Tacos in Swaziland - Cultural encounter series (4 of 10)

Treasure, Anne, an Mlingisi eating their first taco.

There are no tacos in Swaziland. There are no Taco Bells, Taco Buenos, Taco Cabanas, or for that matter any taquerias, taco stands, taco trucks or taco shacks named Taco Something.

There is a place downtown named Pablos with a desert cactus on the sign, but they serve burgers.

Well, I recently found taco shells at the local grocery store. I do not know if there was a supply chain routing error or if I just got lucky, but there they were. I believed they were "El Paso" brand.

I made that tacos that night for dinner, so many in fact that I had seven extra, which I brought to work the following day. I sat down in the kitchen to enjoy one, and handed out the others to the next six Swazi colleagues that happened to drop by the kitchen.

None of them had ever heard of a taco or seen anything like it.

Here were some of their comments:
"Oooh. It is sooo nice."
"So, doc, is this really what they eat in Texas?"
"What is it again? A teekos?"
"How do I do it? Do I hold it like this?"
"You really have to share the recipe."
"I like Mex-Tex. I must visit some time."
"Oh! It tastes just like Doritos."