Monday, February 9, 2009

Four days later and I am still eating rice...

You know how at Christmas you cook a really big turkey and it feels like the feeding of the five thousand when the food was way more than enough. And you are left eating turkey sandwiches, turkey pot pie, turkey soup and eventually club house sandwiches just to put some other flavour with the turkey. Well just to let you know you are only able to do so much with rice. One day white rice, then fried rice with egg, then fried rice with beef and vegetables. I know it seems like a lot of different options but the main ingredient is still rice. Oh and did you know if you marinate your tough meat in beer and soya sauce it turns out the meat is still tough and now tastes like beer. Plus for those beer lovers out there who think mmmmm beer, mmmm beef word to the wise that beer tasting beef is not a good as it sounds. So if anyone out there knows a good recipe for marinate or a special way to cook REALLY tough beef to make it chewable please email me or put it in the comment section of the blog. I could use all the ideas and help that I can get.

If you have ever traveled you know that just like back home there are thieves, pick pockets, con artists that try to sell you things like dancing dolls (right Rajpal) and other things that normal people may find rude or mean or I don’t know illegal. Well it is worse in developing countries or other places where people can see you are obviously not from around there. Well here is no different. So here you mix the awe and wonder of Africa with the need to carry a backpack and you have a horrible combination. I remember the first time my dad came to see me in Africa. I did not let him carry money or leave my side for the first two weeks here especially after he wanted to but a litre and a half of cold water for $16 USD. Granted he had not gotten used to the exchange yet. Well yesterday we were in Moshi so I could sing for a friend of mine at her AGM for the organization she runs and we were waiting at the bus stop to catch the daladala home. This group of white people got on the bus and we were just standing outside beside it. This one girl from the group sat down with her back to me and her backpack sticking out of the window totally unaware of any danger. I thought to myself that is really not smart someone could just come along and stick their hand in and steal whatever they could get. No sooner than I had finished my thought a man walked up and stopped between me and the girls back pack. He made a reach for the pocket and I lunged forward grabbing him by the shoulder, jerking him away I yelled, “STOP, get out of here!” He was so shocked he ran away, one guy laughed I think they were working together, I scolded the girl encouraging her to take better care and my fiancĂ© sent a text message totally oblivious to my heroics. Ah another day in paradise.

I baked a mango pie by the way. It was delicious. I got the recipe from Kerry and I thought it has to be easy enough to make mango pie from scratch. Till I realised I had no pie plate and no rolling pin. Pie tin not such an easy fix. Rolling pin no problem I just used the beer bottle from my earlier experiment with the beef. In the end a wonderful mango pie, totally not shaped like a pie at all came out of my oven. Next I will bake banana bread which I believe turns out more like banana cake. But that’s okay I don’t have a pan for baking bread anyway. But I definitely do not have a shortage of bananas.

Well that is all for now. I am going to try to put some pictures on tomorrow so you can all see what I see every day. Tuesday Bariki and I leave for a Pre-marital counselling retreat for three days. Please pray for that. Oh and can you also pray for my family one of my aunts is very sick and they do not know how long she has. They think only 2 months or so. She was diagnosed with cancer a couple weeks ago. Thank you for your love and support. I hope to hear from you all soon.

No comments:

Post a Comment