Food

Before Food, my apologies for the delay in contacting anyone. Internet access has been a nightmare recently and I won't bother you with the details. I am currently borrowing the modem stick (as a dongle is called here) from some friends who are currently in the UK and I cannot access my email account for some reason, so I hope you all find this.

So to the important subject of food, glorious food. Not so glorious for me here, but I am losing weight. When I first came to Makeni, I could not sort out at all how to find food. There is a very scary market which is really crowded with motorbikes weaving in and out and you go through to a covered bit where the food is. And no motorbikes in there at least. But there was not much there, just sweet potatoes, some onions, a few beans. I did see a butcher but did not dare go near it. How I longed for Borough Market. There are stalls out in the streets where they sell fruit and some vegetables and, of course, food is very seasonal here. But then they do this odd thing of having about 10 little stalls along the road but they all sell the same thing! So if you want oranges and onions you have to walk about half a kilometre in 30 degrees plus heat. But then St. Mary's opened. I did write before that it is like Harrods food hall to us (or was it Fortnum's?) but please don't think of that too literally. It is more like a small Somerfield with some household goods in it. But it was such an improvement. It is relatively expensive and will put some of the small traders out of business but the goods are much better.

Today for breakfast I had oatmeal (porridge to us English) which is made from quick cook oats in a tin. I have not had fresh milk since I came to this country and we have dried milk, so I make some up with hot water and put on the porridge and add some maple syrup. Then I make instant coffee with the rest of the milk. My housemate Celine and I walked to St. Mary's fairly early this morning to get some things as we have friends coming over tomorrow. We got 2 bottles of red wine (quite good) as we cannot chill white: no fridge. We found some sliced processed cheese and got very excited and bought that (yes, really) and they had a plate of small, not brilliant tomatoes in the chiller so we got those too. I bought nice bread outside and when we got home we had bread, cheese and tomatoes. And really enjoyed it. I had only had 2 slivers of tomato in sandwiches since I had been there.

I also bought what they call Irish potatoes, to distinguish them from the more common sweet potatoes and I am having garlic mashed potatoes tonight and I shall start when I have finished writing to you, my dear friends. I have no protein to go with them so I may open a tin of green beans. Oh, yes. I very happily spent almost 3 pounds sterling on a tin of
Ambrosia rice pudding a few weeks ago and am hording it for a rainy day. Also, I have had some fresh pineapple which I bought 2 days ago for about one pound 20 pence, which is the equivalent of 2 days pay for a manual worker.

As I said, we have no fridge and in fact it is more sensible to have a freezer. Then you put the generator on in the evening and the freezer functions as a fridge, as fridges don't like to be on for only 4 or so hours a day. In fact, it is pointless. We cook on a 2 ring hob which is powered by calor gas, and we can now get this from St. Mary's (they do ice cream too). When I got here you had to get calor from Freetown (115 miles away). Some people cook on kerosene which stinks to high heaven and most of the locals cook on open fires. Picturesque but medieval, I think.

Tomorrow our friends will bring some food as they like cooking and have better facilities. We are planning to go and get some haloumi cheese and fry it with garlic (no grill) and make some potato salad. And drink wine!

Did you know you can freeze eggs? I had no idea until the St. Mary's man (Lebanese, like most of the enterprising people here) said that the ones we had been buying in the street were frozen ones imported from Europe. His are fresh farm eggs. Egg boxes are unknown here and you carry them home in a plastic bag. You can imagine the results. I often put them in my crash helmet. I also buy Heinz baked beans (there are strong rumours that St. Mary's will be stocking bacon. I wake up hallucinating that I smell it frying) and I have HP sauce. I have started eating Marmite! I hate it but treat it as medicine. Oh, yes, I got some marmalade today, too.

If you have a vehicle, the common way to shop is to pull up outside the shop (small, open fronted shack really) and yell 'bread!" or whatever you want and they come running over. I think I will try it outside Waitrose when I get home and see what happens.

They have also recently opened a new restaurant, which is the best here. Again, do not get too excited as all things are relative. The service is much better there as the man who owns it spent 5 years in London and understands the concept of customer service, which is generally unknown here. You can go even to the 'posh' hotel (not very), order something very indifferent, wait half an hour only to have them saunter up and tell you they haven't got it.

When I come back home, I am going to eat bacon and eggs and drink fresh milk. I shall eat clotted cream until it comes out of my ears. And no doubt regain any weight I have lost. I had thought I was not particularly interested in food. Oh but I am!