More firsts!

The weekend before last, 10^th – 11^th  November, I felt I was seeing and experiencing lots more new things in Malawi. The truth is I see new things every single day. I never cease to be amazed.

1. No carrier bags in the supermarket, thankfully I hadn’t bought too much and was able to take the trolley to the car to load up my shopping. I’ve not seen any recycling initiatives since I been here although colleagues tell me there is some newspaper recycling. Some of the shops sell bags similar to the Bags for Life ideas in UK supermarkets although I’ve seen very few people using them. I have one and now need to invest in a couple more so that I’m ready for the next time there are no carrier bags. I’m pretty sure there will be a next time!
   
   
2. A deaf teenager wearing a hearing aid and a tee shirt from International Week of the Deaf. From my time with the National Deaf Children’sSociety, I know that being disabled in a developing country often means you are stigmatised and have very very limited access to support that we take for granted in the UK. I was delighted for the teenager that he had a hearing aid and had also been part of a worldwide event.
   
   
3. Believe it or not I was up early on the Sunday and went, for the first time, to St Peter’s, my local Anglican church. The service started at 7.30am, according to the notice board. I arrived early (unusually for me!). More details about the whole service in another post! This was my first experience of a bilingual church service. Thankfully, the prayer book had Chichewa on one page and English  on the facing page so I was able to follow the service. Where the Chichewa wasn’t too complicated to pronounce, I was even able to join in! My knowledge of Chichewa increased from zikomo (thank you) to include Ambuye, mutichitire chifundo (Lord have mercy). A great way to start the day.  If you want to learn prayers in Chichewa have a look here. Be warned, lots of the words have lots of constants (eat your heart out Carol Vorderman!)  
   
   I’d not expected any reference to Remembrance Day and there wasn’t but the service did end with the hymn “O God our help in ages past” so I felt I’d been part of the service of Remembrance despite being 4,948 miles away (yes I checked the distance on this website!)
   
   
4. Last Sunday (18^th) as I drove back from a colleague’s house I had to take a second look when I saw a man pushing a baby in a buggy. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’ve not seen a single buggy since I've been here, not even one  being used by Europeans. 

Is it a coincidence?

Last weekend, I tried Lesley’s recipe and thoroughly enjoyed the beanfeast. I’ll post all the details in the Challenge section. Hope some of you also tried the menu. A colleague came for dinner to act as my guinea pig and, I am relieved to say, she lived to tell the tale!

While I was in cooking mode I also tried a Trotter’s jelly. The recipe also includes condensed milk to make it more like a mousse. Thankfully, my colleague was too full to try the pudding. Let’s just say I tried it on Monday evening and on Tuesday and Wednesday was trotting to the bathroom! The hint was obviously in the name (yes – you can laugh although I wasn’t at the time!)

What makes me laugh?

It’s been a long, hard week and it’s not over yet so my apologies for no posts this week. I still have lots to write and every day I see, hear or experience so many new things. I’m getting braver in what I do and where I go. The temperature continues to increase. It was 30^o when I woke up this morning (17^th Nov) so who knows how hot it will be by lunchtime.

So … what makes my chuckle or raises a smile?

•  Cling film – it’s called Glad Wrap which reminds me of my Gran whose name was Gladys. Gran made the best cakes ever so now as I’m wrapping up my food, I think of her.

• Mutton cloth – when asked by the housekeeper to buy this cloth, I had no idea what he needed so I came home with an assortment of dusters and kitchen cloths. He laughed when he saw what I’d bought and none of them were right. So, after a long debate with a colleague I found mutton cloth in the third shop I tried. Why does this make me laugh? Firstly the name, how is mutton related to cleaning I ask myself? And secondly the  brand is called Rosalee which reminds me of my Granny Rosie. So, both of my grandmothers have found their own ways to be here with me in Malawi.
•  Biscuits called “Eet-Sum-Mor”. They are shortbreads in a tartan box but they are not imported from Scotland (sorry Audrey!) but South Africa. Once you’ve had one, you do want to eat some more!

•  A jelly/blamange dessert called “Trotters”. I wonder if Del Boy and Rodney know about this!
  
  
• Post it notes! These are called “Stick Notes”
•  Adamz Motors – I used to pass a sign for this garage every day on my way to work until it disappeared a couple of weeks ago. It reminded me of my teenage nephew, Adam, as how the “yooff” of today sue text speak and interesting spellings! 
  
• Doom which is a fly/insect spray. If anything ventures into the house and I need to take out the can of Doom, they are most certainly doomed! I’m saying that in my Dad’s Army voice!
  
• God’s Plumber – this is another sign I’ve seen around town. I wonder if the plumber arranges for the water in your taps to be turned into wine.     

•  Christmas  - who’d have thought that in early October I would be seeing artificial Christmas trees, tinsel, Christmas cards, Christmas wrapping paper, toys galore in the supermarket. There is just no escape!

The list is endless so watch this space for more stories 

Posting hints

A few of you seem to be having difficulty posting comments to the blog. As the blog is hosted by Google, I have a feeling you may need a gmail/google account. It’s easy to set up an account, and it’s free! So why not give it a try. Also, when you post, it will ask you for your profile.  As a default, it will take your google user name but there is a drop down box you can use  to change your name  to anything you like eg Father Christmas, Pocahontas (for those of you who like the film Notting Hill!) , 007 (for the James Bond fans) your choice is endless. Go on! It will give us all a giggle! 

Challenge 1

Now that you know not everything is available when I want it and that not everything is as cheap as you’d expect, what happens when I want to cook from a recipe? Well, the truth is that the recipe books didn’t make it to Malawi in one of my seven bags!

I now  have one recipe,  for banana loaf, which was given to me by a colleague in the office. I love banana loaf and this chap brought in the cake for his birthday. I’ve made one today which was an interesting experience as everything is measured in cups. I wasn’t sure how I’d know how much 2/3 of a cup was. Ok, so I understand fractions but deciding how much 2/3 was seemed like it was going to be difficult. Then I spotted measuring cups in the supermarket so they saved the day. I’ve also invested in one of those dome shaped nets (sorry I have no idea what the correct term is) that keeps the flies off.  If I say so myself the loaf is pretty tasty. Let’s see what they think in the office tomorrow.  

At the moment, dinners are nothing fancy and I cooked roast chicken for the only person I’ve invited anyone over for a meal so far.  So here is the challenge. Once a month one of you lovely people will be asked to suggest a recipe for all of us to try. I’ll suggest a weekend when we’ll make the recipe and then we’ll  post comments (you’ll need to be braver than you are all being at the moment)  on how we enjoyed the recipe. I’d also like an estimate of how much the recipe cost you to make, any substitute ingredients you had to use because the ones in the recipe  weren’t available and how many shops you had to visit to buy everything. Guess who’s likely to have the most difficulties with even a simple recipe!

The first person to be volunteered for this challenge is … (drum roll please)  … Lesley P as I know you like researching; enjoy cooking new recipes; and will choose something wholesome and not too fancy. Please post the link to the recipe by Wednesday 14^th November and we’ll aim to make your choice of lunch, dinner or pudding, by Monday 19^th November.

I’m looking forward to trying this challenge already.

Just to prove I really did make the cake banana loaf today  here’s a photo. That's my greaseproof paper wrapping the loaf ready for tomorrow so no cheeky comments about the cake being shop bought!

Food glorious food!

"What have you been eating?” I hear you ask

When eating out it’s been pretty much what I’d eat if I were in London. There’s a very popular restaurant called Mama Mia’s which you won’t be surprised to  learn serves Italian food, I’ve been to a couple of Indian restaurants and a Mexican style restaurant.

At home I’ve also pretty much stuck to my usual – pasta, chicken, mince in a variety of disguises, tuna, lots of tomatoes. The steak however thin and well cooked is like shoe leather so I’m going to give that a miss from now on. The lettuce doesn’t look too appealing and I’m not a great fan anyway. I’ve tried baby marrow this week which was lovely roasted in the oven and I’ve taken to butternut squash. I’ve eaten fish when I’ve been out but am not too keen on how it looks in the freezer at the supermarket so I’ve given that a wide berth for now. My other fear is that with power cuts, the freezers start to defrost and then the food is refrozen only to partially defrost at the next power outage. I can see myself joining the veggie gang with chicken and tinned fish thrown in!

What am I missing?

•             Mushrooms which are one of my food heavens. I’ve only seen/bought  South African imports which while they are delicious, are another one of those things which are expensive MWK 1900 = £4
•       Chocolate – this is self enforced! I have emergency Maltesers with me as well as two slabs of  Rittersport bought at Nairobi airport. As yet, I’ve not felt the need to break into these emergency rations. Let’s see if they last until their use by date!

What is in the shops varies from week to week and from shop to shop. So rather than scooting round in half an hour, it takes me a couple of hours to find everything I need. I’m  learning what each of the shops stocks. I was surprised today as one of the shops was selling swimming pool cleaning fluids, not something your average Malawian needs to worry about.  At the moment shopping ritual keeps me busy on a Saturday. Last week there was no Lurpack so I settled for some, you’ve guessed it, South African butter. Hum! That will be used for cooking now as my lovely Lurpack was in the shops today but there were no bananas. 

The best piece of advice I’ve been given is “go with the idea you need something for your dinner, not I’m going to cook a (specific thing) tonight”. It’s been useful advice especially as I tend to go shopping in the afternoon when it’s cooler and less busy, and therefore easier to park, but this does sometimes mean things may have sold out, if they were there at all that day. Have you ever known the supermarket to run out of yoghurts by 3.30pm on a Saturday?

So, this little update on prices and availability brings me neatly on to challenge number one!