Bonjour tout le monde! How’s everyone doing? I have 8 days left till I take off from living with my host family and will be cooking on my own, and finally have a place to call “My Home”. Really excited to be able to relax, and not have to have people feel like they need to entertain me. I’ve been keeping to myself at night and feel guilty for not hanging out with my family more, but I think I have burnt myself out! But I do have some good stories for you!
Last Sunday, I told my host family I would cook them an American meal. So that morning I work up, and my host brother went to the market with me to help me get the food and supplies. I decided to make eggplant sandwiches, with a side salad. As I was cutting up the eggplants my other host brother who was in charge on monitoring me said, “you need to peel the skin too” I said “No that’s the best part!” He proceeding in telling me in Africa they do not eat the skin. Good thing he told me otherwise my family would not have been eating the meal at all.
I asked him to help me start a fire, which he used a plastic bag to start it, which made me cringe. So I poured the oiled in the pot, the only way they cook here, and pretty much deep fried the eggplant then drained as much oil as I could. I crushed up my garlic, onions, and magi cube (sort of like seasoning) in the typical African standing pot, and hit it with the large wooden stick to grind and mix it all up. Then added it to the eggplant and let it simmer.
Then I made a cucumber, avocado, and potato salad with a little bit of onion, oil, and seasoning. Then I prepared my host mother a sandwich and side of salad. The eggplants were cooked a little longer than my liking, but boy did they taste good. Before my host mom even finished her bit, she said, “Yummm” so I had to laugh not sure if she was being for real or not. Then my host brothers started filtering in one by one. I wasn’t sure if they really liked it or not, cause they kept laughing, then when they went back for seconds I realized they really did like it.
I went back to my room to work on lesson planning for class on Monday, and I felt a cold spot on the back of my legs/ bum. I stood up and realized that I had two LARGE matching holes in my skirt. So I guess that would clarify why my brothers were laughing. I then thought to myself, “No that’s service with a smile” How embarrassing! I also found out my grandmother could not eat the sandwich because she doesn’t have any teeth, therefore can’t eat bread, but she did like the eggplant and salad. Then the funniest part was, my older host brother came in, and said “Yannaty, How do make this American meal, I’m confused?” So I went out with him, and prepared the sandwich, which he raved about after. The rest of the night, all my brothers kept saying, “C’était un bon repas! Merci beaucoup!” (That was a great meal, thank you so much!” Then asked if they could visit me at my site for another meal. So appreciative! I was glad it went over well.
On to the next story. After my class on Monday, I had three girls come up to me at the end of the class and say, “Mme Stephanie, Êtes-vous mariée? (Are you married) I said, “why do you ask?” They said because here, we get married young, is it the same in the states? I then asked them if they were all married hoping to prove a point that there was no need to ask the question because we were the same. They said they were all engaged. This is at the age of 16 -18 years old. They showed me, and I had to state that no I was not married. Immediately following they said, I’ll introduce you to my brother. “No thank you” was my response. Haha
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| My Kitchen/ where I wash the dishes each morning! |
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