Kenya

Food, Kenya, Miscellaneous

I have enjoyed cooking before so this should come as no surprise, but lately I have been breaking new ground in the kitchen! Yesterday, for the first time ever, I walked into a butchery in Tala market and ordered one quarter of a kilogram of beef. I wanted to cook pilau (a spiced rice dish, usually with beef) but I didn’t know where to start. The mamas in the market were happy to share their recipes, so I collected several opinions and went home to give it a try. Result: success! I had some problems cutting the meat, I never noticed how dull my knife is because all I ever chop is veggies!

I’ve also been cooking some pretty awesome fried rice. Lots of vegetables and spices; it’s pretty tasty. I only learned how to make non-mushy rice in the last few months, so that’s helped my fried rice dish immensely. So you can see savory dishes are covered, but I’ve also made a foray into sweet.
Continue Reading

Food, Kenya, Miscellaneous

I’ve been thinking about this for a while: my Spanish is gradually being replaced by Swahili. That’s pretty sad when you consider that I studied Spanish for five years in school, not to mention living in San Diego and traveling all over Mexico every year for most of my childhood. Not that I need or use Spanish here in Kenya, but I like to test myself every once in awhile. On a semi-related note, I did eat some beef tacos last week at a funny restaurant in Nairobi called “Taco Club.” My buddy ordered chicken fajitas. The salsa was fresca and the guacamole was delicious, but the rice was more like turmeric rice (Indian…?).

I think I know more Swahili than Spanish now. Maybe I’ll go walk around Mexico for a few weeks when I get back from Kenya in 2009 to refresh my skills. Any takers?

Kwaheri! Or, uh… Adios!

Kenya, Miscellaneous

I think it’s pretty funny that the last three times I’ve paid my electricity bill there’s been no power in Tala.  Ironically it’s on days like that when I find the time to ride my bike into town and pay my bill.  Funny, eh?  We have pretty reliable power in Tala, but lately it’s been terrible.  Last week it was down for two days when someone stole a transformer (I guess they can get rich off the stuff inside), and this week it was down for another two days (around 36 hours) because someone apparently stole some power line poles.  Maybe they wanted the wood?  Who knows.

Yesterday I had no classes to teach, and there was no power so I couldn’t do any work on the computer systems.  This turned into the most boring day I’ve had in Kenya so far.  My laptop had no battery.  My iPod had no battery.  I read about 100 pages of the book Kristi sent me, It’s Not News, it’s FARK, so I was pretty sick of reading by the time dinner rolled around.  I was so bored that I started on dinner early, chopping the onions, garlic, pepper, sukuma wiki, cabbage, and tomatoes pole pole (slowly slowly).  I ate dinner by candle light, and listened to the Qur’an recitation on the local Islamic radio station.  I didn’t even drink any tea to pass the time because I felt guilty about the six cups I drank during the day.  I finally went to sleep around 8:30 or 9.  I think the power came back around 4 am.

Anyways, welcome to Africa!  Adios!