a new mattress to replace the lumpy old one. Then, I built a table on the balcony and put a stove on it. That became the kitchen. Many wonderful meals were cooked on that stove. Over the two years I lived in the “Love Shack” (named so by a previous resident), I grew fruit and vegetables in a garden I built at the side of the cabin, and set up a small covered dining area between my cabin and the next one. During the entire time, I didn’t own a fridge. It didn’t even occur to me to buy one.

Every day, I would go to the beach and get fresh fish for myself and my cat. Actually, the cat went and helped himself to fish sometimes, fleeing the scene with a disgruntled fisherman on his tail. Mascara always escaped with his fish. I’d bring fish home, clean it and cook it immediately. There were never any left overs because I only got what I needed for one meal and there was never a reason to store food. The fridge wasn’t necessary.

Fruit and vegetables were stored in baskets I made from a coconut palm leaf. Eggs were kept in there too. I didn’t need to buy a ton of food in advance while I was shopping daily, and I avoided buying food in packets, jars, or tins, except for things like lentils and quinoa. Everything I ate was natural and made from scratch.

After two years in the “Love Shack” I moved into my own house at the back of the village. At that point, it had no doors or windows, there was no kitchen or bathroom, and my bed was a mattress on the floor. Apart from being unaffordable on my extremely skinny budget, buying a fridge was definitely not on my list of priorities. I’d already learned how to live without one. I weaved a new set of baskets with palm leaves and that became the “fridge” at Secret Garden. While I camped out in my new home, building the kitchen and bathroom, planting the garden, having doors and windows built, the thought of buying a fridge never entered my mind. It didn’t even occur to me that my lifestyle might be odd until someone came to visit.

“Where’s the fridge?” she asked, holding two bottles of beer. Maybe if I drank beer, a fridge would have been higher up in the list of priorities. In the end, we borrowed a tiny space in a nearby friend’s fridge to store beer during her stay. Next time I was in town, I bought a large cooler. One large block of ice lasts for at least 24 hours. I rarely used the cooler myself, but always suggested that guests could buy their own ice (for $0.50) if they needed to keep things cool; it was mostly beer.

On 1 October 2018, I will have been living in my own home for seven years. There is still no fridge, nor even the thought of buying one. I don’t need it. The same—albeit slightly battered—cooler still sits in its spot between the living room and the kitchen. It gets moved downstairs for BBQs or parties. I still buy vegetables and harvest fresh fruit daily, making my meals from scratch, and visit the boats on the beach to get fish from the fishermen. Sadly, Mascara is gone, but now I have other cats who eat fresh fish every day.

Life without a fridge isn’t that complicated. In fact, it’s simpler. I wouldn’t have it any other way.