18 Jan 2008
Well, my skin already looks like that of a 45 year old woman, thanks to the ridiculously strong rays down here. I thought the word “leathery” referred to the sort of saggy crinkly looking skin some old women get. I suppose it does refer to that, but just feel my shoulders and back and you will really begin to understand the broader scope of the term. Cowhide. I am inching towards becoming that old woman in “There’s Something About Mary,” and apparently no amount of sunscreen will stave off such aging. Frightening.
We decided to celebrate the day of my birth a few days early, so five other volunteers from Gaza province trekked to my site for a little weekend viagem. We spent most of Saturday on my beach, then retired to my little house on the hill for a delicious dinner, cake, and champagne. We are classy PCV’s. Well, sort of. The cake was once again made with non-dairy creamer because milk is rather hard to come by and sours in 2.3 seconds (my friend Abbie splurged and actually bought me powdered milk for my birthday, so I can thankfully now retire my Cremora). Then the recipe called for two eggs. I broke the first one, stirred it in, broke the second one – wait, where is the yolk? – so I look in the shell. Well, there were the beginnings of a baby chick growing in there, so I added another egg just to make sure there was enough egginess in the cake. Eggs are supposed to make your cakes fluffier right? Well I may or may not have forgotten to add baking powder. So rather than a fluffy delicious chocolate masterpiece, it was a little dense. Ok, you might call it a chocolate rock. I am actually a great baker in the states… just a bit of an irresponsible baker here in Africa I suppose. Perhaps something about the dutch oven just throws me off.
So anyway, it is my birthday and I told my guests they had to eat my dense cake and love it. So we sat on my porch, munching our slices of chocolate rock and gazing up at the stars. Which sounds wonderful and romantic, but really we were dodging stick bugs, spiders the size of my hand that at first I thought were scorpions, a preying mantis, awfully jumpy crickets, a dragonfly, and some other strange and colorful flying/hopping/crawling insects. So it was a bit of an adventure. Eventually we just gave up and went inside, where it was quite hot, but a tad less buggy.
Overall, another wonderful though slightly harrowing day passed here in Chidenguele.
Sidenote: We have started shortening the names of our sites, mostly for text message purposes. Chissano is Chis, Chibuto is Chib (or Chibooty just because that is fun to say), Chicumbane is Chic, Chonguene is Chon, etc.
Well Chidenguele is Chid, and I am sort of protesting. I mean, say it out loud to yourself right now.
“Chid”
It just doesn't sound very pleasant… although perhaps at times is quite appropriate.
Or I could just embrace it and start calling my site “The Chid.” But that lengthy title sort of defeats the whole purpose of a nickname.
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