Basically a post about food (in Tanzania, I swear it’s exciting)

Tags

amoeba, being sick in tanzania, boxing, classic mzungu, collecting GIS data, fry up, gym addiction, I hate lateness, imposter syndrome, inappropriate use of romper stomper gifs, malaria, Mwanza, open air cooking is the best kind, recipe, research successes, Ryan's Bay, Sizzler, tanzania, training, using leftovers wie ein chef, vegetable curry

So when we returned from Ukerwere, it was my turn for “Curry Mondays”, wherein each roommate makes their own version of curry. I found some okra and eggplant in the market, as I wrote earlier. So I made a fairly average British style curry, and I attempted to make chapatis, though mine were closer to the tortillas of several weeks ago. I think the secret is an open flame, like with rotis.  I only had to look up how okra cooks, since I wasn’t really certain. I’m going to post my recipe, if anyone wants to make it at home – though not for the chapatis since they didn’t really turn out.

Vegetable curry with chapati and mango chutney. Yes, we literally own two plates. I swear I can actually plate things nicely, but with plastic plates, I can’t really face it.

Vegetable Curry

Ingredients (since the vegetables here are fairly small, I’ve altered this to be for Northern hemisphere-sized vegetables):

1 largeish onion, chopped (red onions are the best and most flavourful, after that Spanish/yellow onions)

2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped

1-2 pilipili (hot peppers, Thai red chilis are about the same heat, or any other smallish hot red pepper)

4 okra, chopped into circles

1 medium eggplant, chopped into circles then halves

4 medium potatoes, preferably floury, peeled and chopped into cubes

4 roma variety tomatoes, peeled and chopped, preferably on a plate reserving any tomato juice (can use 1/2 large can of peeled whole tomatoes with a knife swizzled around to chop, again reserving any tomato juice).

100-200g peanuts or groundnuts (Groundnuts are a Tanzanian variety of peanut as far as I can tell. Pine nuts will also work but are very expensive).

1 bunch fresh cilantro

1 can of tomato paste

30mL oil of some variety (sunflower, olive, vegetable, doeesn’t matter)

Spices: Coriander, Cumin, Turmeric, Paprika, Salt, Black Pepper, Ground Cloves

Steps

1. Start boiling the potatoes as you chop everything else.
2. Once the potatoes are ready, drain and set aside.
3. Heat the oil in a pot, and then add in onion, garlic, and pilipili/hot peppers. Let cook until the onions begin to sweat and are brown on the edges.  Add a bit of extra oil if it seems a bit dry, then add the spices. About half a teaspoon to a full teaspoon of each, excepting the ground cloves, which should only be a pinch. Let the spices toast a bit in the oil, and coat the onion, garlic, and pilipili with them.
4. After about 2-3 minutes of spice-toasting, dump in the entire can of tomato paste, and stir rapidly, until the onion mixture is evenly distributed in the paste. Let cook for about 2-3 minutes
5. Add tomatoes and their juice and continue stirring. Cook for about 4-5 minutes, then add eggplant, okra, and cooked potatoes. Stir in.
6. Cook this mixture for about 6-8 minutes.  About halfway through, dump in the peanuts or groundnuts. Taste the okra and eggplant to make sure they’re done (but not overdone). Add in chopped cilantro, stir, and then serve right away with some chutney and whatever other accoutrements you see fit (rice, chapati, naan, etc.).

Fry-up

A few days later I did a fry up after finding some bacon. Fried bread is the best thing ever, though I made too many beans… I ended up saving some of the bacon and potatoes and making pasties the next day. I added cheese and some egg to them, and made shortcrust pastry. I like using all the food I make. It makes me feel like a real adult.

I also accomplished two things this past week: I did interviews at two kitchens and found out a lot of useful information, plus I managed to obtain spatial data from City Council. I felt a bit like a spy at City Council, since the first time they gave me data it was just an .mxd (essentially a container/cartography file) rather than the actual data, and then on my return the same day, they sat me at their only GIS computer and let me take what I needed, pretty much without supervision. I didn’t take anything other than the spatial data I needed for my project. Everyone in the office was very nice – I intend to return with some baked goods or something nice for them as a thank you. I also promised them if I came across any more GIS data for Mwanza, that I’d bring it them.

Yeeeeeeeeeees

On Friday evening we went to Gold Crest and met Achsah there. We did the usual sunset photographs and I got quite a nice one with a boat:

ooo

I had their hamburger, which wasn’t as good as the one at Ryan’s Bay – the meat was quite bland, however, the bun was superior. It wasn’t as busy that evening – Saturdays seem to be busier.

Since Steph had ordered a hamburger also, we thought she was better, but she became more and more sick. On Saturday morning she woke me up early to go to hospital, and so we went to a nearby (private) hospital, which had claimed to be 24 hours. We got there at around 7:30 in the morning, and there was no receptionist on the treatment floor. The woman at the Nurses’ Station said they’d be there “soon, at 8”. So we waited. I went back downstairs at 8 and 8:15 to inquire as to where the staff was, and they were coming “right now” (i.e. in about 30 minutes). Then when the guard came upstairs, I told him that my friend was very poorly and the receptionist needed to come right now. A woman who I’d seen downstairs at 8 chatting with the nurses turned out to be the receptionist, and Steph did get to see a doctor right away. After some tests, we were told it would be an hour for the results, so we went back home so she could sleep. I went out and sorted out my Internet at Airtel (sort of), and bought some things at the bakery and U-turn, including a variety of yoghurt which is pretty good, from Arusha, called Serengeti Dreams or something – it tastes almost the same as yoghurt at home. They sell Flake here too, so I bought one and crushed it to put in the yoghurt. So good.

Steph and I returned to the hospital later, once I’d arrived home, and we were told it would be approximately another hour, since she had to wait to see the doctor again. She told me I could go home, and that I didn’t need to wait with her, so I told her to give me a ring when she wanted me to come back with a taxi. It turned out she had amoebas and malaria, which is why she was feeling so bad. They gave her some pills and as of today she’s feeling much better, though Sunday was not a great day for her (or so it seemed).

Steph’s amoebas and malaria parasites in GIF form

Later on Saturday, Shannan and I returned to the gym and I met some guys there who also do boxing and a bit of kickboxing, which was great. One of the guys is really good. They let me do some padwork with them, and I promised I’d return on Monday to work out with them again. I really miss going to the gym every day back home and doing all sorts of MMA and ju-jitsu and boxing and Muay Thai. It’s something that makes me feel calm and at ease. After we finished at the gym, we went to Sizzler’s and finally had their barbeque (we both had chicken tikka), which was excellent, as all meat cooked in open air on a grill is. People here mostly seem to cook with charcoal, which I think is cheaper than gas, but I worry for the surrounding forests.

On Sunday we pretty much lazed around the apartment, since Steph was feeling really poorly. I played a lot of Mass Effect, in which I’m trying to be sort of a renegade, and generally faffed about.

Today, I returned a file to the professor at NIMR, ate lunch there with two of the staff members from the organisation (really nice chipsi mayai, with loads of veg), attended the organisation’s meeting, and then went to the gym again to meet my new boxing buddies. Daodi (I think that’s the spelling) was already there, and we did drills after I warmed up (stretching, jumping rope for some time, and then a bit of bodyweight exercise). Then after we did padwork, and Amir showed up, and since it was close to 5:30, I let Amir work in and then I left, but not before he insisted we all take photos together, so I ended up asking for one on my phone too:

Looking tuff… or tough?

We had to leave so early because firstly, we wanted to arrive home before dark, and secondly, we had to meet Maimuna at 6:30. Unfortunately, by the time we were home, only one of us could shower, since I realised it was already almost 6:30 when I was waiting my turn, so I just went to meet her with the others feeling kind of gross, but I hate being late more than I hate having sweaty hair. We ended up going to Ryan’s Bay for drinks and some snacks. I had chai masala, which is a milky tea with a bunch of pepper in it to make it spicy – you have to add sugar or it’s almost undrinkable. I also had “vegetable bullets” which were long fingers or sticks or whatever which were vaguely pakora-ey. Everyone agreed they were really good, but I found them a bit drying, so I drank my tea rather fast. We were also plagued there with what I thought were mosquitoes, but which turned out to be some other insect which doesn’t bite, whose name I have since forgotten.

The first panorama taken with my phone – at Ryan’s Bay

Now I’m sitting here waiting for the Internet to be sort of ok so I can post this. I learned a new internet strategy (buying access by the day,  which is 500tsh/$0.32 or 15,000tsh/mo-$9.35 versus spending 30,000tsh/month – $18.70), so hopefully my speed problem will be solved after this month of access is over.

Emily