Fall

Now that I am once again living in the Northern Hemisphere I am reminded of something. 

I hate fall.

Hate is a strong word to use when describing a season. Usually the word hate is reserved for discussing something vile like terrorists or cancer. However I've hated fall for years. My hate dates back to the 80's when the back to school issue of Seventeen Magazine would arrive in the mail mid July ruining my fun summer and reminding what was to come. 

Fortunately for me for the past few years I've had the chance to skip fall entirely. That's one of the beauties of living in Joburg. Sure, there was a fall, sometime in May or June, but it lasted maybe a few hours. One day it was summer and the next it was winter. That was it. No messing around.

I can hear all of you now collectively asking "but how can you hate fall?" Don't you just love...
- cooler nights?
- pretty leaves?
- apples?
- pumpkins?

My answers...no, no, no and no. Okay I do like apples but let's be honest in this day and age we can all buy apples anytime and anywhere even if it's not fall. And while I have gone apple picking a few times I did not find it enjoyable at all because we paid one price to fill up a bag and then Mr. Deep spent the whole time voicing complaints that I was overfilling the bag and that it was going to break, which I think it actually did one year. Of course I like pumpkins, in a pie, but it doesn't need to be fall to enjoy pumpkin pie thanks to the canned pie filling that most Americans use. And on that note I do love Thanksgiving but only because I love eating, not because it's fall. 

I find fall very sad and I find Labor Day to be the crown jewel of the saddest holidays only to be challenged by New Years Day, which in the Northern Hemisphere is usually a cold day spent with a hangover. If you're lucky, in the Northern Hemisphere on New Years Day, the sun will peak through the darkness for 15 minutes to disturb the otherwise hazy twilight. Sure you can spend the day watching the Rose Bowl parade, perhaps the most boring TV known to man, while being jealous of the people in California who are there live and enjoying bright sun. You can also spend the day thinking about how fat you got over the holidays while simultaneously munching on left over candy canes and chocolate Santa's. You can spend the day pondering the fact that you have to go back to work tomorrow and won't see any kind of a break until Martin Luther King Day which thankfully is just a mere two weeks away although that two weeks will feel like a thousand years. Believe me.

Like New Years Day, Labor Day means the party is over. The minute September begins in places like New York and I am learning, Geneva, the weather changes. While Spring takes its slow sweet time to arrive in these places, fall seems to move in quickly overnight putting a chill in the air and leaves on the ground. The days become noticeably shorter and suddenly you can no longer wear shorts or flip flops even though you were wearing them with no problem just the week prior. 

What's strange is I dislike fall more than I dislike winter. Winter is what it is. Winter doesn't pretend to be pretty or nice. Winter doesn't play games. Winter is like hey I'm cold, I'm dark and I'm icy and I'm here for the duration people so settle in. Fall is a drawn out painful power play. Fall thinks that it can divert our attention by showing us pretty leaves so maybe we will forget what's to come. Well I don't "fall" for fall's games. 

What I'm really trying to say for the 9,999th time but using a different format is that I miss South Africa. I love that winter is summer and summer is winter in South Africa. I love that my birthday falls in the spring instead of the fall. I miss the fact that in South Africa it's still green, sunny and warm all winter long and that flowers can bloom in the winter. South Africans find the winter weather to be painful and horrible and they will complain about it endlessly but if you've experienced a real winter then you know it's not so bad. In fact, I think winter in South Africa is the same as summer in Canada. 

Yes, during the winter in South Africa it's cold inside and you may have to sit in your house wearing your winter coat, gloves and a hat while still freezing your ass off as cold air sneaks through the cracks in your poorly constructed concrete cave house that doesn't have heat or insulation. BUT you can go outside and stand in the sun and look at palm trees and realize it's 70/21 degrees and that it's really not so bad. And winter in South Africa is short, it's June, July and August and then suddenly, one day, it's summer again. 

Love on the Rocks

A glorious view from our room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. 

Last weekend was a three day holiday weekend here in South Africa. The holiday is called Day of Reconciliation and it's purpose is to celebrate and promote racial harmony and unity. The holiday was first celebrated in 1995 after the end of apartheid. 

Mr. Deep and I took a trip to Kwa Zulu Natal one of the South African provinces. Affectionately called K Zed N, remember a Z is called a Zed here, Kwa Zulu Natal is in the south eastern part of the country and has a lovely, long coastline along the Indian Ocean.  Last year, we visited Durban in K Zed N, but it was winter and it was rainy and cold. This time, however the weather was perfect. 

We stayed in Umhlanga Rocks, located north of Durban at a fancy schmancy hotel called the Beverly Hills. 

My suggestion is that you run, not walk to the Beverly Hills Hotel. It is luxurious and every room faces the ocean. They give you champagne when you check in. They give you more champagne at breakfast. While you are laying in the sun a guy comes by and asks you if you want your sunglasses cleaned. Then later another guy comes by and asks if you if want a popsicle. If you want, you can also get a massage right there overlooking the beach. 

The rocks in Umhlanga Rocks

It looks like a face

Rock close up

I mentioned in this post that Mr. Deep and I only recently became aware that you can sit around on vacation and do absolutely nothing. Why it took us so long to learn that lesson I am not sure. But nothing is precisely what we did for three days. Because we didn't DO anything this blog post is not going to be chock full of content. But we got some great photos and I wanted to share them. You might notice that most of the pics appear to be taken from the same exact vantage point. That's because I rarely got up from my chair. And what I found out is that if you just sit in the same spot for a while interesting things will actually happen right in front of you. 

I mentioned we didn't move much right? 

A wedding took place out on the pier. Luckily, I had my zoom lens and could remain comfortably seated and still get some photos.

 

You can probably guess who took the next two photos. 

Eventually, we did get up an explore a bit. But don't worry we quickly returned to the comfort of our chairs. 

It was Mr. Deep's idea that we snap this pic because there were so many shades of blue.

Thankful: Part Two

If you missed my last post, Thankful: Part One, you can view it here.

A raw turkey desperately in need of a heat source

At 3:30 p.m., two hours before I had to put my Thanksgiving turkey into the oven, the electricity went out. You may be wondering why. The simple answer is because this is Africa and things like this just happen sometimes. 

For the first 15 minutes, I sat quietly trying to ignore the situation telling myself that it would come back on any minute. When it didn't, I sent Mr. Deep a frantic SMS and then went outside to determine the answer to the big question...is the whole neighborhood out or just us? The hope of course, is that the whole neighborhood is out in which case you can assume that the problem is a known issue, being worked on and hopefully will be fixed soon.

I quickly learned that the whole neighborhood was out. Then, I had to decide to what to do about Thanksgiving dinner. 

I consulted Mr. Deep. Mr. Deep, you will remember, was not going to be present for the Thanksgiving dinner because of his office holiday party being held the same night, but luckily I was able to chat with him while he was still at his office and before his festivities began. 

Mr. Deep suggested I cook the turkey on our charcoal Weber braai (grill.) He tried to walk me through the process via SMS, explaining that I needed to light the coals, then move the coals all to one side to cook the turkey over indirect heat. He also said I'd have to rotate the turkey every so often and monitor the temperature. He suggested I have a second batch of coals ready to go in case I need a heat boost. All of this sounded very daunting. While Mr. Deep is always confident in his opinions, he did write, "keep in mind I have never tried this but what options do we have?" I could only imagine our bird, black and charred on the outside and raw on the inside. 

I considered scrapping Thanksgiving entirely, ordering pizza or taking my guests out for dinner but I really didn't want to disappoint everyone. Thanksgiving dinner is something you look forward to and I knew my visiting American friends were excited about it. Pizza, while great any other day of the year, is not an acceptable substitute. In addition to my American friends, I had also invited Gift. I had been sharing the details of the amazing traditional Thanksgiving meal with him to build up his excitement. He told me he had never eaten turkey before. So for the sake of my guests, I had to give Mr. Deep's idea a try. 

The turkey was not my only challenge. While we do have a gas stove (but not oven) I wasn't sure how I was going to heat up the potatoes, stuffing and green bean casserole on the stove while also making the gravy. But these issues would have to be addressed later, I had to make an attempt to get the turkey cooked. 

While I was appreciative of Mr. Deep's patient guidance and suggestions, I was also becoming extremely annoyed at him for having to go to his party. I was actually wishing we had a kid so that I could have lied and told Mr. Deep. "You have to come home right away, I think little Paulie has a broken arm." Then when he arrived I would have said, "oh he seems fine now, but while you're here can you braai this turkey?" I know Mr. Deep could have pulled it off. But Mr. Deep was leaving the office for his party and I was left with a bag of charcoal, a raw turkey and cold side dishes. 

I had planned to heat up my mashed potatoes in the slow cooker

In addition to being scared that this braai the turkey idea would fail miserably possibly resulting in a ruined meal or worse, salmonella, I also had a logistical challenge. I was supposed to pick my friends up at Lanseria Airport at 5:50 (they had flown to Cape Town for a few days) and then I had to pick Gift up at his house. I wasn't going to be home while the turkey was cooking to rotate it, monitor the temperature and light a second batch of coals. Mr. Deep suggested I get an Uber for Gift which would get me back home quickly after my airport pick up.  

So I frantically got in touch with Jonathan, our favorite Uber driver, and asked him if he could pick up Gift. Because I was in crisis, rather than just calmly requesting his assistance I told Jonathan about the whole drama. I told him that we'd pay him by EFT and I let him know generally where Gift lived. I then had to let Gift know that Jonathan would be fetching him. Once I got all of that straightened out, it was 4:30 and I had to proceed with this absurd plan and light the coals. I only had a 3/4 of a bag of charcoal, not enough for a second set of coals if needed. I also realized in a panic that since the refrigerator wasn't working the beer and wine would not be cold. It's one thing to tell your guests they aren't going to have turkey, but it's another thing to make them drink warm beer, so I decided I also needed to run out and get some ice. I quickly changed my clothes as by now, I was really running out of time. It was 5:00 and I had to leave by 5:30 at the latest to pick up my friends. 

I drove to the Spar grabbed three bags of ice and a bag of charcoal. As always happens when you are in a major rush, there was a delay as the person in front of me at the check out line had apparently had never used a credit card before. Finally I made it back home. I rushed in, slammed the bags ice onto the floor to break up the chunks and emptied all three bags into the sink. I threw some beer into the ice and ran outside. I moved the hot coals to one side, added a few pieces of firewood (at this point why the hell not) and put the grate on. I placed the stuffed turkey, in the pan and covered with foil, onto the grill. I put the lid on. The braai was really hot (400 F) and smoke was everywhere from the wood. Of course I also left the big sliding glass doors open so the house was now filled with smoke. I was not feeling confident in this plan but I had to hope for the best and leave the house to collect my friends. 

I grabbed my purse and shut off the kitchen lights. Wait? The kitchen lights were on. The power was back! I have no idea if it came back on while I was at the store and I was so busy dealing with the ice and the charcoal that I just didn't notice? Or maybe it had only come back on that very second. I ran outside and grabbed the turkey off the braai. I came back inside, threw the turkey in the oven, turned the oven on and ran out the door. 

Three hours later we enjoying our delicious turkey with all the trimmings.  

Success!

My pan shall forever serve as a reminder of what I endured.

Thankful: Part One

This year Thanksgiving was a little challenging. Maybe it was because I was short on time and saved the grocery shopping and start of the food prep until Wednesday afternoon. Or maybe I was feeling extra pressure because we had friends visiting from America and I wanted to be sure they didn't miss out on a proper holiday meal. Or maybe it was because of a few curve balls that South Africa threw at me along the way.

I had a good reason for getting a late start on my shopping. It was because of Starbucks. Within the past six months a new mall, called the Mall of Africa, opened nearby and it contains many nice stores and a Starbucks. I didn't visit the mall or Starbucks for the first few months they were open because I heard there were huge lines and massive traffic and I wanted to wait for the excitement to die down. But a friend had organized a get together at the mall for Wednesday morning and I wanted to go.

I had already purchased my turkey last week. I didn't want to miss out because turkeys are not always easy to find. I got the largest turkey in the store which equated to just over seven pounds.  Fortunately, Mr. Deep's holiday party was scheduled for Thanksgiving evening and he was not going to be home for dinner. Otherwise we likely would not have had enough turkey.  Meanwhile, I noticed during my Wednesday shopping trip that there were much larger turkeys now in stock but what was done was done and I have a small oven anyway. The turkey was so small that none of the websites I looked at provided cooking time for a turkey under ten pounds. Finally I found a Canadian website with a turkey cooking calculator and determined that stuffed my little turkey would take about 2 hours and 45 minutes to cook. Since we were going to eat our dinner in the evening, I would need to put my turkey into the oven at 5:30 p.m.

I had the turkey but I needed to get everything else. And that's where I ran into a few snafus during my Wednesday shop.  First, I couldn't find celery. I think all of the other Americans living in the area got a jump on me and snatched up all the celery. No big deal, I was able to find it at another store but instead of being able to buy a big bunch I had to buy the pre cut crudites type. Not a train smash as the South Africans would say.

I also planned to make green bean casserole. I am not really a fan but my friend mentioned it and I know some people feel Thanksgiving is not complete without it. So I bought a non Campbells brand of cream of mushroom soup thinking cream of mushroom is cream of mushroom and then quickly learned that this is not the case. This cream of mushroom was actually like soup you would get if you ordered cream of mushroom in a restaurant. It wasn't a gelatinous white substance that maintains the shape of the can after you pour it out. Instead it was brown and kind of watery which is honestly how cream of mushroom soup should be. At first, my casserole was kind of runny but luckily I cooked it a day in advance and it seemed to firm up overnight. 

Not surprisingly I also couldn't find the french fried onion rings that go on the top of the casserole but I was able to find a substitute...funyuns. If you don't know what funyuns are then you didn't eat lunch in an American school cafeteria in the 80's. They have the consistency of styrofoam and are sprinkled with an onion flavored seasoning. I bought them because I had no choice. AND I know I am not the only American in Joburg that went this route because I got the last bag of South Africa's version of funyuns that they had in the store! Side note as I write this I am munching down what remains of the bag of funyuns. Clearly I have lost all self control. 

The third challenge was the pie. In South Africa you can't find canned pumpkin or a pre-made pie shell and you definitely can't find a pre-made pumpkin pie. Because I'm too scared to make my own pie crust I decided to make a graham cracker crust instead. 

Just to go off on a tangent for a moment the reason I am too scared to make my own pie crust is because of my mom. I know every adult likes to blame his or her mom for everything but I rarely blame my mom for my problems. If you've been reading my blog you'll notice that I haven't blamed my mom in any of my posts over the course of almost two years and 140 posts, but my fear of making pie crust is definitely my mom's fault because she always told me it was very difficult and I never once saw her make her own. I think I had a good plan with the graham cracker crust but then I couldn't find graham crackers so instead I purchased ginger snaps and made a ginger snap crust. 

For the pumpkin filling I bought cut chunks of pumpkin and roasted them with coconut oil and sugar in the oven. I then immersion blended them into a puree. All was going well until I realized the pumpkin volume had reduced a lot during cooking and I needed another cup of pumpkin. I could have gone back to the store and repeated the whole process but instead I threw two bananas into the mix and blended it all together. I then proceeded as if I was using canned pumpkin adding eggs, evaporated milk, etc. By this time you can imagine that I was feeling pretty proud of myself for my extraordinary ability to find creative solutions to problems. 

The crust was looking good, the raw filling was looking and tasting good (I'm not scared to consume raw egg.) So I put the pie in the oven and got to work on another project, completing the South African census. Yes, somehow the South African version of the census tracked us down and I agreed to fill out a huge booklet of information. No one seemed to care that we aren't South African and there were no questions in the booklet about nationality. The census form contained a lot of interesting questions and was a strong reminder about the difficulties faced by many people in this country. Maybe I'll write a post about it in the future.

One of the census questions was "has any member of the household suffered from diarrhea in the past three months?" Because I wanted to make sure that I answered all questions as accurately as possible, I went upstairs to ask Mr. Deep if he had diarrhea at any time during the past three months. While we were discussing his answer, I remembered the pie and ran down the stairs to get it out of the oven. It was a little well done but nothing too severe that couldn't be camouflaged with whipped cream.   

Despite my late start and other issues everything was on track. Thanksgiving day I made the stuffing, the salad, and cut and peeled the potatoes. Amazingly I had time to spare and I sat down to relax and work on my blog until it was time to put the turkey into the oven. And then, at 3:30, the electricity went out. 

To be continued....Read Part 2 now. 

The Americans

As part of my Sr. Vice President of Household Operations duties I am in charge of all entertainment and social activities. You would think this would be easy but actually it can be challenging. Not only do I have to research fun things for us to do and manage all the logistics for these outings, but I have to strike the right balance so that we are not over or under scheduled. 

Being responsible for all things social also includes being in charge of making friends. In the time leading up to coming to South Africa and continuing when we first arrived, Mr. Deep reminded me numerous times that I "need to make us some friends." I think I've done well in that department. If Mr. Deep were to provide me with an annual performance evaluation, and honestly I hope he doesn't because I am not sure I want the feedback, I think I'd get a score of five (out of a possible five) in the friend making category. 

One way to easily meet new friends is to become involved with various organizations whose purpose is to bring people together. Groups like Meetup and Internations. We have participated in events with both but until yesterday we had never gone to any event organized by the American Society of South Africa (ASSA.) By the way, am I the only one who thinks ASSA is a funny abbreviation? 

We have met some Americans here who like to go to ASSA events and so finally last night we attended one. The event was a St. Patrick's Day happy hour at a pub in Sandton. Before I tell you about the event, I need to share that Mr. Deep and I had a challenging St. Patrick's Day. It started off with a fool's errand as we tried to rectify the situation with the cloned license plates. First, we went to the traffic registry office in Sandton. After waiting in the long line, Mr. Deep was told that they can't issue new plates there and we'd have to go to another office located in the Joburg CBD.  We were committed to getting this project handled so we headed to Joburg in rush hour traffic in the pouring rain. If that itself wasn't enough fun when we tried to find the building we were looking for we couldn't find it. We did see a building where the building we were looking for was supposed to be but it was all burned out and abandoned. So we threw in the towel and decided to just ignore any notices we receive going forward about unpaid tolls. That's what most South Africans do anyway.

The rain continued to come down heavily throughout the day and traveling back to Sandton during evening rush hour to drink green beer with Americans was not sounding all that fun and attractive. We forced ourselves to go and I'm glad we did because the happy hour was a lot of fun. We enjoyed spending time with our fellow country men and women. It is an interesting situation to be in a room full of people where the one and only thing that you all have in common is being American. Normally, when I speak to people here I try very hard to speak slowly and to enunciate properly. When I am not speaking I am listening carefully and concentrating very hard so that I can understand what others are saying. But at the happy hour, it was nice to just talk and to not feel self conscious about how I sound or worry about having to repeat myself a few times before being understood.

What did we all talk about? Mexican food of course. No, I'm not kidding. Both Mr. Deep and I got involved in conversations about Mexican food. I met a chef who recently moved here from California and is slowly introducing the taco to South Africa. Mr. Deep met a lady who likes to cook Mexican food and she told him where we can buy spices, tortillas and black beans. So yes, we celebrated St. Patrick's day in South Africa on a day when the weather felt like Ireland with a bunch of Americans and talked about Mexican food. Isn't that what makes America great?

A Christmas Story

Christmas Eve was a quiet and lazy day at our house. By afternoon, I had finished up all of my housework, beauty treatments and chores. Because I had no plans and it was a hot day (90F/32C), I spent the afternoon laying around doing nothing. Mr. Deep went to work for part of the day returning at about 1:30 p.m. at which time I was on the couch watching When Harry Met Sally. Sometime after the movie ended I was washing dishes and Mr. Deep yelled down from upstairs that the electricity had gone off. We checked the circuit breaker in the garage to see if it was tripped. It wasn't.

You may have noticed from reading this blog that the utilities often don't work perfectly here in South Africa. Even without load shedding, which we haven't had in a while, the power does sometimes just go off briefly in the neighborhood without explanation. Similarly, sometimes the water just doesn't work for a few hours. So the power going off is no need for panic. We usually just wait a little while and then it comes back on.

After a few hours when it didn't come back on, Mr. Deep went down to the guard gate to check to see if it was whole neighborhood that was out or just our house. He learned that it just our house that had no electricity. That is when we started to get a little nervous.

Mr. Deep called our new landlord, who is very responsive and reliable (the complete opposite of our previous landlord) to report the problem. She promptly called Eskom, the power company.

Our landlord called us back shortly to say that it appeared our old account (under the prior owner) had been shut down and that maybe that was the cause of the outage. The new landlord had set up a new account but hadn't yet received a bill. In South Africa utility accounts are set up by the home owner, not the tenant, and then the tenant pays the landlord who pays the utility company. 

By this time it was 5:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve, which is really the worst time to need any kind of important service from anyone, no matter where you live. But our landlord must have raised holy hell on the phone with Eskom because she told us that an Eskom technician would be out to our house within four to six hours. 

At this point, Mr. Deep and I were pretty jolly about the whole situation. So we wouldn't have electricity for a while, we were o.k. with it. We thought of all the reasons that it wasn't a big deal. First, we didn't have a houseful of relatives visiting like many people do during the holidays. Second, we don't full on celebrate Christmas and we have no kids so we did not have to face wrapping gifts or assembling little Junior's bike in the dark. Third, we have a camping fridge that we could plug into Mr. Deep's Jeep and run off the battery, so our food wouldn't spoil. Fourth, neither one of us relies on an iron lung to live (a positive in more ways that one) so having no electricity would not put us in harm's way.

We have many guards who work in our neighborhood, but our favorite is named Lunga (loon-ga.) He is just the nicest man and refers to me as "his very good friend" such as, "How are you today my very good friend?" Lunga came over to check on us as he knew something was wrong since Mr. Deep had visited the guard gate. He was worried about us and asked "but how will you wash?" But we assured him that we had water, just no electricity. 

In what seemed like a modernChristmas miracle, Eskom did send a technician. He arrived at about 7:00 p.m. He flipped the breaker in the electricity box (not sure of the technical name for this box but it is a large box located outside near the driveway that contains a meter and a breaker.) As soon as he flipped the breaker the power came back on. We were so happy! The technician drove away and within five minutes, the power went off again. It was such a short lived period that Mr. Deep called the guard gate to see if the technician had managed to leave the neighborhood but we must have just missed him. He was already gone. Mr. Deep called the landlord again and she said she would call Eskom again for us. She also, very nicely, offered that if we needed to go to stay in a hotel that she would pay for it. 

You might be wondering why as head of household operations Mr. Deep was handling all of this and I was busy doing nothing. That's because I am not in charge of bill paying or finances. And since originally we thought this problem had something to do with the Eskom account and the new owner, this issue was assigned under Mr. Deep's domain and once it was assigned he was doing such a good job of handling that it seemed silly to change project ownership.

Our landlord again reported the fault to Eskom and told us that if a technician was to return that evening, it would be before 10:00 p.m. as Eskom techs were knocking off work at 10:00 p.m.for the holiday. As an aside, people here love to use the phrase knocking off to describe the end of work. 

After our very short lived return of electricity, Mr. Deep and I were a lot less jolly. We began to lose hope that our power would come back on any time soon. And while it remained true that we did not need the electricity to run an iron lung, or to keep our food cold, we were beginning to really wish we had it so that we could run the air con being as our house was getting warmer and warmer by the minute.

You might think that because Mr. Deep and I moved to Africa or because we slept outside while lions roamed and roared nearby that we are very brave and very rugged. And we are, sort of. But when it comes to sleeping both Mr. Deep and I are obsessed with getting a good night sleep and sleeping comfortably. Yes, we like camping but not so much for the sleep quality and when sleeping in our own home we prefer sleep enabled by air con and lots of white noise. I am so obsessed with sleep quality and quantity that immediately when I wake up every morning I asses the length and quality of my sleep and then, based on that data, decide if I am able to have a good day (I am well rested) or a bad day (groggy and sleep deprived.) 

While we could have gone to a hotel as our landlord offered, we decided to stay in the house. First, we thought Eskom might come as late as 10:00 p.m. (not likely) and second, we had plans to be at our neighbor's house the next day at noon for Christmas lunch. That invite, which we were so excited about just a few days before, was now causing us to be prisoners in our own home. If we hadn't had the invite, we could have left the house for cooler pastures as no obligations would have kept us here. As a side note, I was beginning to get nervous about my potential inability to flat iron my hair before Christmas lunch. I really didn't want to show up to Christmas lunch as giant frizzy head.

10:00 p.m. came and went and Eskom didn't arrive (shocking I know) and so we tried to go to sleep. We opened up all the windows and doors even though it was still very warm outside. Remember, we have no screens in our windows or doors. I've never seen any screens in any window or door here in South Africa so I guess they don't exist. As soon as we lay on the bed Mr. Deep immediately said mosquitoes were buzzing in his ear. He tried using his iPod to drown them out which didn't work. He then tried using his iPod paired with his noise cancelling headphones. We sprayed ourselves with huge amounts of bug repellent. Mr. Deep tried sleeping in another room, I tried sleeping with the blanket wrapped around my ear like those pictures you used to see of someone who had mumps. I tried sleeping on the couch because I thought it might be cooler and less bug infested downstairs.  Needless to say we didn't sleep much and we both had and still have lots of mosquito bites which we wear as battle scars, evidence of our tough night at home. In addition to the bugs and being hot, I was missing the white noise that I usually get from my fan. Even though we live in a quiet neighborhood I learned that the fan drowns out a lot of noise such as very loud cats that seem to meow all night long, the rooster that lives across the street and starts crowing at 3:00 a.m. and the birds that make so much noise starting at about 4:00 a.m. every morning. I have not written about the birds in South Africa before, but trust me they are the largest and loudest birds known to humans and every morning begins with a symphony of screeching unlike anything I have ever heard before.

As I lay in bed, I tried to remind myself that millions of people in this country live in shacks and don't have air con or fans. I also know of some people who live in very nice and fancy homes here who don't have air con. I reminded myself that when I was a kid we didn't have air con in our house and somehow I survived. But clearly I have become soft over the years and I can't sleep well when I'm not completely comfortable. I am the princess of the Princess and the Pea. I am the princess of air con.

When we "woke up" we were cranky, we were hot, we were stiff and we were tired. At 7:30 our landlord called again to say that an electrician, Mike, was going to come over "just now." Just now is a phrase South Africans like to use meaning soon or within the next few hours. Mike had conducted the electrical inspection when the house was sold so he is familiar with us and our home. I am sure Mike was not thrilled to leave his Christmas morning festivities to have to deal with us. He arrived and tried to look at everything but Eskom had locked the electrical box outside. Yes, we could have cut the lock off but we would be fined for doing so. Lunga came by to check on us but he didn't have a key for the box either. So Mike told us to have the Eskom technician call him if needed to talk through the situation if and when a tech arrived.

At around 10:30 an Eskom tech arrived. He turned the power back on and told us that the problem could be one of two things. First, maybe the house was using more electricity than the breaker in the electric box was made to handle. Or second, the cable that runs from the electric box to the house could have been damaged by rain and might need to be replaced. He explained that this cable was the responsibility of the homeowner and not Eskom (of course) but that he could fix it on the side for us. We called Mike and he said he doubted the problem was the first issue, because we have never had any issues before, but he thought maybe it was the second, the cable. Luckily, this time the electricity seemed to be staying on. The Eskom guy kindly offered to leave the box unlocked for us (even though according to him it is illegal to do so which I'm pretty sure translates into give me some cash and I will leave the box unlocked for you.) With the box unlocked if the power did go off, we could at least have access to the breaker to turn it back on. Leaving the box unlocked would also allow Mike to return at some point to take a better look to try to figure out what was causing the problem. 

We were so happy to have the electricity (air con) back on that Mr. Deep tipped the guy $50 USD. For some reason neither of us had any rand on us and so American money was the best we could do. The guy had never seen a $50 bill from America before and he kept turning it over and over in his hands looking at it, not sure what to make of it. Mr. Deep assured him that the bank could covert it to a lot of rand for him.

Now it's Sunday and the the power has remained on for over 24 hours. We had a lovely Christmas lunch with our neighbors even though we were tired and covered in bug bites. Most importantly, my hair was very flat and smooth. The irony is we have a camping trip planned for next weekend so we will be celebrating New Years outside in the heat in a tent with mosquitoes. Should be interesting. 

Essentials that we needed access to we kept on ice in the sink. Apparently to us essentials are mayonnaise and beer.

Inside the camping fridge which we plugged into the Jeep.

The camping fridge

So you know I am not exaggerating 

Have no fear, Eskom is here!

Our beloved air con unit in our bedroom situated up high to rain coolness down upon us.

Preparing for lights out

Electricity box unlocked!

Full view of the electricity box

Karma

I don't believe in karma. I also don't believe in feng shui, the healing power of crystals or aromatherapy. I do believe in astrology a bit because I am a Virgo and if you know me you know I am such a Virgo but that's where my new age beliefs end and my practicality begins. Practicality by the way being a central Virgo trait.

I remember when I was a kid I read a Judy Blume book and the main character in the book used to write in her diary every evening and she would grade her day. She only had one A plus day and all the rest were just average and graded as B's and C's. I don't remember much else about the book or even the title.

I mention all of this because I had an A plus day today. It was so wonderful that it almost made me believe in karma.

My day began when Justice, who I wrote about in this post, surprised me by coming to work with Christine this morning. I have not seen Justice since his last day of work for us at the end of September but I have been chatting with him over whatsapp. About a month after he left us, Justice got a job! He is now working security at some type of estate or housing complex. I didn't help him to get the job but I was able to help him with a few things he needed once he had the job. He told me recently that he wanted to come by one day to say hello and I guess today was the day. I was excited to give him some Christmas gifts that I brought back for him from the U.S.A. First, was a Yankees cap which he loved and second were some seashells that I gathered for him on the beach in Florida. Give most people over the age of seven a gift of seashells that you picked up yourself from the beach and they will be like what the F$%& is this? But I knew that Justice would really like them. And when I gave them to him Christine said it perfectly. She said "Justice loves decorations." And as much as he loved the hat, he loved the shells and he spent time looking at each one and said how beautiful they were and I knew that he meant it. 

We talked for a while and then he began cleaning my windows. The American version of me would have tried to stop him, telling him it wasn't necessary and making a big fuss about how he didn't need to work for free or running to the ATM so I could pay him, but South African version of American me just let him do it because I know he wanted to repay me for some kindnesses and this was his way and to stop him or pay him would have been rude. When I got home this afternoon and he and Christine had already left so I sent him a note to thank him for my gorgeous and sparkling windows and he replied, "you deserve good things." 

Also today, I spent time with Gift.  I went to his house and met his sister and his brother in law for the first time. They were so nice to me. I think a lot of cynical relatives in this world might have been confused and wondered what my motives for being friends with Gift might be. Am I some kind of recruiter trying to bring him into my cult? Do I work for immigration? Am I a sad and lonely housewife with wild fantasies about younger African men? If they did wonder these things or had questions about me they didn't let on, instead they accepted me as being genuine and welcomed me into their home, giving me a piece of corn on the cob to eat (called mealies here) and chatting with me for an hour. At the end of our visit they told me I was welcome to come back any time to visit.

I brought Gift some clothes and shoes from the U.S.A. When I gave him these items he acted like those people we have all seen on the publishers clearing house commercials. He was happier than any grown up adult I have seen in a long, long while and possibly ever. Later, he wrote me a note saying he was "so much more than the word happy" and that I was his "first friend of white." And I replied to him much like Justice replied to me, and told him that he deserves nice things. 

Finally, at the end of the day and I saw our neighbor from across the street, Brenda, standing outside of her house. We hardly know our neighbors except to say hello or to chat briefly if we happen to be outside at the same time. I needed to talk to her today because I had a timely question concerning what, if anything, we should do for the guards at our estate for Christmas.  Mr. Deep had suggested I ask her for input. We chatted for a bit and she asked me if we were going to be here for Christmas and what our plans were. I said we were just going to stay home and braai (grill.) By the way Mr. Deep and I don't really celebrate Christmas and we have have spent many, many Christmas days just making dinner at home and hanging out. We also generally don't give each other birthday presents or celebrate any holidays (except Thanksgiving which only involves making dinner) so it's not like we would be sitting at home sobbing, missing the U.S. and feeling suicidal but she of course doesn't know that. So once she heard we had no real plans she invited us to come over for Christmas. The American version of me would have been horrified thinking this poor woman really doesn't want us to come over, she is just being nice and later she is going to have to apologize to her husband for speaking without thinking and tell him she invited us and he will say, "dammit Brenda, do you even know their names?" But the South African version of American me said, "great what time should we come over" and wondered (briefly) if this is what good karma feels like. 

Justice at our house wearing his new cap. And yes, it totally matched his jacket. 

Bark

You're probably tired of hearing about my jet lag. Believe me, no one is more tired of the topic than I am. But good news! This post is only minimally about jet lag. 

It's funny the kind of thoughts you have when you cannot sleep. For some reason last week when I was unable to sleep due to my jet lag (officially last mention of jet lag for a while), I became obsessed with the idea of making chocolate bark. 

I am not really sure how or why this idea popped into my head. I am not much of a baker or a maker of sweets and I have never made chocolate bark before, but for some reason all I could think about for a few nights in a row as I was laying awake was chocolate bark, chocolate bark, chocolate bark. Important questions about chocolate bark were swirling around in my brain at 2:00 a.m. Such as, what kind of chocolate would I use? What toppings would I put on? Would I marble in white chocolate? The urge to make chocolate bark was so great that if I had had the ingredients in my house, I would have gotten out of bed and immediately started making it.

So on Sunday, the day after the shebeen tour, I made chocolate bark. If you don't know, chocolate bark is melted chocolate cooled on a cookie sheet with various goodies sprinkled onto the still soft chocolate. When it hardens, the chocolate is broken up into uneven shards. The great thing about it is it's really a hard recipe to mess up. You aren't really making anything from scratch. You're just melting chocolate and smashing up toppings. 

I followed this recipe from Jamie Oliver. It was a helpful recipe as it gives instructions to ensure the chocolate melts easily and smoothly. Melting the chocolate is really the only part of bark making where you could make a mistake. 

Melting the milk chocolate.

One last thought about bark and then I'll get to the pictures. While chocolate bark seems like a holiday treat, what I loved about making it was that no oven is needed so it is also a good treat to make during hot weather. You just have to store it in the fridge!

This is the milk chocolate I used. And below is the dark chocolate. 

This dark chocolate turned out to be really, really dark. I am not sure how many people would like it. Maybe I should have mixed a bar of milk in with the dark bars? Or maybe I just think the sweeter, the better. 

As instructed by the recipe I purchased grease proof paper to cover the cookie sheet. It worked perfectly. No sticking.

It's crucial that you taste the chocolate prior to melting it. If it's poor quality you need to know. It may take more than one taste to be sure.
  
Preparing to smash candy canes into bits and dust.

Candy cane dust

Toppings starting from top of photo - crushed nuts, crushed pretzels, dried cranberries, cinnamon and sugar mixture, crushed candy canes. Below is the melted and spread dark chocolate just waiting for toppings.

Milk chocolate with toppings added. Below, the finished products.