Dinner in Jos

An hour in the life of René:
Some loud voice outside my window yells something resembling my name, awaking me from my pleasant little afternoon nap. Since I have malaria, I'm entitled, in fact, ordered, to such indulgences. The man wasn't really trying to get in touch with me, but rather, talking to someone on his cell (which Nigerians do VERY loudly). I stretch my arms wide and noticing it's about 6:00, concede that waking up would be the wise decision. "Hmm, what shall I fix for dinner tonight?" I ask myself. Since I've been laid up the past several days, people have brought by food, or come by to hang out and cook with me, so I've used up many left-overs. ALSO, my dishes are starting to form a nice little resemblence of the Andes Mountain Range over by the sink. Wait all you moms, before you begin to chide me for my poor domestic skills, you should know that we have been on a water shortage this week. As discussed in an earlier post, this is not because the city resevoir is dry, but because the water workers are on strike since the governor has not given them the pay increase he promised 2 months ago. SO, I've done the bare minimum rinsing to keep the critters away (from kitchen and body...that's another story) and worked to make it till Friday when Mama Tabitha comes and cleans them (if I do them on Thursday, she'll be out of job). OK, back to dinner-making. One of my go-to meals is some variation of the veggie omlette. A quick glance in the fridge encourages me with peppers, onions, tomatoes already cut up in nice little tupperware containers (see, I DO have some domestic know-how), cheese, homemade salsa, and a few homemade tortillas that just need to be fried up. (Hope you're not reading this too far from your lunch break) The problem, aforementioned, arises with my dish situation. I have no clean frying pan and the dirty ones are past the point of a quick scrub and rinse...but this dinner will NOT be stopped! Deciding a small saucepan will do for the eggs, I toss some oil into it and light the stove. Several broken matches later (what does it take to make a box of matches where at LEAST 43% of them work??), oil is being heated and the veggies get tossed in. Meanwhile, I'm strategizing how to fry the tortillas. Ah-ha! The sliding lid to a bread pan stares at me from the counter. Metal, heat-conductor, oven safe...why not? Once I finish with my little scrambled egg concoction (which stuck a LOT to the sides b/c saucepans are meant for SAUCES not eggs) I toss the greesed-lid on the stove, gingerly place the tortilla down and wait to see if I've made a horrible mistake. Then...NEPA goes out. Great. I dash to the room, fumble through my drawers, and victoriously emerge with my headlamp. With the LED glow coming from my forehead, I carefully fry the tortillas. Inevitably, they burn a little, but totally still edible. (At some point, I had grabbed the glorious remants of a box of Wheat Thins someone had sent me from the states to satiate my hunger.) I grab a fork and plate from the edges of the Andes (meaning it was used either today or last night) and finally, I'm sitting down at my table with two sad excuses for breakfast burritos on a plate. Knowing my salsa is kickin' I look for water to find that I only have 1/4 left in a small bottle and one more big bottle left, that I should probably save since there's not telling how long this water issue's going to last. I bowed my head, giving thanks for this provision, knowing there are plenty of people less than a mile away going to bed with far less and worse in their stomachs. As I ate my delectible dinner by headlamp (could have lit candles, but I was still annoyed with the matches) I couldn't help but chuckle at the process I just went through. Thing is...this sort of stuff characterizes my daily life here in Nigeria. And you know what else? I love it. Every make-shift meal, broken match, malaria test, bucket bath, hard avocado, humbling part of it. However...I'm also REALLY grateful for those Wheat Thins :)

good food = "abincin da dadi"