Cooking Lessons and Such...

Hiya!

First, sorry I didn’t get pictures of the hut up last Friday like originally anticipated. The internet at the Office worked, unfortunately my camera did not. I’m headed in there this Friday so hopefully all will go well and pictures will be up soon!

Things have been moving along here, only a few more weeks left of Integration. It’s crazy to think we’ve been at site for two months already and in the Swaz for four. In-Service Training is coming up in just three weeks, we’ll be getting some more training, hanging out with everyone and eating what seems like will be a very American Thanksgiving dinner at the Country Director’s house on Thanksgiving! Then just a few weeks left until the eagerly anticipated Christmas and New Year’s on the beach in Mozambique! Then it’s 2011 and where has time gone?? It’s all very exciting!

Things at site are going well, people are starting to know I’m here which is good, but as I am the only volunteer around this area (for quite a ways actually), it seems like everyone wants me to come help them. I would love to help everyone, but my community comes first! I’ve been to the school down the road a few times. The head teacher has worked with many Peace Corps volunteers before at various communities’ schools. He was the deputy head teacher when the volunteer who lived in my community (in my hut actually) was here. Which is good in that he knows what about the Peace Corps, but not good in that he wants a kitchen for his school just like the last volunteer built here. So, that’s awesome. But everyone wants a library, which is more do-able so hopefully I can get on that either this year or next.

Well apparently my cooking skills have not approved to the Swazi standards because as I write this, I am in the midst of a dry beans cooking lesson from my sisi. Okay, so the ones I made last time were not quite as done as I hoped, but they were definitely still edible! Delicious in fact. But they got me a ticket on the “we’re watching everything you cook now” bus and frankly it’s not my favorite ride. But I know they mean well and it’s always good to have some pointers. :) On the other hand, my fat cake making skills are superb! I’m not sure I have written about my fat cake making endeavors so let me explain. My sisis have started making fat cakes to sell around the community. Awesome for me because I get fresh fat cakes everyday and not awesome at the same time, but that’s why I’m training for a half marathon, right? Anyway, they have started letting me help make them, a dream come true for the fat cake lover like me! Let’s just say the first ones I made were laughable. Seriously, they didn’t stop laughing. They were all lumpy (which, hey I like the lumps!) but they were baked well (I thought) and tasted good, so really who cares? And I was allowed nowhere near the ones that were actually being sold, just the ones we would be eating for tea. But now my fat cakes have become nice and smooth, and starting last week the fat cakes I baked were being sold around the community! Yay! Now, everyday around 3 or 4 o’clock I pop on into the main house and bake some fat cakes with my sisis! And for all my work, I get two free… if I buy two. Yup, four fat cakes a day, good thing I run everyday, huh?

Otherwise, not a whole lot is going on. Just the same old, surveys of the homesteads, giving HIV/AIDS surveys at the schools, etc. I have to write a report by the end of November, a 10-15 page report describing everything my community (so now the real work begins, huh?). The rainy season has begun, bringing thunderstorms in full force! Seriously, the thunderstorms here are crazy, and I love it. Unfortunately, the electricity is not as big of a fan of the rainstorms as I am, so with the storms comes kute gas, as we say. It’s not so bad having the candle light dinners, and my stove is gas so that’s not a problem, its only a problem when my phone is dying and the electricity still hasn’t come on by midday the next day and my solar charger is dead because it has been cloudy and rainy the last week… But its rural Africa so what can you do?

Okay, time to finish up dinner. Rice and beans, if my sisis ever actually let me eat it… ; ) Hope all is well at home! Miss ya, love ya, and all that jazz.

Love, Megan