Walking to the dump
Some of our friends after the run
School officially starts tomorrow. We went and picked up uniforms yesterday, had to buy hats, jumper, shorts and shirt, bathing suits and bathing caps(Jacob wasn't digging the Speedos, opted for the full body suit.
Nothing much to report today, we received our first package from home.. (Thanks Grandpa Dixon, it was the highlight of the day and the new videos bought me a few minutes of sanity, until they began to fight over which one to watch.)
Here's an excerpt of an email of Michelle's that describes some of the local flavor and how efficiently everything works here. Pics of the first day tomorrow. \
Things move slow here. One of the wives of one of the other doctor's is trying to get her residence permit and needed to get a date put on some piece of paperwork that hadn't originally been dated. She went to immigration and they told her they only put dates on papers on Fridays. And you can't throw a fit, because if they don't like you, they just tell you to go to see someone else (who doesn't actually know about what you want) just to get rid of you. Kissing butt is a valuable skill here.
As far as food, the groceries are fairly well stocked. We can definitely get spaghetti, cheese and onion. No oyster crackers. By all means, send the chili. Jacob would be in heaven. No chocolate chips either, but I don't think those would ship well. The girls are missing Ovaltine and breakfast syrup -they just have this very sugary version of Karo. Lots of things are hit or miss. Andy found a soft taco kit one day (like the old el paso kind), but it was nowhere to be found the next day. Also, they import everything from South Africa, and sometimes they just "run out." For example, I have not been able to get cans of the equivalent of Diet Coke for 2 weeks, because the country is out of it. So stuff like that. You have to weigh and label your own produce. Also, have had to look a little harder for some things - powered sugar is "icing sugar" and comes in a small paper sack - took us a while to figure that one out. We did find crackers that are a combination of saltines and Ritz crackers called "Salticrax", Andy calls them "salty butts" which the kids find amusing. As far as recipes, here you go: if it walks, kill it, grill it and call it meat. We no longer eat anything that is ground - bones are included. I say all this when the reality is that very few people here can afford to have meat or eggs as part of their diet, so please understand that I am thankful for the options. The staple of the diet for most people is "pap" which is like a maize based version of mashed potatoes. If you're lucky, you get to have meat with it. I am definitely headed in the vegetarian direction. This is partly because many of the dishes are covered in "monkey gland sauce" - I haven't asked, I just eat it and try not to think about the possibilities. When you do want some meat and are willing to temporarily forget about the preparation process, the sausages are awesome. To grill is to "braai" and its very good - I think the sausages are called boers, so you can see the South African influence. There are some game dishes on most menus that I haven't ventured to try yet....we'll save that for when you visit.
