FOOD
Quite a quiet week actually so edited highlights only. Been a good week for food – am getting the hang of how to prepare food during the day so as to have time to cook before dark falls. Some really nice stir-frys (tonight was half a cabbage, six small carrots, six small onions, coriander, cumin, chilli, garlic (4 cloves), soy sauce and some garlic & chilli sauce. With rice. I had cooked the rice at breakfast, chopped all the vegetables at lunchtime. Enock and I now go for a beer after work each day so I usually get home around 1810 and the sun sets around 1830 and stir-frying in the dark is NOT fun. Of course, this means stir-fried cabbage for breakfast but I usually end up having for breakfast what I had for dinner the previous night! And thanks again to all of you who sent me the Cup-A-Soups – a real lifesaver those!!
FOOD MANAGEMENT & SHOPPING
However, managing the purchasing of food is a tricky business. If I or Alexandré buy a load of stuff on Wednesday, I am usually off for the weekend and there is no time to eat it all (one reason why I crammed so much into today’s stir-fry – I’m off to Butare tomorrow for the weekend). Tomatoes go off really fast and I suspect we are getting to the end of the season as they are pretty much all a bit soft and malevolent-looking.
I do need to stock up on stuff in Butare, as well as get to the bank and cash that cheque the District gave me a week ago. Saturday is umuganda (communal labour) day so the banks will be closed which means an almighty scrum tomorrow. I was also supposed to go to the immigration bureau in Butare in the morning but we have a meeting with the mayor and the directors of all the new secondary schools that have just been set up so I can’t miss that. I need to buy:
Washing powder
Candles
Margarine
Matches
Waragi (Mango flavour if possible)
Toothpaste
Fruit juice (my consumption of liquids has nosedived since I ran out of tree tomato juice to mix with my water)
Bread
Mayonnaise (I’ll risk it, a small jar so with any luck it won’t go off before I finish it)
Cooking oil (peanut)
Cheese (Laughing Cow triangles)
and goodness knows what else I’ll think of while I am there.
BEER FAUX PAS
Oh-oh! Seemed to have committed a number of faux pas this week. One was to buy bread and then walk home with it in my hand – I think you are supposed to keep food in a bag and not display it publicly. I only realised when I got home and found the bread was mouldy. Enock was with me and I picked it up and said I would call into the shop on our way to the bar. He looked at me in ill-disguised horror and said: ‘You ARE going to put it in a bag, aren’t you?’ (This also accounts for the cries of umugati ! (bread!) that followed me home.
Worse was when we went to the depot to get beer. I bought a crate of beer last week and Alexandré brought back the empties on Wednesday. I had left him money to get replacements but he came back without and I presumed it was because there was none in stock. So Enock and I called in today and boy! Did I get a frosty reception! Apparently you are supposed to return the crate within two days and the woman who runs the depot got bawled out by the brewery people for being one crate short. Anyway she wouldn’t sell me any beer and returned my deposit for the crate. Enock says I can still buy beer 12 bottles at a time but I will have to have my own container. I will also have to have 12 empties, even to start with!! I pointed out that there has to be a first time for anyone buying beer but Enock says that’s the way it works. He has six empties to get me started – I wonder where you go to buy EMPTY bottles of beer?
KINYARWANDA CLASSES
Hey hey! Finally getting started on Monday – have acquired a good vocabulary but actually putting sentences together is another matter. It was kind of nice the other day in class – we were doing vocabulary for food and drink in English and I knew all the Kinyarwandan words whenever they got stuck (except ‘plantain’ – that one slipped away – and obvious ones like ‘pizza’ and ‘pasta’ which don’t exist here, or at least not in Kinyarwandan.
ENGLISH CLASSES
These are going OK but it is maddening how irregular the attendance is. Eugene, the Executive Secretary, turned up unexpectedly for class on Wednesday and everyone flew in the door in a panic and I ran out of notes because there is usually only half that number there. We have covered Present Simple and the misnamed Present Continuous and Future and are now venturing into the shark-infested waters of the Past Simple. When we had finished the food and drink vocabulary, I gave them a word search to do. It still amazes me how incredibly excited they get over anything like that – their eyes lit up when they saw what I had and I had to physically chase them out of the room after the class so they didn’t miss their bus. I spent a chunk of today making crosswords, more word searches and anagrams (though they don’t like them so much – too much hard work). They also have a test next Thursday so I need to get the Past Simple finished, revise possessive pronouns and do the vocabulary for family and relatives before then. (Alfred: want to hear a good one? He actually fell for the ‘Teacher, your watch is running slow’ line and let everyone out miles early!!)
WEEKEND PLANS
Off to Butare Friday – it was Tina Payne’s birthday Wednesday (Tina was originally here with me in Gisagara) so we hope to meet up for a drink Friday or Saturday. I am still supposed to be having dinner with François and his wife on Friday but no definite arrangements have been made yet so goodness knows what is going to happen. Also hope to see Tiga and Jane and Andy at some stage – God, it’s getting busy around here! Maybe I should just get a puppy as well and top it all off . God – they were gorgeous and adorable! (Alfred: even my curmudgeonly heart has to agree on that one).
HEALTH WARNING: ALFRED
A number of friends have emailed me to express concern about the role Alfred is playing in my life. I have reassured them that all is under control and suggestions re counselling etc are appreciated but not necessary. I am not undergoing some form of split personality disorder, it’s all just a bit of fun!! (Alfred: Ha ha, that’s what HE thinks! I’ve set up my own email account – you can write to me at alfredinrwanda@gmail.com and get the truth straight from the teddy-bear’s mouth!)
Oh-oh!
1 comment:
Split personality with a teddy bear.... now there's a challenge ... I'd worry more about those suggesting such... you know what they say... it takes one to know one.
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