For the Love of Food

Growing up in Taiwan, one of my all-time favorite things to do is going to the night market with my dad.  We put on our sandals and shorts, and head out some time between dinner and bed time.  My mother is not in favor of the night market, because “everything is unsanitary” there.  In my little mind, dad = fun, mom = sanitation.  (That is not totally true.  That was just my impression when I was little.  Don’t worry, Mom, I think you are fun too.)

The night market is a truly magical place.  Before you even see the market, you smell the fried stinky tofu and see the smoke of roasted corn.  Despite the dinner you had a few hours ago, you start salivating.  Then as you walk closer to the entrance of the market, you see bright lights and colorful merchandise displayed all the way down a busy corridor.  As you walk through the corridor, you also find stands where you can play a marble game.  Or you can scoop small tiny fish with a flimsy net to take home.

The night market is a combination of sight, sound, smell, and taste.  It makes use of all your senses and you want to stay there all night, drinking everything in.

My dad and I spend the most time in the food section of the market.  The food stands sell anything from steamed pig blood rice cakes dipped in crushed peanuts and cilantro, to noodles in rich broth paired with thinly sliced shark meat drizzled with a tangy sauce.  Sometimes we get fried oysters cooked in a corn starch sauce and eggs until everything turns into one flat pancake.  In the summer, we get shaved ice with various toppings like sweet beans or jello drizzled with condensed milk.  My favorite is deep fried stinky tofu served with Taiwanese style preserved cabbage.  Oh it smells so bad but tastes so good.

Sometimes we wander around the night market and come upon things we have not seen before.  My dad is never shy about asking the vendor what they are selling.  His interest in food runs deep in his blood.  He would strike up conversations with vendors about the food, and more often than not we end up trying whatever he asked about. 

I also remember my dad peddling my aunt’s bicycle when we visit my mom’s family in Ping Dong, with me sitting on the cargo rack in the back and legs dangling on either side of the back wheel.  We would ride through small roads with farmland all around us.  He would always stop and ask what the farmers are harvesting, and whether we could buy whatever they are pulling out of the ground.  One time we came across some farmers harvesting soy beans, and they ended up giving my dad a big bundle of the plant for free.  I held onto the bundle while sitting on the cargo rack, and it made my arms and legs itch for hours afterwards.

My mom always says that every time my dad and I go out, we always come home with food (or books, but that’s a story for another day).  It’s true.

All this early childhood “programming” stayed with me.  I’m curious about food, and I’m willing to try anything.  To me, it’s what makes life interesting.  Without variety and new things, I think my taste buds would shrivel up and die.  And luckily for me, Cliff has a similar philosophy about food.  Our TV at home stays on the Food Network all year round, and we get excited about our collection of spices.

Friday last week was Cliff’s first full day in Maun.  We got up early this morning for a stroll from Jump Street to the tarred road, and caught a taxi to Old Mall.  The Old Mall has hundreds of small stands and lean-to’s that are made up of some basic posts and corrugated tin roofs.  Each stand has a folding table to display the goods, and a plastic chair for the vendor to sit on.  Merchandise sometimes hang from screws in the tin roof, or spills over to buckets in front of the folding table.

We got to Old Mall before 9 am, and only half the vendors have their stands set up that early.  We walked around Old Mall checking out the stands at a leisurely pace.  This is the official start of our vacation together.

I spotted a little stand with pots and pans lined up on a table, and reckoned it was food.  My dad has trained me to look for food in a crowded place like a hawk.  Cliff and I walked over to ask what the lady sold.  She showed us a variety of teas and coffees, but I kept my eyes on her lidded pots and pans.  Ha, jackpot!  She sold my two favorite things in Botswana—seswwa and fat cake! 

Seswwa is beef boiled in water and salt for a long period of time, mashed with a fork or spoon, with oil and fried onions added to it.  I never knew that over cooked beef can taste this good.

Fat cake is flour, salt, sugar, oil formed into a ball of dough, deep fried in oil.  It’s like a cross between a homemade donut and Chinese donut.  It’s often eaten as a snack with tea.  The ladies at WAR introduced me to fat cake, and I end up eating one everyday with my tea as breakfast.

We got a little Styrofoam plate of seswwa and a fat cake, and stood in front of the stand eating it with our hands.  Most people eat with their hands here (unless they are in a restaurant or a more formal setting).  It is quite liberating, I must say.  Cliff has listened to me talk about seswwa and fat cake for a few weeks now, so he was quite excited to try them.

We had our fill and walked around some more.  We went to run some errands like sending postcards and uploading pictures at an internet café.  Then we check out some of fresh fruit and vegetable stands in the Old Mall.  We left Old Mall loaded with some incredibly fresh produce.  Tonight’s dinner will be rape leaves with onions and tomatoes, seswwa, and yellow patty pan pasta.

Cooking with a gas stove when Jump Street had no power for 3 days:

 

My groceries:

My first Setswana meal:

Fat cake!

Old Mall:

Fat cake and seswwa:

Stella goes with anything:

Almost there

This posting is more of a logistical update.

It is my second last day at WAR today.  The plan is to have a meeting with the Coordinator and the Finance Officer to go over the finance policy.  The meeting will serve as the training session for management to understand the policy.  The policy I drafted has some things that WAR already does, and some new items that will help them segregate some financial duties and allocate responsibilities to the right task owner.

I will also be spending some time with the Finance Officer today about the errors I found in the donor report so far.  This is a big job that may take another volunteer to finish reconciling.

Tomorrow (Friday), I will come to work and wrap things up.  Cliff will be flying in at lunch time (yay!!).  I’ll pick him up at the airport and bring him to WAR.  It just happened that the last Friday of every month is a potluk lunch to celebrate birthdays and departures, so Cliff will join us for the potluk and meet everyone here.  That would take up most of the afternoon.

After that, here’s a brief outline of our travel plans:

June 27: Official start of our vacation.  Relax, show Cliff around Maun.

June 28-July 1: Okavango Delta boat trip.

July 2: I fly to Gaborone to meet the WUSC coordinator for my final debriefing.

July 3: Cliff flies from Maun, Botswana to Windhoek, Namibia.  I fly from Gaborone, Botswana to Windhoek to meet up with Cliff.  Pick up our rental truck.

July 4-13: Road trip in Namibia, visiting Sossuvlei, Seriem canyon, skeleton coast, Damaraland desert, and Etosha National Park.

July 13: Return rental car.  Fly from Windhoek, Namibia to Johannesburg, South Africa.  Stay in Jo’burg for the day.

July 14: From Jo’burg, Cliff flies home to Vancouver (via Amsterdam), and I fly to Taiwan (via Hong Kong).

July 15-17: I visit family in Taiwan.

July 18: I fly home to Vancouver.

For this 7-week trip, I have started in Vancouver, flew east to London, then south to Africa, then I will fly northeast to Taiwan, then east to Vancouver.  That makes a complete circle around the world!

I will make a few more postings in the next week or so.  But if I don’t respond to your e-mail or blog comments timely, it could be because there’s no internet connection where we are (eg. Okavango Delta).  

I Think I'll Go Eat Worms

"Nobody loves me, everybody hates me,

I think I'll go eat worms.

Big fat juicy worms,

Itty bitty squeensy worms,

look at them wiggle and squirm.

Chop off the head, squeeze out the juice,

and throw the tails away.

Nobody knows that I survive,

on worms three times a day."--Nursery Rhyme

I am a big believer in trying local foods when you travel.  In Peru, I ate a guinea pig.  So in Botswana, I must worms.

The mopane worms eat the leaves of mopane trees.  These trees are all over Maun, so there's an abundance of mopane worms in the area.  They are not in season right now, so I've only seen them dried, stuffed in little clear plastic bags, sold by ladies in the Old Mall.

These worms are quite thick.  When they are dead and dried, they are still the size of my thumb.  They are boiled in water until softened, and fried with onions and tomatoes.  I bought a serving of it today at the local restaurant.  It took a lot of courage to pick up a worm and put it in my mouth.

My co-workers cheered and clapped as I chewed and swallowed the mopane.  The texture and taste are not so bad.  I would describe it as reconstituted dried meat cooked with onions and tomatoes.

Hey, let me know if you want me to bring you a little bag of 'em mopane worms!

Stop and Stare: Do you see what I see?

"Stop and stare.  I think I'm moving but I go nowhere...do you see what I see?"--OneRepublic

More than a decade ago, I started volunteering at the children’s class at church.  I would teach the kids songs, do crafts with them, and tell Bible stories.  They are all in the 2- and 3-year-old age group.

Vancouver being very multicultural, I always had a good racial mix of children in my class.  For a while, I had a beautiful little black girl in my class.  Her skin was deeply and richly dark. 

One day, the little black girl came in to class and she was sobbing, because she fell and cut her arm in the parking lot.  As I tended to her wound, I remember my quiet surprise of seeing her pink flesh underneath the dark skin.

When I caught myself with that thought, I was ashamed of thinking it.  Of course her flesh in pink!  Have I somehow thought she was different because of her skin color?

I’ve been in Maun for 2 weeks now.  Every time I walk down the road, or wander the isles of a grocery store, the local people stare at me as if I have 3 eyes and 2 heads.  It’s just a curious stare, so I’ve always just greeted them, and they always smile and say hello back.

As I walked along the river yesterday, everybody stared at me until I walked past him or her.  I was in a foul mood, so the staring finally annoyed me yesterday.  It made me want to say, “I’m the same color as you underneath too!”

We choose how to interpret what we see with our eyes.  Throughout history, we have used that interpretation to impose our wills on each other, or thought of ourselves better or worse than someone else because of it.  How often do we stop and question whether our interpretation reflects the truth?

 

Walking along the Thamalakane River

This morning, I left Jump Street at 7 am, and walked along the Thamalakane River that flows lazily through Maun.  The sun was just rising over the trees along the river at that time, turning everything into an orange glow.

I had been looking forward to stretching my legs this weekend.  Normally on Tuesdays and Thursdays back home, my BFF and I go for walks at Stanley Park after work.  I sorely miss those walks along the seawall, uninterrupted by traffic.

The walk along the Thamalakane River in the cool morning air was so pleasant.  The path was well worn by foot traffic and tire tracks.  Cows and donkeys grazed along the path, and hundreds of birds chirped and chased each other.  I took a detour into the educational park, but only saw some impalas. 

Then I walked into town to wander around taking pictures.  Two policemen came up and said I shouldn’t be taking pictures of buildings without proper authorization.  I had this image in my head that I was going to be thrown in jail in Botswana.  I chatted with them and they eventually left me alone.

Everything in the Old Mall fascinated me.  Local people set up little stands selling everything from candies to telephone services.  I looked curiously at everything, and all the vendors all looked at me with curiosity.  I greeted people with “dumela”, and that always make them looked surprised that I said hello in their language.  They always turn to each other and either giggle or say something in Setswana with a big smile.

I wandered over to a table covered by this leafy green plant in bundles.  I asked what it was and bought a batch of rape leaves for 5 Pula.  The lady told me to cook it with some tomatoes, oil and salt.  The rape leaves became a part of my dinner later and they were delicious!

By the time I walked back to the lodge, I had been walking for 3 hours.  I occupied the rest of the warm day indulging in reading a riveting book (The Book of Negroes).  It always blows my mind how humans can be so cruel to each other.

In the early evening, I walked back down to the bank of the river to stretch my stiff legs.  Two very friendly young men were fishing and I chatted with them.  They let me take pictures of them, and I shared my trail mix.

Here come more random thoughts completely unrelated to the walk along the river.  On the walk back to the lodge, I thought about the difference between my visit to Tanzania 8 months ago and Botswana.  In Tanzania, our activities consisted of climbing Kilimanjaro supported by porters we rarely talked to, and a safari drive with a guide who spoke perfect English.  We were surrounded by Canadians the whole time.  I never had to cook a meal for myself or figure out where supplied came from.  I was spoiled rotten, and no wonder I felt so at ease and so in love with the country.  It was probably more like a teenager’s crush.

This last week spent in Maun gave me many opportunities to live like, or close to, that of a local person.  Aside from my accommodation in a lodge, my day-to-day life is not so different from others in the WAR office.  I had to be at work on time, abide by the office rules, get my own groceries, cook most of my meals, and walk everywhere if I wanted to save the taxi fare.  It certainly doesn’t make me love this continent any less.  It just made me more aware of the reality that people live through everyday.  Being this close to the Okavango Delta—a world-renowned safari destination—most residents of Maun cannot afford to go visit the Delta.  While the country boasted rich with its diamonds, 33% of the pregnant women are HIV positive.

I don’t have any profound conclusions of these thoughts.  I am just grateful for the opportunity to learn about Botswana in more depth than I did with Tanzania.  I am also very glad that I’m doing a tiny bit more here than just spending money as a tourist.  At the end of the day, I think I will still walk away with more gained than given.

Sun rising over the Thamalakane River:

A very nice house along the river:

A young man fishing: 

A poler pushing his boat across the river:

The revolving door at the educational park:

Animals along the river:

Goats around a giant termite hill:

Interesting Things about Maun

This posting is a list of random things I found interesting about Botswana, but some may only apply to Maun rather than Botswana as a whole.

 

Donkeys

There are donkeys roaming the streets of Maun everywhere.  They are not tagged, and have no saddles.  Apparently they are branded or marked somehow, but I haven’t gotten close enough to find such evidence.  They just meander around the streets, eating garbage, taking dumps, and blocking traffic.  

The donkeys are used to pull heavy carts or plow the fields, but these carts or fields are outside of Maun.  The donkeys walk into town on their own and roam the streets.  Apparently the owners let the donkeys forage for their own food.  When the owners need a donkey to pull a cart, they walk all over town looking for their donkey.

You can buy a donkey for about C$50 to $80.  A lot of office employees would own donkeys but allow their farming family members to use their donkeys.

Traffic swerves around a donkey crossing the street:

 

Donkeys hanging out in town:

Driving

Vehicles travel on the left side of the road in Botswana.  It’s similar to most countries in Africa.  Speed limits serve as guidelines but not reinforced.  Pedestrians do not have the right of way.

 

No bicycles

There are no bicycles anywhere.  I initially thought I could get a bike and ride to/from work.  But nobody here rides a bicycle!  They either walk, or take a combi or a taxi.

 

Dogs

There are lots of dogs wandering around, and they are all skinny.  It’s hard to tell if they are pets or strays.  I haven’t seen one with a collar on.

Dogs scouring the garbage for food:

 

Milk

In the supermarkets, there are shelves full of "long life milk" in tetra packs that does not require refrigeration.   I find that disturbing.  What kind of milk can just sit on the shelf for 2 years?

Fresh milk is available in the refrigeration area.  But there is only one type—full cream milk.  I have not been able to find skim milk.

Sour milk is very popular.  From what I’ve heard, you just let good milk sit long enough and it turns into sour milk.  In my discussions with someone, they insisted that letting milk go sour makes it taste better.  She was appalled that I would throw out milk that has gone sour because it is a waste of perfectly good sour milk.

Long life milk at the supermarket:

 

Cell Phones

Not many people use land lines.  Everyone has a cell phone with prepaid minutes.  To buy additional airtime for cell phones, you can buy a prepaid card with a PIN you enter.  

Or, you can just walk up to someone wearing a cell phone company's bib, hand them some cash, give them your cell phone number, and they enter some codes on their cell phone, and your airtime is refilled right on the spot.  You get a text message confirming that your airtime has been refilled by $x that you just gave the person.

Hair Extensions

You can get hair extensions done for about C$15 flat fee.  They do not charge by the hour like in Canada.  You only have to get it re-done once every 2 or 3 months. 

A typical hut for barbers:

Foreigners

Regardless of your skin color, foreigners are assumed to be rich.  Most of the hotels, charter airlines and safari companies are owned by Caucasians.  I have not seen a single Chinese person here in Maun, but I hear that Chinese people own a lot of the small shops in Gaborone.

As a Chinese person, the locals still refer to me as “white”.  When I tell them I’m not white, they just dismiss my comments.

Real Estate

To rent a 2-bedroom house, the cost is roughly C$170 a month.

A plot of land goes for 5,000 Pula, which is just under C$850.  To build a 2-bedroom house with all the labor and material is about C$5,000. 

If you want to be fancy, you can spend C$8,000 and buy a very high end home.  Or you could splurge on a mansion with style for C$15,000.

 

Time

For 2:30 pm, nobody says “two-thirty”.  They say “half two”.

 

Cattle

Cattles are prized possessions.  The more cattles you own, the more you are respected as a rich person.  Anyone can own cattle and hire a head boy to raise the herd at the cattle post.  The cattle post are generally a few hundred kilometers out of town where the pasture is.  You can pay the head boy per month (about C$80/month) and buy them food.  Or, you can strike a deal with him to work for no pay, but each year you give him one animal from the herd.  The latter generally works better, as you are essentially giving company shares to an employee to work harder.

One of the ladies in the WAR office owns 8 cows.  Another lady owns 12 goats.  The lady with 8 cows is considered well-off.  She told me I could join her wealth by purchasing a cow, and she promised to send me pictures of my cow on FaceBook.

People love buying cows because they reproduce.  But bulls cost more to buy.  You would generally buy a cow for about 1,500 Pula, and sell them once they are fattened up at about 4,500 to 5,000 Pula.

For holidays, some people take their family to the cattle post.  They would slaughter a cow or goat, and feast on the meat during the holidays.  The cattle post can act much like a vacation home for familied.

If someone is caught for stealing cattle, they can be sent to jail for a long time as a severe punishment for this cattle-loving country.

 

 

Dream jobs

Dream Job #1:

When I was 5 years old, I loved hanging out on the back balcony of our apartment in Taiwan.  We were on the 3rd floor, and I felt like a spy peaking over the balcony ledge, watching everything below me go by.

The empty lot behind our building eventually was bought out by a developer, and soon some big machines showed up to dig a very big hole in the ground.  I suspected the hole was for the mafia to bury dead bodies, but I over heard my parents talking about a new apartment complex being built.

Construction workers poured in to build the giant building.  I went on the balcony daily to check on their progress.  I would also call period meetings with my 3-year-old brother to discuss how the project is going.

I noticed that most of the construction workers were men.  They carried heavy bags of concrete mixes and long pieces of steel material across the site.  I thought they were the strongest men in the world and I respected them.  They wore ball caps and short sleeve t-shirts.  One day when I was checking on their progress, I noticed a woman amongst the workers.  She wore a big straw hat and a long sleeve shirt to shield her from the sun.  She was carrying heavy bags of concrete alongside the men.  That impressed me greatly!  She is as strong as the men!

My mother always taught me that jobs that require heavy lifting or involving dirt belong to men.  But this lady in the construction site didn't follow my mother's rules.

Suddenly, I realized my calling.  I want to be a construction worker!  I want to be strong like that lady in the construction site, and work with my buddies. 

Excited, I ran to my mother and told her that I want to be a construction worker when I grow up.  My mother didn't approve because construction work belonged to a group of people she referred to as uneducated men.  I pleaded with her that there's a lady in the construction site behind our building.  We couldn't come to an agreement that I'll have a bright future as a construction worker. 

Dream Job #2:

Fast forward 2 years.  I was 7 years old.  My father acquired our first car.  It was a baby blue Ford Laser hatchback.  It was a very exciting time.

Prior to this car, we have always used borrowed cars for transportation when needed.  Now we have our own!  In the borrowed cars, my mother always said we had to keep it clean because it was not ours, so no eating crackers in the back seat.  So I'm assuming we will now be allowed to make a mess because this is our own car.

"Here, Angela, spread these crumbs on the seat, and on the floor!  You can be messy in our own car!  While you're at it, throw some crumbs in your hair too."

That never happened.

The borrowed cars were always automatic.  But this Ford Laser is a 5-speed car.  I was fascinated by the gear shifting while my father is driving.  I thought it required a lot of intricate movements of all four appendages, while keeping one's eyes on the road.  I figured my father was the smartest man in the world, because he can pilot such a complex machine with ease while talking to my mother at the same time.  I sat on the hump in the middle of the back seat, staring at the gear box, waiting for the next shift to happen.

Sometimes I get to sit in the front passenger seat if my mother agrees to take the back seat.  Then one day, my dad said to me, "How would you like to do the shifting for me while I drive?"

I couldn't believe my luck!  Me?  I get to do the shifting?  I would love that!  I already knew that the inscribed numbers on the shift nob corresponded to the gear.  But I was too young to understand what shifting really meant.  So my father would tell me when to shift.  When he was pressing down on the clutch, he would say, "2nd gear!", "3rd gear", "4th gear", "back to 3rd gear!".  I shifted from the passenger seat, using my left hand.  It was music to my ears to hear the engine change gear each time I shifted the stick.  I was playing an important part of this complex machine operation. 

I just graduated from a crumb-spreading passenger to a co-pilot.  I was shifting gear.  Hey, I may as well be driving this thing, and I was only 7!  None of my friends believed me when I told them I was driving on my own.  But do they know about driving anyway?  I was convinced that I was gifted.

One day during an outing, I was shifting gear for my father.  A light bulb went off in my head.  I should do this for a living when I grow up.  What better way to show off my talent then to do this all day long, and be a taxi driver!  Oh yes, this is better than being a construction worker!  I was so sure my mother would like this.

I can just imagine my mother greeting a neighbor, "Hi, this is my daughter.  She is a very talented taxi driver.  Here, Angela, show Mrs. Lu how you shift that gear so flawlessly."

I shared my dream job description with my mother.  Surprisingly, she wasn't pleased.

Dream Job #3:

Somewhere along the line, I figured that I wanted to save the world.  I wanted to help.  I had no idea what I’ll do, but I wanted to do something good. 

Then we moved to Canada, and I couldn't speak English.  It took so long to look up all the words in the dictionary; it was impossible for me to have a normal conversation.  I worked harder than ever just to get an average grade in school.  I didn’t get into a university because of my grades, so I went to a local college and took repeated courses until I improved my grade point average to get into a university.

By the time I finished my degree, I was battered and bruised.  I have long forgotten any dream jobs I’ve ever had.  Just getting a job would be good enough.  I got a job, got laid off, and got another job.  I never dreamed of being an accountant.  After all, I’ve never seen a super hero with a hidden identify as an accountant.  There are movies about doctors, lawyers, fire fighters, but no accountants. 

Today, as I sit here at the airport, waiting for my flight to Botswana, I realized that I have my dream job.  I work with some of the most brilliant minds I know.  The opportunities are abundant.  And I have options like this one—taking on an assignment to help a non-profit organization in a world with high HIV population.  It blows my mind.

Be warned that you will get more random thoughts posts like this one.  I have lots of random thoughts.