Oh yeah

Well, it seems we are getting free transport later today with some ministry of education person, but we have some time to kill so I will post again.

I ate some stuff from a baobab pod from the market, but have yet to see an actual baobab tree. Speaking of eating, if anyone wants to send anything, I could really use some cumin, but talk amongst yourselves to make sure I don't get 5 containers of cumin. Also spinach, marigold, basil, mint, and some nice heirloom cherry tomato seeds would be nice. If anyone wants to send me a copy of Emma Goldman's autobiography (preferably from a used bookstore or at least a non-corporate one) I'd like to finish that. Any good literature that isn't too dry. Maybe Michel Foucault on power or some Vonnegut books I haven't read. Again don't everyone send me things. You can use the comment section to communicate "dibs" on stuff. I'd say cumin and seeds are most high on the list. And remember to send everything addressed to Carrie. I haven't gotten my mail yet because we haven't been to the Serenje post office yet.

My bemba is coming along pretty dandily I would say. I can say things that involve personal pronouns and verbs in past, present, and future tense ok. Like Nshalitemwa ukutapa amenshi (I don't like to draw water). It is hard to understand what people say though and my vocab is limited.

Nshima isn't bad at all. Since you always eat it with a "relish" it can be tasty. There are also 4 different types: Corn (everyone's favorite, available as fluffy nutritionless 'breakfast meal' or whole kernel 'roller meal'), Sorghum, Finger Millet, and Cassava. My villagers are pretty poor so cannot afford fertilizer to grow corn most of the time. So they eat cassava nshima in the dry season (now) and some of the other kinds more during and after the rainy season. Carrie and I helped harvest some cassava with a handmade hoe which was kinda cool. Some kinds you can eat raw and it tastes a little like mild coconut and parsnips. Most they soak and pound into flour for nshima. Cassava nshima is very hard to make because it becomes really thick and mucilaginous rapidly upon cooking. For relish I make my world famous "Doug's World Famous Tomato Relish" which, incidentally, is not world famous. But it is delicious. Tomatoes, soya pieces (textured vegetable protein to Americans), onions, and vinegar. If you eat too much cassava nshima you get kinda sick feeling from all the residual cyanide. Hopefully we can buy some roller meal in Serenje on the way back.

They also have these funny smaller bananas that taste in between a banana and a green apple. Some other weird things I have eaten: icikanda (made from the root of an orchid and peanuts, tastes and looks just like some sort of weird sausage-balogna), weird little fibrous nut things, unsweetened tamarind, fermented milk (which tastes like runny yoghurt), chibuku (fermented fried corn meal - awful).

Ok everyone is leaving the internet. I will too. Much love, Doug