Sunday 22 March 2015

Food for thought


 This blogpost is some random thoughts loosely related to food.

The Universe is smiling today – just as I poured my coffee and sat down to eat the banana and passionfruit pikelets I’d made before having my (hot) shower, the power went off. If it had gone off half an hour earlier I would not be smiling!

I love cooking.  Here in Arusha currently that’s quite a challenge. The power is off for at least a part of every day and I have electricity as my only option for cooking – conventional stove and microwave – and hot water. I cook when I have power but occasionally I’m left with half a batch of pikelet batter (banana & passionfruit, peanut butter & raisin, mango. …) or a cake a bit fudgy from finishing its cooking in a rapidly cooling oven.  Last Thursday evening I had bananas that needed to be used or pitched so I risked fate and made a banana cake. Topped with passionfruit icing it went down well with all the staff at morning tea-time on Friday. It’s good to finish a long week with a positive experience.

Maasai don't just eat meat

Living on my own simplifies the electricity / cooking issue. If I have electricity when I arrive home from work I prepare dinner straight away and eat early. If there is no power and it’s still off at 7 o’clock I have a cheese sandwich, making sure I’m quick opening and shutting the fridge, and go to bed with my Kindle. If I’ve had dinner and then the power goes off I watch ‘television’ by candlelight on my MacBook.  I leave everything plugged in and ready for when the power comes back so computer, modem and kindle are all fully charged.  Luckily I don’t have the problem of power surges here that were such a problem in Bukoba.  Last Sunday I woke to no power – so a cold shower and down to “Complex”, the local shopping centre that has generators, for coffee. Mornings when the water is also off are a greater problem – luckily a much rarer event. When you live on your own you have the freedom to choose if, when and what to eat – not so simple if you have a family who need proper sustenance at regular and predictable intervals. Also the unreliability of the power and having Complex close means I can pick up a takeaway curry and naan bread on the way home from work “just in case” and eat it as soon as I’m in the door or punt on the power staying on and reheat it for later. Then my only problem is doing the dishes – can’t boil the jug for hot water – if the power goes out, so really “hamna shida”.




The new ‘vertical garden’ at work has also had “food” issues. We planted the first seeds just over a week ago. As a lesson in biology it has been a success but not otherwise.  We mixed builders soil with chicken manure and leaves to make what we hoped would be “good soil”. We put it in the gutters, sowed some lettuce seed and watered well. Two days later we had a crop of an unexpected kind. Centimetre long, grey wriggling larvae by the thousands covered the top of the soil.

Wadudu

Steve suspects they may be beetle larvae.  The mlinzi (guard) called them wadudu, which is a general term for insects, and said they would have eaten the seeds we sowed. It’s true that we’ve had zero germination but the seed did have a use-by of 2012 so that’s not conclusive.  The mlinzi also suggested wood ash mixed in the soil would kill the wadudu so we’ll try that next with fresher seed. We haven’t watered the soil since the larvae plague so now we have hordes of ants in the gutters carting away dead larvae.  It has all been quite entertaining but we won't have lettuce to eat anytime soon!


I’m counting down now until I leave – 4 fortnights to go!  I have two weeks until the Easter break – then 4 nights at the base of Mt Kilimanjaro. Two more weeks then until the term break followed by two weeks with my sister and cousin in the closest National Parks.  After that there are two weeks back at work before I fly to Namibia for a few weeks holiday with Steve.  It’s all gone so quickly! Watch for a further report soon.

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