When Caymanian student Sanaa Archer was having a bout of homesickness last year, her mom decided to send a care package to lift her spirits.
What the 20-year-old did not know was she was getting her favourite home-cooked meal of Cayman-style beef with rice and beans.
It was just the cure for her homesickness.
“I had mainly just asked for candy. I didn’t know I was going to get real food, which was a very pleasant surprise, because I don’t enjoy the food here very much. I was happy to have some food from home,” Archer told the Cayman Compass via Zoom as she recounted opening her package to find her mom’s containers filled with her favourite dishes.
The meal was delivered to the UK using a prototype of the Cayman Island Postal Service’s soon-to-be-launched ‘Cool Box’, a flat-rate shipping box that can be used to send frozen items internationally.
Deputy Postmaster General Melissa Martinez-Ebanks, speaking with the Compass recently, said the Cool Box is one of 10 new products the Postal Service is looking to launch in the coming weeks. It is not intended for retailers, she said, but for those who want to have a taste of Cayman sent to them.
“As a parent of three who are now overseas, that for me is exciting because it’s an opportunity to send them our Sunday dinner… something that reminds them that we’re still here for them and we have their back,” she said.
A piece of home
Archer’s mom Tammy said joining the trial run was by happenstance. She said it came up when she was chatting with the team at the Postal Service.
It was operations manager Lloyd McField who suggested she try the new Cool Box to send her daughter a Sunday dinner. He also added some frozen beef patties to her haul for good measure.
“I was a little sceptical, but then I said, ‘Oh well, you know, it’d be a nice surprise for her.’… I did Cayman-style beef, and rice and beans… I tried to do things that would last a little bit longer,” she said, adding that she froze the meal and shipped it off on a Monday.
By Friday, she said, it was at Sanaa’s door.
“She had dinner that night. She had lunch and dinner the next day,” the excited mom said.
For Archer, being able to enjoy her mom’s cooking in her London apartment was as comforting as a hug.
“I was very happy to have it. I had been homesick for a couple of weeks so it was nice to know that my mother was thinking of me and had sent this stuff for me,” she said.
She said the patties were still frozen, but the rice and beans and the Cayman-style beef had slightly thawed.
“But it was still cold enough that I wasn’t really worried that anything was wrong with it. Then I just put it in the microwave and I figured that would kill anything. I wasn’t really that concerned after that,” Archer said, laughing.
As for the taste, her mom’s cooking hit the spot.
“I shared the candy with [my friends]. But the cooked food was mine,” she said.
Related Videos
