This week…

This week I have:

a)    Been giddy with excitement after buying a butternut squash at the market!

This veg haul cost me just under one pound. The salad leaves and squash were both novelty purchases which made me very happy. The bananas came free; the veg seller is my regular guy (or kiliyarn in wolof) and he usually throws in bananas, avocados, mangoes or oranges depending on what he feels like that day.

b)    Moved away from cooking pasta or rice with tomato, onion and garlic sauce (because all I can reliably buy at the market is tomatoes, onions and garlic) and have branched out into a more exciting world of sweet potato chips, lentil and butternut squash stews, and beans with rice.

This meal might look a bit odd, but was very tasty and I was proud of my creativity with an ingredients list of sardines, tomatoes, onions, garlic, sweet potato and salad items. The added challenges were the light* going off about three minutes after I started cooking, and melting my plastic cooking spork (sorry Jaime) because I don’t have a wooden spoon yet!

I have had to develop a whole new repertoire of dishes now that I am limited by what I can find that day/week in the market, and can only cook on a two hob gas cooker.   

c)    Learned that you shouldn’t attempt to cook beans in the middle of the day when it is about 38 degrees outside. The result (other than tasty beans) is that you turn bright red and sweat buckets!

Note this is not my kitchen. My kitchen is not as fancy as this!

d)    Been cut off from Nawec (the electricity suppliers) because the previous occupier’s bills had not been paid.

e)    Played cards by candle light (see above!)

f)     Played yahtzee on the beach. Ok so this might have been last week but I don’t think I mentioned it before! I know it looks like I am on a permanent holiday but I have honestly been going to work every day as well!

Seth, Helen, John and Graeme enjoying the sea breeze at Leybato

Tara and I playing yahtzee

g)    Been bitten by killer mosquitos. I won’t post pics, they ain’t pretty!

h)    Been invited to sit on the interview panel for the new VSO office project manager, and to organise a monitoring and evaluation workshop for the World Bank project that we (myself, eight other vols, and seven partner organisations) are working on.

i)      Discovered that my resident three legged lizard is still alive and well (I was worried I had poisoned it when killing the cockroaches).

*I have found that all electricity seems to be referred to as ‘light’.