C-c-c-cold!

This is going to be a quick post, because my fingers aren't working properly... toooooo   coooolllddddd!

Obviously, I am not in Jbs anymore, folks!  I'm in Nairobi and freezing my little hiney off!  It is so cold here!  I arrived last night, slept under 3 blankets and haven't taken my sweater off, even in the, um, er, "heat" of the day.  Oh, wait, I did take my sweater off at the salon where I got slightly polished... a haircut and a manicure.  The poor woman truly earned her keep today while fighting the grime under my nails!  I was feeling a bit bad for her, but there was a reason why I had to resort to paying someone to get my fnger nails into decent shape again!

I love my haircut!  Since I was alone, it was hard to get a good picture of it, but this is the best I could manage:

Hello?

So, I don't have much to say, really, but I thought I should blog SOMETHING, just to keep up with, well, I'm not even sure :)  I think I've been reading too many other blogs lately, and there are so many great clever blogs out there.  I feel woefully inadequate, and life seems woefully routine around here... so, that combination does not make for an entertaining blog.  Sorry 'bout that.

But it was Sunday today.  Such a lovely day it was.  I love Sundays!  But lately, it seems a large proportion of my Sundays are spent in my kitchen. Well, actually my house only has 2 rooms - my bedroom, and then a big open space which serves as my kitchen, dining room, living room and home office.  So unless I'm sleeping or showering, I'm pretty much in my kitchen...  but anyway, I have been standing in the kitchen a lot, lately, either cooking something, eating something or cleaning up after cooking and eating something!  Today my craving for salty crunchy things got the better of me, so I spent some time in the kitchen trying my hand at making some salty saltine crackers.  I was surprised by how easy they were to make.  I think dough doesn't scare me as much as it used to.  I have successfully made pizza crust (with yeast and everything!) a few times now, so the cracker dough was simple compared to that!

Some of the highlights of the week's eating included breaded zucchini slices, sweet and sour pineapple stir fry, almond cake, and an epic burger and fries meal.  All made in my very own little kitchen.  And cleaned up in my very own kitchen!  But I have really been enjoying cooking lately!

This week might require a bit of creative cooking, as well, in order to feed my growing belly.  Things were so expensive in the market this weekend!  Pineapples doubled in price since last week, green peppers and papaya all shot up in price.  So I couldn't bring myself to buy the usual produce in the usual quantities.  I have challenged myself to make eggplant in a few different ways and find something new and yummy to make with eggs and tomatoes.  Good thing my neighbor has satellite TV in his mud hut - Master Chef Australia (2012) has been on, so I have a bit of outside inspiration for cooking again!  They did some amazing stuff with chesnuts this afternoon...  At least my vegetable soup was tasty and nourishing, even if it wasn't quite up to the Master Chef's standards!  It did go well with my garlic salted home made saltines, though!

A Quiet Day at Home?

Since I had a bit of a fever and some odd not-very-health-feelings yesterday and in previous days, I decided that I would take it easy today.  So, I'm trying to stay home and just answer the important emails from my chair, sitting under my fan.

Of course, today happens to be the day that the maintenance crew decided to fix the holes in my bathroom wall (which have been there for over a year!)... so my house has been a bit of a revolving door... it just seems rather impossible to have a quiet day at home around here!  While I love the short commute to my office, it also does make it difficult to get away from work.  But I'm feeling much better today, so at least it's not too bad...

Our internet has also been having issues over the past few weeks, so I haven't really had much chance to hang out on the internet... and just as I was wanting to get back to my blogging!  Thankfully, our IT guy came back from being away for a month, so I wasn't on the hook to get everything up and running again.

Things have just been cruising on as usual lately.  Work has been unusually busy, but the generator turning off at 5pm, and our office quickly turning into a little oven shortly thereafter is a great incentive to leaving the office in time to have a few minutes to either exercize or walk to the corner for some shopping, or to read a book before making dinner.  Adds a little balance to life!

We've also had a few visiting consultants lately, and since so many of the other compound residents are away at the moment, I've felt like I've had to do some extra hospitality services lately.  So I've had a few dinner parties... which go along with huge piles of dishes!  But it's good to be able to feed people so that they don't have to continue eating shwarmas from the street corner every evening.


 But there are days when I wonder how a dishwasher would change one's life.  Now that I have a washing machine for my clothes, I'm harking back to thinking about all the conveniences of life back "home"!  

I have had a bit of fun a few weeks ago, floating down the Nile in an inflatable kayak:




Thispicture is from one of the little tributaries that we detoured down.  I would have loved to have taken some photos of the bridge and the town and the port as we floated past... but that probably would have gotten us shot at... and when you are in an inflatable boat in the middle of one of the world's biggest rivers... probably not a good idea!

But it was a very relaxing float down the river, and it was a perfect day for it - cloudy and overcast, so we didn't roast! 

We also got a new intern in the literacy department here.

Little Ginger just can't stay awake long enough to get any projects finished, though!  And we're still working on teaching him how to type... but he's a great asset to the department... at least to the cuteness of the department!  Ginger is my neighbor/colleague's new kitten.  Good thing he's all black, because my own little Zane (who looks like an absolute beast next to this wee kitty!) only seems to like cats that look like him.  Someone accused Zane of being a racist, but I have to admit, Zane really does seem to only like black cats...

Last weekend, I also treated myself to a real meal here.  My favourite restaurant had a steak and potatoes special.  So, um, yum.  It was real steak, like, as in, you could chew it!  And that is gravy on mashed potatoes.  You sure don't find food like this just anywhere in this town!  I think it was the best meal I've had in Jb in the 6 years that I've lived here.  I won't tell you how much it cost, though :(

So, that's life in Jb these days! 

My nice quiet day at home is slipping through my fingers, and the concrete bearers to fix my bathroom holes are coming ... so I think it's time to find another location for my nice quiet day...