Thanksgiving Day

For the first time in my life, I got up Thanksgiving morning and started preparing the meal and kept working on it until it was time to eat that afternoon. With Tari managing the kitchen mess and her helper, Vaida (aka Fadia), straightening up the mess the kids made of the rest of the house, the day was actually fun. At noon, Tari and I had a Courvoisier as a tribute to Mom.

I had thought Matt, Kim & Quinn would be flying in that afternoon, but their flight had been changed so they were actually arriving Wednesday night. Quinn wouldn't sleep in a room by himself, so the whole family piled on to our modest double bed in the guest room...not the best sleep. We did breakfast...I bought a quiche...Thursday morning, and then I took them to Doon Estates, a shopping area. Kim helped with the stuffing and young berry cobbler. Matt kept an eye on the turkey and made the gravy. David got back from work in time to start making early afternoon mimosas. Bettina and her three kids (+ another helpful nanny) arrived at 2, and we ate around 3:30. Some Mercy Corps guys, Amanuel and Mort (visiting) joined us about mid-meal.

Over all it was quite edible. Here's the menu review:

• Turkey: alternatively called "young" or "is that a chicken?" Shipped from Brazil, it was the only turkey available in town and half the size of an American one. Still, it tasted great. We used the Blackberry Farm cookbook for this and other recipes. 
• Gravy: a bit too heavy on the flour for my taste but one can't easily critique one's husband's boss. Still: edible.
• Stuffing: BBF cookbook. Not as good as Mom's mom's recipe. Peppers and giblets (don't like). However, we were able to use a number of ingredients from the garden: herbs, peppers, celery, etc. Found that mealie meal (staple of diet here) makes for a fine cornbread, so will be doing that again for sure. 
• Mashed Potatoes...BBF - fine
• Roasted broccoli medley...colorful but not anything to get excited about
• Roasted butternut squash with sage...should have doubled the recipe and we forgot to throw in the craisons AGAIN
• Pumpkin bread-pudding...too mushy but tasted ok with the pears soaked in Courvoisier and fresh whipped cream
• Young berry cobbler...too liquidy and lemony and the crust didn't turn out right but still tasty...and it had to be on the menu given the number of young berries growing outside the kitchen window
• Pecan Pie...hands down the winner in excellence!! This one was 100% Tari's. Recipe from BBF but had to substitute the sorghum syrup with good old corn syrup...although it was not nearly as thick and gooey as pecan pie usually is.
• Bettina also brought a salad and sauteed spinach which we needed as the above wasn't enough (see below)

After dinner, we moved under the big pecan tree for dessert...highlight of the evening was eating pecan pie under the tree that supplied the pecans. When it was dark enough to light the fire in the fire-pit table under the tree, the after work crowd started rolling in. (D forgot to mention to me that we would have another 5 guests coming.) This was the crew I'd gone with to Kariba the weekend before. They ate up most of the left-overs which was great since we were heading out of town the next day, and the night ended very pleasantly with fireside chat. 

The kids who had basically been allowed to roam around late into the night were found half asleep on their feet when I eventually figured they should be put to bed. Eliza was standing at their crafts table sleep-coloring. She's been into drawing and coloring a lot these days.

Mambo also rose to the occasion, performing a scaled-down, safari sun-downer, hunt-to-kill performance. It was a good fight, but the rat got away. However, he did succeed in dropping a nearly dead baby rat on Kim's foot at breakfast the morning before they left.

original meal crew: Matt, me, Bettina, David & Kim 

the kiddos: Aljosha, Miles, Janalou, Eliza & Quinn

Bettina & baby Noah

the host

the hostess

kid congregation point for all events

A funny thing about Zimbabweans

Zimbabweans, and I guess I'm talking mainly about the whites here, let their children walk around everywhere with their shoes off. Have I mentioned this before? I mean, I'm from the South, but rules (laws?) about wearing shoes in restaurants and stores and such are pretty well enforced...or rather, there seems to be a general consensus that it's a good thing to wear shoes.

But here you will see moms taking their kids grocery shopping in proper grocery stores with no shoes on (gross!). Or in the nicest neighborhood steakhouse, you will see families having Sunday lunch, and the kids will be walking around in the restaurant...in and out of parking lot, back yard playground and bathrooms!...with no shoes on! (Double gross!)

It never ceases to amaze me.

Another funny thing about Zimbabweans is that pretty much all the kids wear uniforms to school, and in the case of big high school boys, they are still wearing what amounts to a short-sleeve button down, with a tie!, tucked into a pair of elastic-waist cotton shorts made from the same material as the shirt, and I'm talking above the knees shorts, knee socks the color of the shirt and shorts pulled up to the knees (always!), and brown or black leather shoes. And kids put up with it! Can you imagine anything more humiliating for a strapping 16-year-old young man than to wear that? Girls have sensible, cute little dresses, but the boys look like total idiots.

And what's even a little sad is that a lot of grown men continue to dress that way. Having been in Muslim countries for 5 years before coming here, I still cannot get used to seeing a man in a pair of short-shorts...at work! Even shopping, I'll just see a grown man out of the corner of my eye, his big belly almost completely concealing what is probably his old school boy shorts. It's too much!!

But it's just the way things are here.

random man at work lunch... You should have seen the other guy.

From Global to Local: UN Day & Halloween

...does Halloween count as local?

Harare International School Celebrating UN Day 2010

This was our first UN Day at the school. A big part of it is a giant food festival with parents from all corners of the world setting up festive tables with favorite dishes from their country.

As a member of the PTO, I volunteered to take on an additional little project for the elementary school. There had been complaints...can't we do anything that is related to the UN or is somewhat more educational than experiencing food? Thus, the UN passport project was born.

It's funny how a little idea can turn into a month-long endeavor involving hundreds of people. We made fake  little  passports with each page being a flag of a country represented at the school.

We set up immigration stations with middle and high school volunteers who represented a few countries each and had flags waving. The kids had to find the flag that matched the one in their book and answer three questions: 1) on which continent is this country? 2) what language do they speak there? and 3) what is a typical dish you could eat there? Either they got the answers themselves or they got a little help from the immigration officer. Then they got a stamp in their passport and moved on to the next flag in another area of the world/campus. There were different passports with different flags, so there were nearly 25 different countries. After visiting 6 countries and getting 6 stamps, they came back to passport control for a prize which was a small gift from the embassies like flag pins or origami kits or whatever.

And every child got a t-shirt...it was pretty cool, if a tad bit chaotic. More than 150 kids participated, and they really seemed to enjoy it which was frankly luck...who knows what kids older than mine like these days?!

In addition to the food and passport game, there was a flag ceremony in the auditorium where a flag from every country represented at the school was carried in by a student from that country who then went up to the mic and said "hello" in their native tongue. Not sure why, but it is strangely moving, especially for the adults who were fighting back tears. Me, too. Funny.

Halloween was celebrated on that same day. We went straight from school to a friend's house for a quick beer and to change into costumes before heading to the Marine's House. Luckily, we were invited by our "buddy family" (Sheryl & Vaughn) to the marine's halloween party which they throw for kids of embassy staff. Yes, the marines. They provide security for some of the embassy staff.

(One of Miles and Eliza's friends from school is the daughter of the head marine. And yes, I do find him a wee bit intimidating. One of his marines bar-tending at the party said he'd almost rather be in Afghanistan where you are ready for danger. "Here, people get complacent and let their guard down." "Right, can I have another beer?" Sheesh.) 

The marine house brought back memories of fraternity houses, except this one had zebra skins and POW banners in addition to the foosball table where Miles spent most of his time until the contortionist/magician showed up. Talk about cringe-worthy. Nothing like a bunch of small children watching a man pretend to make another kid (his assistant) swallow a large object that then magically popped out his rear. (Don't try this at home!)

My Husband These Days

,

For those of you who need another glimpse of him in his hat.

Little by Little

We moved into an unfurnished house in May. I had about 3 weeks before we left for the States in June to figure out how to fill the gaps. Nights looking at Home & Garden by the fire. Ah. Some furniture of ours was shipped here: couch, our bed, an end table, a couple of kid chairs and dressers. I wanted to make this house seem like ours and not just a temporary residence, but most things we will probably not be able to bring with us, so no point in investing in something terribly nice or unsalable. So here's some of what it looks like thus far (a work in progress).

The "lounge"...our living room / den...is the largest room and is both the formal and informal family gathering place. 

We need something bigger over the fireplace and more on the walls. The teak coffee table and wicker seats are new. We have a matching love-seat in the office. The bookshelf is one of a few things we had made by a local carpenter...by far the cheapest option.

Replacing the curtains was my least favorite project - but here they are.
Better than rose polyester with silky mauve tasseled trim. 

Kid's corner.

Love seat in the office.

One of our new local paintings,

Veranda off lounge...where we eat meals, do homework, socialize. Life in Zimbabwe is spent on the veranda.
All this furniture is locally made: simple and cheap.

We bought this old wicker set, had it patched up and stained, then reupholstered the cushions.

We were going to rip the bar out and make a den, but then we had a big party and decided it was useful.

We moved the bed under the window which means no view of the garden but morning reading light.

And space in the bedroom for the art deco vanity with cane chair, essential equipment for playing dress up.

Domesticity

I feel like I'm just playing house half the time.


Me in my robe, house-shoes and glasses helping the kids in the car, checking that backpacks are remembered and everyone has clean faces. Kisses all around. To Miles: remember to be considerate to others. To Eliza: be a good listener and do what your teacher says the first time. To David: be productive; don't play computer games.

I carry a large flowery cotton tote that can serve as a shopping bag. I purchase a vase for cut flowers from the garden. I make bar cookies for guests of the soccer tournament at the school as part of my PTO responsibilities. I wear an apron on the weekends. And yoga pants. 

I organize play-dates in the afternoon, coffees with other stay-at-home-moms late morning (after the early morning workout), and make arrangements for dinners and parties. I ensure the children make birthday cards for their friends. I pick them up at school and drive them to swimming lessons.

I make dentist appointments for the whole family. (Well, in theory...I'm working on it.)

Most of the time, I'm on autopilot. I make my lists. I drive around. I draw lines through the items on the list. I check the schedule. Have I forgotten something? (the groceries in the trunk again? the meeting with the school counselor? pick up time?)

But sometimes - like when I'm wearing the apron and stirring muffin mix, and my husband comes in and gives me a kiss on the cheek, and I say, how was golf? - I think WTF. This is hilarious. Somebody get the camera.

Winter Garden

Make a Plan

This is the motto of Zimbabwe. When you can't get what you want, you "make a plan."

Today, I was with my Austrian friend, Bettina, who has lived in Zimbabwe for six years. She checked her mailbox. Curious, I asked what she was expecting to find there. "A parcel," she said in her German-Zimbabwean accent. I've never lived in a country outside the U.S.A. that had reliable postal service, so I was intrigued. When I'd had my Mom send a test package, it never arrived, so we'd given up on it as an option here.

"Oh, it's quite easy," she said. "A month after it's sent, you just follow up with a petition. We get parcels almost every month from my parents." Follow up? "My parents file a report with their postal service in Austria, and that usually gets things moving on this end. I think the Zim postal service can assume all unclaimed packages after a certain period, so they just hold on to them unless a petition is filed." Right. "But you mustn't let your family send anything during the holidays. It's too tempting. Usually a few things go missing. My parents always write the contents of the parcel on the inside of the carton now so we know if anything's missing."

"And there's customs. They only allow $75 worth of goods to be mailed in per month per family, and anything over, they start charging 40% tax. We made the mistake of leaving some price tags on some toys once. Now we make sure everything is roughed up, and my parents put fake price tags on them for 25 cents or 50 cents. We can always say they were sold at a clearance sale or yard sale. As long as it adds up to no more than $74, it's not a problem. It was quite a hassle getting the trampoline in. My sister unpacked the whole thing, rolled all the pieces around in the dirt and packed it up again. You know, during those years when it was crazy and you couldn't find anything here, you just had to make a plan. But it works quite well. We get parcels every month."

Back Home to Zim

Nothing beats sitting by a roaring fire. Outside the night sky is full of stars. The kids are sleeping, and the generator is humming (for another hour or so as the adults get ready for bed)…ah, Africa.

We’ve been back for a few days, and it’s already starting to feel like we never left. First impressions on returning were, wow, life’s pretty great here. The house seemed so much bigger, so many rooms all to ourselves, so many toys, and so much freedom and space to play in the garden. It seemed like I didn’t hear from the kids for hours. They were off running around with Shepherd and Panache or lying on the trampoline looking up at the birds. The first couple of days, the weather was awesome, blue skies, warm sun, cool breeze. We spent all day outside.

I feel grateful for the holiday. We got to see so many friends and family, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Appalachian Mountains, the Florida gulf coast and Tennessee. OK, it was really hot in the South, and it was sometimes stressful imposing ourselves on everyone, but spending time with loved ones was much needed. I especially appreciated having two weeks(!) with my sister, getting to see her new house and life in Oakland. Elliott and Eliza played well together (while Miles was with Mom in Chatt!). (See kid blog...eventually... for more on the holiday.)

Here we are at an awesome Mexican restaurant in Sausalito. Yummy margaritas!

Here are the kinfolk on the west coast: cousin Erin (all grown up) and Chuck and Gail. So good to see them!

Yeah, that's the Golden Gate bridge. We were at a children's museum. How cool is that?

We still need to figure out a way to do the holiday just right so that no one has to break the bank, and it’s not too crazy hectic. My thought is that if this life abroad goes on for much longer, we should invest in a timeshare in a place in the States that people can get to easily, and would want to visit any time of the year. We could block out our time for a month and just chill while everyone comes to visit us. What do you think?

The Garden

is beyond the imagination. The avocados are ripening. We have a few avocado trees, the tallest of which is about 50 feet high and produces avocados the size of grapefruit. They are round and the thin green skin easily peels off. We couldn’t eat all the hundred or so avocados that tree produces if we tried.

I made a guacamole this afternoon with cilantro, jalapeños, lemon juice, and a delicious red tomato all from our garden.

The fruit and veg growing in the garden that we can eat now are pecans, lemons, tangerines, avocados, custard apples, oranges, raspberries, carrots, green beans, beet root, turnips, broccoli, lettuce, tomato, small yellow tomatoes, egg plant, green pepper, celery and leeks….plus, all your fresh herbs.

What’s not in season yet but are coming are artichokes, some other kind of berries (young?), strawberries, grapes, pineapples, papayas, bananas, plums, pears, peaches, apples, Jerusalem apples(?), the black skin avocados, mangos, lichis, guavas, cucumber, peas, broad beans, potatoes, onions, and some other things I don’t even know.

When the leeks came in, we had a lot of potato leek soup. When the beans were ready, Miles helped pick them, climbing in among the vines that were tied up and had grown 6 feet high. The beans were as long as my hand and purple but turned green when they were cooked. We put them in everything: stir fries, soups, pastas, even lasagna.

I say we, but Tari is the star cook. Just like Fe, she professed to not know how to cook. I think I must be a real inspiration to these women! We also have great cookbooks, and I dare say Tari is even more proactive than Fe when it comes to finding recipes on her own and trying them out on us. There are so many ingredients all around us to work with here. She made walnut carrot bread the other day.

Oh, and we have three chickens that produce basically one egg a day each which has meant we haven’t had to buy eggs since we moved here. They have a chicken coop and a fenced in little chicken yard that is in a larger fenced in area where we have a compost, a shed with bags of fertilizer (i.e. manure), and a few more beds of lettuce or something. That’s on one corner of the back yard. In the opposite corner are apartments where Herbert, the gardener, lives with his wife and child, Panache, who’s 3, and where Tari lives with her son, Shepard, who’s 5, and Tari’s cousin Fadia who is her helper.


(Side note: Fadia’s name was Vaida until we met her. Eliza kept calling her Fadia, which is more of an Arabic sounding name, and now Vaida goes by Fadia to everyone now because she likes how it sounds. Names here are funny. SOme people have traditional Shona names like Tenday or Tarisai. Other people have English names like Lovemore, Nomore and Nevermore. I'll have to get a comprehensive list together for another blog. You can just imagine those women in labor shouting No More!!!)

Pawpaws (papayas?)

Green Beans

Broccoli
Back garden

Lettuce, celery, tomatoes, berries, herbs (garden by house)

New House

This is it:

Again, I feel the need to qualify this blog with a fact that many, many houses in Harare have huge gardens like this and swimming pools, etc. It did take us 4 months to find this place because we had trouble finding a house that met most of our criteria: was not too far from the school, had a borehole (because city water isn't dependable), electricity most of the time (again power cuts are a serious problem in some areas more than others), room for guests, no serious renovation needs, etc.

This house – the Liemba Close house – is a lot homier than the last one, and we're loving it. It’s cozy, more manageable. It feels better suited for a family with small kids. Not so big they get lost. Not so small you feel you can’t carve out public vs. private spaces. I am thrilled to get to work on finally making a home for us.

Moving down the road was a completely different animal than moving across the world: a few days of loosely packing boxes, a few days of schlepping, one big push with a truck and some extra guys. Having a housekeeper at House A (Tari) and another housekeeper at House B (Pauline who worked for the last family for 12 years) to help with packing and unpacking and dusting and cleaning out refrigerators, etc. also made life a lot less stressful.

We had a few projects to oversee during the transition:
- The razing and reconstruction of the “Wendy house” – kids’ playhouse

- Finding a second-hand, in-ground trampoline and getting it installed...this is David's favorite project... (view from master bedroom window)

- Fencing in the pool and installing the swing set
- Retiling the bathroom
- Pulling up carpet and refinishing parquet floors in the master bedroom
- Repairing the refrigerator and washing machine
- Major pruning: pulling up or cutting back a lot of trees and bushes (oh, that’s not a hill…it’s actually a tree and some shrubs covered in vines)

I'll just say here that I will have to devote another blog to the garden. We have around 20 fruit trees and at least 20 different veggies, not to mention, I swear, about a hundred varieties of plant life. It was a project of the retired Hannaford couple who lived here for 15 years before us. (Very importantly, we employ their gardener now!)

Also, other blogs to come will feature the enormous project (and pleasure!) of furnishing the house which will preoccupy me full-time until we leave for the States June 18.

View from veranda (seen in first photo) of pecan tree

Under the pecan tree

View of house from behind pecan tree and on the tennis court:

Tennis anyone? (it's clay!)

Backyard jungle gym circa 1985