What's for Dinner?

There were many questions that I was asked repeatedly before I moved to Africa: Will you be coming home? Where will you live? Do they have cable? By in large, the answers I gave to most of these questions were correct. However, I have been surprised by the answer to the question, “What will you eat in Africa?” My answer was, of course, rice and beans. (and yes, we do eat a LOT of rice and beans here. When we get tired of rice (mchala), we eat ugali. When we get tired of ugali, we eat rice, when we get tired… you get the picture.) But, two American girls and a Brit can’t live off rice and bens forever. We start to get cravings… and having cravings can be a bad thing when grocery shopping. (12 bars of chocolate and 4 boxes of biscuits later…) So, we’ve had to improvise and make the most of what Africa can offer.

Fish Heads: that’s right… I said fish heads. When you live next to an ocean, you eat fish. Lots of fish. And not fish that you buy at the store (just ask Lisa about the Prawns). But fish that people catch, lay out next to a busy street, and sell. And that’s how we buy it. You see the fish you like (ooh, weaver…a red snapper…very tasty!) then you tell the man how many pieces (Ninaomba samaki tano. Tafadhali.) and he hacks off some pieces of fish, wraps it in newspaper and hands it to you. We clean it, scale it, debone it, and cook it. (We like to squeeze fresh oranges over it that we buy at the stall next to the fish stall.) But, we don’t often eat the heads… there’s not much meat on them.

Mexican: One of the cravings that we all frequently get is for Mexican food. The only problem is, we live in Africa, where there is no Mexican food. So, when we get a craving for tacos, we have a couple of options:

1. Ignore the craving. (Rice and beans is kind of like Mexican food…)



2. Make tacos using chipotis. (Chipoti is an Indian flat bread that is SO GOOD, but very greasy and not really a whole lot like tortillas.



3. Leave Africa, fly to Mexico, get Mexican food, fly back. (Hmm.. will AIM let us make this a special project for supporters?)



4. Figure out how to make Tortillas.

We’ve tried #1. The cravings don’t really go away. We usually settle for #2 because our “mamas” (our houseworkers) are chipoti pros. But, it’s not really the same. And since #3 is not really a feasible option (we’re having enough trouble getting Tanzanian visas, let alone Mexican ones), one of the first “foreign foods” I learned how to make it Africa was tortillas. To welcome our new short term missionaries in August, we made them a Mexican feast, with tacos (wrapped in my hand-made tortillas), guacamole (avocados are EVERYWHERE here… in Kiswahili they’re called parachichi), rice (of course) and refried beans (red African beans, boiled until we could no longer stand the heat in the kitchen, then mashed with a potato masher.) It was great fun! (and once the tortillas were made, a little salt, a little lime, baked on a cookie sheet in the oven gave us a reasonable facsimile of a Tostito. Reasonable… but not quite close enough. Why couldn’t Lays ship to Tanzania?)

Dinner in Kenya: One of the "Celebration Meals" that some friends and I enjoyed eating in the States was "Dip-things-in-things" night. We made "things" (guacamole, bruschetta, hummos) and dipped "things" (tortilla chips, baguettes, pita bread) in it. We had a sleep over with some friends in Nairobi a couple of nights before we left Kenya, and we "dipped-things-in-things" Kenya-style!

Dinner at a pub across the “street” from us: Really good food… really LONG wait. And lots of Kiswahili practice. They laugh at us when we order Ugali… and they’re even more surprised when we eat it correctly! (Thanks, Deb Liston for the practice. The rest of the girls here have been grateful for lessons.)

Birthday Bash!

On August 27th, I had my first birthday in Africa. Thus began my last year of being in my 20's... and this was the first time in my life ever that I woke up and thought, "I wish it wasn't my birthday." I don't know if it's because my family was so far away, or if I feel like I'm getting old, but either way, I wished it wasn't my birthday.

The teacher's on the compound made it a much better day, though. They all wished me Happy Birthday before school, during school, after school. Then, they threw me a surprise dinner after school with balloons, streamers and LOTS of different types of ethnic foods: Pilau ya Cucu (a spicy chicken and rice African dish), guacamole (a staple at most of our meals) and Texas Sheet Cake (chocolate cake made with coffee). Then, two of the UK girls wrote me a Happy Birthday, Kate song where they found all he words that rhymed with Kate, then spent some time teaching me the correct pronounciation of my "English" words.

That weekend, most of us went to a nearby Beach where we read under umbrellas, played in the water, and walked along the sand. (Most of us got very crispy as well).

Our view of the Indian Ocean. (The island where I learned to snorkel is in the background.)

Helen (one of the new "English" English teachers) and I. We have lots of fun together because we have the same sense of humor, and we share a similar taste in music, movies, etc. (The American's like to accuse me of being a semi-traitor.)

That night, we went out for Ethopian food... authentic Ethopian food. No silverware, family-style, you-can-even-eat-the-plate Ethopian food. The servers sang me a song, made us al hold burning sticks and gave me a free tee-shirt.

One of my housemates and I. This is what the tables looked like...

where they set the BIG plates of food right in the middle of it. (The white stuff is a slightly fermented bread that you use as a "spoon.")

They all made it worth turning 29.

Pineapple and Power Outages

Here in Dar, the electricity is… less than reliable. (To my friends in Zanzibar and the Chalbi Desert, I’m not complaining. I’m just learning a new phrase… add “Africa always Wins” to the “TIA” slogan bin.)



We’ll be at school, and the power will just go off for no reason. (My students in the States used to scream and say, “Yeah, no more school.” But then the power would always come back on.) Here, nobody even skips a beat. The power goes out and you pull your book a little closer to your face, your chair a little closer to the window, and move the now useless PowerPoint projector out of the way.


When the electricity goes off at school, we can count on the fact that the electric will be out on the teacher compound across the street as well. Two days ago, we got home and half of our house had gone out, including my bedroom, the stove and the refrigerator. (We had chocolate for dinner that night… Cadbury and Nutella.) Yesterday, the power was off while we were at school, so we went shopping for fruits and veggies to eat for dinner that required no cooking. By the time team and teacher swim was over, our power was back on. So, we decided to make a semi-Hawaiian-pineapple-tomato-casserole-thing. We had a Cassava root (a tuber that is popular in cooking here because it’s big and starchy, which my housemates thought was a sweet potato when they bought it) that we sliced, fried and layered in the bottom of a cake pan. Then, we sliced fresh pineapple on top, added sliced tomato, gouda cheese and fresh ginger, cinnamon and garlic. (a lot of this was done by candlelight because the power was on, off, on, off… and off again.) The power came back on as we finished, so we put it in the oven and waited… and waited… and waited. Finally, we said, “Okay it should only take a couple of more minutes.” Off again. “Okay… I guess we’re eating it now.” In the middle of dinner, some of the other teachers stumbled their way to our house, using candles and flashlights (torches) and joined our “romantic dinner for two.” On again. Just in time for us to realize that we had burned the plantains because the oven had held the heat.


After dinner, we all headed for bed. As I was getting in the shower, the power went off again. Clare starts screaming, “Help! I’m on the landing! I can’t see anything!” “Umm… I can’t come… I’m, uhh, in the bathroom,” I responded. Clare, being the helpful, caring roommate that she is, said “Okay, hold on.” She groped her way down the stairs to the kitchen and our Emergency candles. I can’t hear much, so I’m stumbling around my own room looking for my lighter to light my emergency candles when I see a strange glow coming from the hallway. It’s Clare, who has gone downstairs and is bringing me an emergency candle! I start screaming, “Stop! Stop!” She thinks something is wrong, so she starts walking faster, “Kate? Are you okay? I’m almost there!” I’m finally panicked enough to scream, “No! Stop! I don’t have any clothes on!!!” After a long pause, in which I’m trying to figure out how to hide behind a mosquito net then giving up once I realize that this is a lost cause, Clare starts giggling. “What?” she exclaims in her ever proper English accent. “I was changing out of my swimsuit when the power went out and I couldn’t see anything to put on.” At this point, we’re both laughing hysterically.


Suddenly, Clare’s phone chirps… it’s one of our teacher neighbors with a text: “I can hear you guys giggling. What’s so funny?”

A Hard Day at School

Last Thursday I cried at school. In the prep room, while my students waited patiently for me in the lab next door, I buried my face in my hands, let the sorrow seep into my heart and gave into anger, fear and frustration. Last year, I was a good teacher. Last year, I knew what I was doing because I had written most of the curriculums. Last year, I was able to make copies when I needed, print when I needed, and I could leave the office and walk back to class without getting rained on. I cried out to God in desperation,” Why did you bring me here? I hate Africa! Why couldn’t I have stayed in Columbus where I knew everything and teaching was easy and I was the best teacher that everybody loved? Why am I here? It’s too hard!” I eventually composed myself, and made it back into the classroom, where I set a bunch of stuff on fire. (Nothing like Chemistry demonstrations to relieve frustrations.)

As I was sitting here this clear, Friday night, relaxing and reading, I had my iTunes playing (Snow Patrol to set the mellow, contemplative mood). When my screen saver came on, it displayed the Family pictures from our most recent Myrtle Beach trip. All the typical pictures were there: sun-burned faces pressed together for close-ups, pairs of hands clasped tightly while feet strolled the boardwalk, and the blurred night time shots from the traditional putt-putt adventure. As the pictures passed in a random pattern, I noticed that in all the pictures I had of Matt and Hannah, she is pressed up under his arm. Her small body is tucked neatly into her father’s embrace, protected and encircled. These weren’t special, posed pictures; it’s just how they sit together. She crawls up on the couch and settles next to him, and he instinctively drops his arm behind her back and encloses her in a secure space.

As I watched these pictures pass, God pressed upon my heart his embrace encircling me. He has brought me here, but he has not left me. His arm is still protectively around me, and he has enclosed me in a secure space. He will guard me, protect me and love me. I turned the music off, went upstairs to the roof and stood… beneath the dark sky, filled with distant lights of planets and solar systems that I will never know or see. But God does. He knows them all, and he keeps me close to his heart, encircled and secure.

Now I am crying for a very different reason.