A birthday Meal

The simple things in Dakar are not always so simple. Take cooking. Today is Jon's birthday and he loves mexican food. It's been awhile since we've had basic tacos, and I think I can safely say, it will be awhile more. But I wanted to make him something...something like mexican food.

First step, tortillas. There are no tortillas in Dakar. Homemade tortillas would be a simple fix, right? So I found a bunch of recipes that use lard, and resolved to replace the lard with butter. I'm getting ready to start mixing the tortillas and I realize I left our baking powder at the last apartment we were living in. And unfortunately, its a holiday today, so we won't be going to the store. (more on that later). So now, I'll just have to make the tortillas without the baking powder. I'm not sure how this will turn out, but I'm just hoping they work well enough to wrap whatever it is that I manage to make for filling.

At the store yesterday I found green peppers, onion, and chicken. Ahh chicken fajitas, right? There's no sour cream or avocados, so these will be VERY simple fajitas, but hey it's something, right?

Cheese. This one should be simple, but have you ever tried emmentel in burritos? its pretty awful. I opted for the fake, orange, american cheese slices. I will cut them up and hopefully they will approximate jack cheese.

Salsa. There's no salsa, but we've got tomatoes and onions. Maybe I'll add a little garlic? No cilantro, but it will have to do.

And finally, cake. The ingredients are hard to come by, but I found a chocolate cake mix that will have to do. Unfortunately, the apartment we just moved into doesn't have any oven safe baking dishes. I am resolved. I'm going to try cooking in a bowl. We'll see what happens.

I'll let you know how things turn out! Next week, Thanksgiving, where I hope to make use of my $14 celery!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful, sweet husband.

Homesick

I can't tell you how much I've begun to miss things. How it aches. How I am sometimes so sad and I just don't know if I can do this. It started in Paris, but here in Senegal this homesickness has grown. In the morning I lie in bed thinking about how I will make it through the day. Just one day at a time, I tell myself. One day at a time. I put on a brave face for my daughter because I want her to feel all the things I don't feel: settled and safe. But sometimes I crack. Lately I've been cracking a lot. I cry in front of her. I break down. Is it going to get easier?

Everyone I meet says it will--get easier that is.

I want to report to you all the things I've seen in Senegal. I want to tell you about this city I'm living in. But I can't; not yet. Hopefully, it will get easier. Until then, I will share with you what I can.

some images from Dakar

Paris Neighborhood

Stealing this from my sister's blog. I love this and love the band, but I hadn't seen this video for awhile and just realized it was filmed around the corner from where we've been living in Paris.

#93.3 - BON IVER - For Emma, Forever Ago
envoyé par lablogotheque. - Regardez la dernière sélection musicale.

Bread

Tartine Bread from 4SP Films on Vimeo.

I'm just learning how to make bread, but this is pretty inspiring.

This Moment

Have I told you that my girl is growing up? Yes, I realize this was bound to happen, but please forgive this lovestruck mama for being so amazed. Every day she is changing, becoming more of her self. She is both cautious and adventurous, trying anything new but doing it with her measured precision. She loves taking care of her animals and dolls, wrapping them up, kissing them, feeding them and lately taking them to the potty. These days you would often find maggie walking down the street with one of her dolls or animals stuffed in her shirt (yes, she is pregnant apparently) although usually the baby is her "sister". (Don't get any ideas, here. I'm not sure where this came from.)

Maggie loves people. You should see her on the metro when the train is stuffed and she's making eyes at all the people crowding around her, making them all smile, laugh. And at the playground she is always trying to make friends. A couple of weeks ago there was a quiet little boy sitting on the ledge near the sandbox. She sat down about six feet away and then proceeded to scoot all the way next to him. She looked over at him, trying to get him to look up at her. They played this game with their eyes and then maggie started kicking her legs, trying to get him to do the same. A few days later they were chasing pigeons together, laughing and shrieking. She watches other kids, studying them with amazing focus, but she also leads. She is confident, this girl.

Maggie likes to sing. She makes up songs, often in an almost operatic voice. She is the loud one, breaking through the discomfort of others and inviting the world to join in. I love it. She amazes me.

She tries all food. How did I get so lucky? She is a good eater.
She goes to museums and stops to say "Look!" and describes something she sees in a painting.
She likes being outside most of all, gathering and exploring.
She loves books, and has the patience to listen to a long story with no words.
And I see small things that don't mean much perhaps if you're not her mom, but the way she has started trying to color in the lines in her coloring book, and at the same time the freedom to make a mess when painting, splattering and splotching and everything else.

And aren't children amazing? The way they teach us adults to be in the moment? because although she misses her grandparents, and aunts and uncles and friends, she is here, and that is all there is to her. Ahhh. If I only I can keep learning this from her; stop the worrying, the missing, the stress. There is only this moment.

Castles, copper and country

Last weekend my parents, maggie, jon and I packed our bags for a weekend in the country. We took the train to Tours in Loire Valley, and from there, rented a car and drove 45 minutes to our hotel, just outside a little town called Amboise. I should pause here and admit that we did not drive immediately to Amboise. You see on the train I realized I had forgotten my knitting, and my mom, thank goodness, is even more of a fiberholic/knitter than I am. So she looked up Loire Valley and knitting on her phone and quickly found a yarn shop in downtown Tours. My dad grumbled and rolled his eyes but after a bit of pleading he agreed to stop.

We had just found a parking garage near the yarn shop when we encountered a small problem: we could not get the car to go into reverse. So after a couple minutes of dad trying, my mom got out of the backseat, and stepped into the front to try. By this point we had stopped a bit of traffic and the parking attendant had walked towards our car to see what was the matter. My mother was trying (unsuccessfully) to get the gear to shift to reverse, jerking and jostling the stick shift. the parking attendant was peering around at us. We were stuck and not sure if we were going to have the push the car to back it up, so we asked the attendant if he would please give it a try.

I wish you could see the type of communication that took place here. Jon asked in french if he would help us, while my mom and I signalled with large arm gestures for him to come towards us. Its not a surprise that he entered the car with some trepidation.

We must have seemed crazy. Some mix between National Lampoon vacation and Faulty Towers perhaps, but he stepped into the car of crazy strangers and swiftly shifted the gear to reverse. We laughed and thanked him, and he nodded quietly, retreating to his office.

Now I don't know how to drive a stick shift car, but apparently there is some secret to shifting to reverse in a citroen and we did not know it. Well we got out, had an interesting lunch, and then successfully found yarn in Boite a Laine.That would have been the end of our time in Tours but we were fated to have one more encounter with the parking attendant. You see we realized as we were returning to our car that we had lost our parking ticket, and so Jon had to go explain this to him, thus confirming in the parking attendants mind that we (and perhaps all americans) were crazy. Meanwhile we sat cracking up in the car, laughing almost to the point of tears. It was a good start to a trip.

It was a much needed get away from city life--fall colors, a chill in the air, horses, chateaus, bike rides through the country, a walk in the woods, and ahhh, a big (HOT!!) bathtub.