Ah, what a wonderful few weeks.
And how much better does everyone now feel?
It was a long time getting there, but what a wonderful feeling when Pennsylvania was finally called.
I was at my friend's bonfire night, surrounded by friends, and a huge cheer went up. The Guy also bore an amazing resemblance to a certain toxic Wotsit. Very satisfying to throw it on the flames. Though, I must admit, every year we adults do stand around quietly questioning whether this tradition is necessarily setting the right example for the next generation, as all the kids stand there chanting 'let him burn, let him burn,' the flames reflecting in their eyes...
It was a wonderfully multinational crowd that night: Rwandan, British, Australian, American, Danish, Chinese and Canadian. Such a global sense of celebration that things are finally returning to normal. I'm privileged to say I was in Africa when Obama was elected, and again when Harris became VP. I really like Kamala Harris, and she's already had such a positive effect. Many of my friends have mixed-race daughters, so it's a double win on gender and skin colour. My friend posted what her daughter said the next morning:
There's just such a sense of relief and celebration, even when you're not American. That country has such a huge impact on all the other countries in the world. Every nation had a vested interest in the outcome. It feels as though the planets are slowly coming back into alignment. That was a bloody long four years.
Anyway, bonfire night was fabulous. There were potent pink drinks, nummy mulled wine, sparklers, bangers and baked potatoes, and the most incredible sticky toffee pudding.
A lovely chance to catch up with friends. Cases of COVID are very low here and public gatherings below 75 people are allowed. Schools are starting to return and mass testing has been undertaken across the country.
I have been right royally spoiled this past month. Made friends with a colleague at the university I now lecture at (yes, I know, I have to repeat that a few times to myself), and I've been out for a couple of lovely meals with him and his family. They're newly arrived with their thirteen-year-old son. Stepped off the plane just as the country went into full lockdown, so it's been a tough welcome for them. But bonfire night was great because there were a few kids his age there, so he's made some new friends.
One of the meals was at a fancy restaurant called Inka (which means Cow in Kinyarwanda). The food was out of this world. For steak-lovers they bring the meat out to show you the different cuts and let you choose. We drank wine from a swanky decanter, and there was a beautiful fire to sit round afterwards. It even had a wall so I couldn't fall in this one.
It was a real treat and a lovely evening. Plus, the first time I'd seen draft Mutzig since the lockdown!
Had another lovely treat when I went to visit my friend Malvika. She grows henna in her garden and helps to tidy me up when I start to look a bit rough. Her son is an amazing tattoo artist. She invited me to stay after my beautification treatment and treated me to a really yummy home-made Indian meal, including gulab. It was delicious.
Something else that was delicious - someone locally was selling home-made bread and cheese. They advertised it on the community forum and it arrived, still warm. Amazing stuff.
How beautiful is that?
A real treat.
I've been getting experimental in the kitchen lately, but nothing as beautiful. A few weeks back I rediscovered ugali at a friend's house, so I've been making that now and then. It's a very traditional dish here. Ugali is just a gelatinous blob of cassava flour. The trick is in the sauce. It's served with meat or bean sauce. I make bean sauce because I don't eat meat at home. It doesn't look that appetising, and I'm not good at making ugali, which is embarrassing, as it's one of the world's easiest dishes, but I do a good sauce and it's very filling. Good comfort food for the rainy season.
However, there is a down-side to ugali. Because it's so filling, it's easy to make too much, and it's not an easy product to keep. It dries out easily and goes rock solid. Even if you manage to keep it moist, it looks supremely unappetising cold. Imagine refrigerated wallpaper paste. Ugali itself has got absolutely no flavour, which is why the sauce is so important. You can cut up old ugali and add it to the next batch, but I've just made another discovery - you can fry it!
Mix up a spicy sauce, dip it and fry it. I added another twist by putting cheese inside and rolling it in breadcrumbs for some extra crisp... and because I had a loaf of stale bread to get rid of. It was surprisingly good. Definitely better than plain old, cold ugali.
Tonight, I have just eaten an amazing meal. I very rarely get leafy salad, but I went to lunch with my friend Gerry earlier in the week and she gave me a huge bag of fresh lettuce from her garden. I don't really have much to make a salad with, but, long story short, I ended up at T2000, which is a massive Chinese supermarket in town. Everyone has a sort of love-hate relationship with the place. We love it because you can buy just about anything there. Stuff you can't find anywhere else in Kigali. On the other hand, it usually falls apart within a week. Still, it's sort of an institution. I remember buying plastic buckets there when it was just a little side shop, thirteen years ago. Now it's a two-story supermarket with a restaurant on top.
Anyway. I ended up in the food section because I'm thinking of making kimchi. It was a classic case of going in for one thing (Korean chili paste), and coming out with a dozen other things. At home, I mostly live off roast vegetables or stir-fried vegetables, with varying degrees of honey, spice and soy sauce. Sometimes I'll heat up the crepe maker, whip up some hummus or bake a potato, but my diet is fairly predictable. So, I was feeling a bit adventurous, surrounded by all of these packets with labels I couldn't read.
I found the chili paste. There was a red one and a green one. I reasoned the red one was probably very hot and the green one was maybe mild, so I bought both to find out.
I also bought a packet of 'crispy fish' which was what we'd call dried indagara or sambaza (whitbait in the UK). I wasn't sure if you were supposed to heat them, but they weren't refrigerated so I just ate them. They were really good, if a bit sugary. Quite a chili kick. It was just nice to taste something completely different.
When I got home, I discovered that the green tub wasn't chili paste. It's something called ssamjang, or 'wrap sauce,' and the wraps are specifically made out of leaves. What were the chances! So, I broke open the lettuce, egg fried some rice with veg and beans, and started scooping it into the leaves, with a dollop of ssamjang sauce. It was delicious.
That shredded green thing on top is my new favourite thing right now. It's got quite a kick to it, but it's divinely oceanic. It tastes of the sea, and we're miles from it. The sea, and mild burning pain. It's utterly delightful. It's simply called 'sea-tangle,' which makes me love it more.
Knowing what you're eating is overrated. It just made me very happy. I like eating with my hands, and it was fun wrapping it all up in a leaf. Plus, I'm glowing from the vitamin hit. Slowly slipping into a chlorophyll coma. I haven't eaten that much raw greenery in a while.
Although, I do need to check what I'm eating a bit more carefully. I bought some local beans recently and the de-stoning process didn't go so well. It's a constant hazard here with legumes and rice. Local sellers grow it and pick it, but they don't have sophisticated methods for removing debris. I seriously crunched into a stone last week and now the tooth is heat sensitive. I'm annoyed, because I've always had really good teeth, but I think I've damaged this one. I don't think it's an emergency, so I'm holding out until I can get back to the UK and see my family dentist. He's looked at my teeth since I was a child. The lesson is: buy international brand rice/legumes that have been properly treated. Which is a shame, because you do want to help support local businesses, but not at the expense of a tooth. Swallowing stones can also give you real belly ache.
Anyway, back to fun things.
Lettuce wasn't the only thing that Gerry gave me. She also gave me my very first scoby.
Yup, I had no idea what that was either.
It is a round, rubbery disk of yeast and bacteria that you pop in a jar of strong, sweet tea. It gradually transforms the tea into a carbonated probiotic drink called kombucha. Rather amazing. More on that here.
It's quite entertaining, but also feels like a huge responsibility. I went out for pizza and came home with this whole other life form to care for. If you leave it too long it turns into vinegar, so you have to keep feeding it. Still, not as bad as the time I went out for Kinyarwanda lessons and came back with four cats.
In the same day, I also bought a yoga mat and I'm considering making kimchi. It's also been nine months since I had a cigarette... is this a weird symptom of nicotine withdrawal that nobody tells you about?
I turn forty in a couple of months. Apparently my mid-life crisis is 'hipster.' Who knew?
Anyway, I've settled the little scoby into its new home, which is only marginally larger than its old home. That's what I was doing in T2000 the other day when I bought all the fun food - I was looking for scoby jars. I now have quite a few and I'm going to start experimenting, if I can keep the first one alive.
And, yes, I'm also going to make kimchi.
Above is how it was given to me (left) and the new brew I made for it from a packet of Pfunda tea. I'm leaving it for about seven days to see what happens. On the whole, Howl is not too impressed by the experiment.
