I begin the story by expressing how depressing it was to witness Mama Bertha gathering dry Kesambi [1] wood along the rocky coast, boiling cassava leaves with noodles, and frying floured eggplant for her three kids: Ben, Andreas, and Charles, her husband, Stevanus, and a sudden visitor (read: a stranger)—who else but me. She expressed how difficult it has become nowadays as the prices of rice and flour increase and gas becomes scarce. Prior to the 1990s, Mama Bertha explained that sobol [2] , rebok [3] , and lama [4] were the main foods before the introduction of rice as the staple diet. Nowadays, those foods are considered the lowest level in the food chain and are scarce in the neighbourhood, as most locals plant rice instead of tubers, cassavas, and potatoes. Ironically, this dependency on rice has caused troubles, as the local rice stock is deficient by 125,390 tonnes (BPS, 2023) , only capable of feeding 23% of the total East Nusa Tenggara (NTT)’s inhabitants (Herin, 2024) . “W...