This weekend, I visited Africa

You know, Africa. You saw it in National Geographic as a kid. Mud huts. Shelters of palm fronds, bare breasted women nursing babies…

You need to get out of Cotonou to see that.  So, accompanied my our Desk Officer for Benin and Togo, Ashley, I headed north to visit some Peace Corps volunteers.

Saturday’s trip was a little closer and a little more developed.  Kim, the Peace Corps volunteer there showed us her first project – organizing the women in the market as a cleaning crew to clean the marketspace and keep it more sanitary.  We arrived the day matching shirts for the crew were distributed and I think it was a good sign Kim got one. It shows they saw her as part of the team.

Sunday we headed out to an even more remote part of the country to visit Satin, the Peace Corps volunteer there. No photos, I forgot my camera. Satin’s working in an area where they don’t only not speak English, they don’t speak French, just a local language called Fon. She’s working with a local medical team on basic nutrition, hydration and cleanliness. She pointed out a plant that grows locally in the wild which is just full of nutrition and can be mixed with local foods. This was the area that’s like National Geographic. This is really Africa. Satin said she asked for a village far from any other Peace Corps volunteers, and who had never seen a Peace Corps volunteer before. She got it!

The Peace Corps volunteers live in housing that is luxurious by local standards, but quite basic by ours. Three rooms: a “public” room with table and chairs, a bedroom, and a room for cooking. There’s a latrine out back. Water must be boiled and filtered. Sometimes there’s electricity, but often there’s not. They’re doing great work, for almost no pay, in conditions what make poor areas of the US look like luxury.

A final unrelated note. On my way home from work today I decided to rush around a U-turn I need to make to get home. The moped caught some sand and skidded. It went down, along with the driver. Fortunately, neither was hurt seriously (I wasn’t hurt at all). The lesson – don’t hurry, you’ll get there!

Driving in Benin

As those of you who have been following know, I’ve been getting around Cotonou on my eGo electric moped.  But now, I have a car, so I need to think about driving in Benin.

Typical questions:

Do they drive on the left or right side of the road?  Yes!

How many cars and motorcycles can fit across on a four lane road?  Close to an infinite number!

Do the cars have to pass any kind of safety/emissions testing?  Are you kidding!

A bit on each.  The closest I have come to any problems driving my eGo to work has been leaving my driveway, looking in the “right” direction for any traffic, and not seeing any, almost running into a moto coming the wrong way down my side of the road.  It’s happened a few more times since then, although I look now.  The concept of not going the wrong way down a street is foreign here.

Any space available between cars is to be filled by motos and zemi (moto taxi) drivers.  I’ve actually gotten pretty used to this one, although I’m still a wimp compared to the locals at flying between stopped cars.

The motos all run on a mixture of gas and oil, and most spew blue smoke out the back.  I find this really annoying to deal with when I’m behind one on my zero emissions eGo.  Cars are the same, although in theory they’re burning pure gasoline.  No unleaded.  No emission controls.  No problem!

And now, Christmas in Benin:

My 8 foot snowman says hello to passing drivers on the way to the airport from my balcony.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Pictures from Frankfurt 2 – US Invasion!

There are many Starbucks and McDonalds (and Burger King, and KFC, and…) in Frankfurt.  These are two of them.

Pictures from Frankfurt 1 – Christmas Market

…when we last left our hero…

…he was headed down from the food court at Frankfurt airport to the gate to catch his flight to Paris, and onward to Cotonou.  WRONG, bratwurst breath!  He was on his way to find his flight was canceled, wait in line for one and a half hours to be told it was too late to get him on a flight to Paris which would connect to the one daily flight to Cotonou.  So, here I am in the Ibis hotel on the edge of Paris CDG airport, killing time until my flight this afternoon.

A final note on Frankfurt airport.  Don’t bother with the Mexican restaurant.  Other than that, I think Frankfurt has a superior airport, better than CDG and most I’ve seen in the US.  I think in general, European airports do it better than most US airports, though there are exceptions.  One thing I’m not happy with in Europe is hotels.  Things we’re used to getting free in the US at hotels (Internet service, etc.) cost at a European hotel.  No coffeemaker in the room.  Last night, as I was enjoying (to use the term loosely) my Air France paid for dinner in the hotel restaurant (a lousy buffet), they almost plotzed when I went to get a cup of tea from the buffet stand for getting tea and coffee.  “Only for Breakfast” the waitress screamed.  I said “Fine, I’ll pay for the tea.” E3.10 for a cup of hot water and a teabag!  Cash, I can’t charge it to my room.  A cup of tea in the machine near the elevators is E.65.

Thanks to the folks back in Cotonou who are covering for me today as I make my way back to Benin.  They all have their real jobs, in one case two, and they’re covering mine as well.  Thanks!

I continue to be impressed by the quality of the people I meet in the Foreign Service.  The folks who both attended and taught the training I took last week are top-notch.  Friendly, smart, open, helpful.  Our tax dollars are being well spent paying these folks their salaries.

More on the trip, Frankfurt, and photos when I get home.

Mein deutsch sind sehr schlecht!

Okay, I barely passed German in HS.  Since then I’ve learned a little Russian and Spanish for travel, and a lot of French for work, so I’ve forgotten most of the German I know.  Just enough to mix some in when I need to, with the odds a word of French or Russian will end up somewhere in the sentence.  Comprendé?

I’ve been in Frankfurt for the past week for training in small consular section management.  I’ll talk little about the course, more about the trip and the city.

This was the first time I left Cotonou by air since arriving, so I got to see how it worked.  The terminal is unairconditioned, there are too many people checking for papers too many times and someone needs to take the Disney World course on line management!  It didn’t help that everyone except me was shipping their worldly belongings as luggage, whereas I had one carry-on and my computer.  Still, we pushed back more or less on time, only to return to the gate because something wasn’t fastened down in the luggage hold.  We pushed back the second time about 45 minutes later.

Some good things to say about Air France.  No airline’s economy seats are comfortable, and Air France is no exception.  But you do have a screen at your seat with TV, movies on demand, games, and some selections I didn’t try.  The meal was quite good.  Passport control in Paris passed us through efficiently and quickly.  If I pushed it, I could have made the earlier shuttle to Frankfurt, but I stopped at McDonalds for breakfast instead.

I had decided before I left I would use mass transit to get from the airport to the Hotel.  It turned out to be simple.  There’s a commuter rail station in the terminal that takes you downtown, and from there I took the subway (although much of it is above ground) to a few blocks from the hotel.  I bought a week pass for E21.10 and used it all week for subways, trams and buses.  A cab ride to the airport is E40 (as I found when I decided to take one this morning).  My longest transit trip this week was to Ikea – bus, subway, bus and it drops me off right in back of the store.

Almost every city in Germany has a Christmas Market this time of year, and Frankfurt is no exception.  A whole section of town is filled with food stands, christmas shops, carousels (including a double decker) and lots and lots of people.  Public drinking is encouraged.  There will be photos later.  We went down to the market most evenings, and from there to dinner.  My favorites were the chocolate covered (milk, dark or white) fruit (almost any kind) on a stick, and the fresh made potato pancakes.

As I type this, I’m in the Frankfurt airport and my internet time is running down, so more in part 2.

Early Turkey Day and Genvie

I had a 10 pound Butterball turkey (thanks to the commissary in Accra, Ghana) and plans to cook an early Thanksgiving.  Even when attending Thanksgiving somewhere else (as I am this time) I always cook a turkey so I’ll have leftovers.  Usually I do it the weekend after, but I’m headed to Frankfurt Friday night and won’t be back until Sunday a week later, so I cooked last Saturday.

Since I’ve been here, other folks at the embassy have been nice enough to invite me for meals, so I felt the need to respond in kind.  Besides, Thanksgiving dinners are always best shared!

By the time I was done we had the turkey, stuffing (made in part with Irish brown bread, which I had never done before but recommend), salad, two different vegetables (and a guest brought a third)  sweet and mashed potatoes, fresh baked bread and both types of cranberry sauce.  Another guest brought a cherry pie and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.  Needless to say, we pigged out, seriously, and there were still plenty of leftovers!  I dirtied every pot, pan, bowl and plate in the place.

The only problem with the meal was that my kitchen here in Cotonou is quite small and unairconditioned.  Spend the day cooking and you’ll work up a sweat.  Just try to avoid dripping in the food!

The topper of the evening was introducing the two kids who were there to “Yellow Submarine”, which they had never seen.

The next day, I joined a group from the embassy to go visit Genvie (pronounced john-vee-yay).  This town, about an hour out of Cotonou, is totally on stilts over the water.  After a while, the stilts rot, and they have to build a new house.  There are also some towns that spend part of the year over the water, and part on dry land, depending on the seasonal water level.  Change is coming to Genvie and the nearby towns.  They’re starting to build on concrete piers, even build concrete block buildings on top, but others are still wooden houses with thatched roofs on wooden stilts.  We toured the towns in a small boat.  Everyone in Genvie has a canoe, most of the dugouts made from logs imported from Nigeria up the river.  If the wind blows, they’ll raise a sail, otherwise they paddle with an oar that looks like an oversized ping pong paddle on a broomstick.

A few photos:

Living your faith

Truth in advertising. Faith (as normally defined to mean religion) . I have none.

But the people on the Mercy Ships, specifically the Africa Mercy now here in Cotonou, do, and they’re living it in the most real way I can imagine.  The Africa Mercy is a hospital ship which has been here since the summer, and will be leaving some time before Christmas.  In that time, they have fanned out over the country providing health care, done thousands of surgeries in their on-board operating rooms, all for free.  In fact, almost all of the people on the Mercy are not only volunteers, they pay expenses to serve on the ship.  And many have been doing it for year after year.  It’s an international group, about one-third Americans, who occasionally stop by the consular section, which is how I’ve met several of them.  I’m not one for contributing the “faith based” institutions, but I will contribute to them, or at least help sponsor a volunteer.  After leaving here, they’re set for a refit, then scheduled to head for the next country to the west, Togo.

It’s a very nice ship (for a converted passenger ferry) with a nice dining room (and I hear a very good chef), a school for the kids, library and public spaces.  And unexpectedly in the public spaces there is…

Yes, a Starbucks.  The first (maybe the only) in Africa.  It seems one of the owners of Starbucks is a big supporter, and sponsors the onboard coffee shop.

It may also be the cheapest Starbucks in the world, since they only pay for shipping the supplies.

Thanks to the crew and doctors who invited me for the tour, and good luck in the future.

Cooking in Cotonou (part II)

For those of you who have been following my adventures in cooking, I used the second half of my pizza dough to make a calzone.

Took it out of the fridge and let it rise for a few hours in the zip-lock bag. Spread it out like for a pizza (I could have made two small calzones) and let it rise for about 30 minutes on a lightly oiled cookie sheet.

Olive oil, oregano and fresh ground pepper to season the crust, then on one side I put some ham, salami and green pepper (that’s what I had around) shredded cheese and a little sauce.

Folded it over, sealed the edge, and poked some holes with a knife to vent. Baked for 15 minutes in a 450 degree oven. Heated up some more sauce in the microwave to pour on top. Perfect!

Cooking in Cotonou

One of the things living in Africa is that, even with a new hypermarket in town, and access to Webgrocer, there are things you can’t find or can’t ship. So, you try to make them yourselves.

My first challenge – bagels.

Not my bagels!

I started here:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Homemade_bagel_recipe_Make_great_nadrolled_water_bagels__its_as_easy_as_baking_a_loaf_of_bread

But, the first batch I made, although they tasted fine, never really rose, never really browned, and were strangely wrinkled after boiling. My second attempt was this morning.  This time I pre-activated the yeast, gave the dough more time to raise both initially, and after forming the bagels.  I used a smaller pot of water so I could get a better rolling boil on the water. I increased the oven temperature to 450.  Finally, I baked them 15 minutes on a side instead of 10.  This batch came out much better, although a little over-browned.  I think I’ll cut back to 12 minutes a side next time.  Toppings were caraway seeds, onions (dried onion flakes browned up nicely in the oven), salt (I found kosher salt, but not not course ground — too bad) and finally Old Bay seasoning (which I’d never had on a bagel).  I had one for breakfast, and sandwich on one for lunch, and froze the rest for later in the week.

The second attempt of the day was pizza.  I used this recipe:

http://americanfood.about.com/od/pizzainsideandout/r/nypd.htm

for the dough, although I let my bread machine on dough cycle do the hard work.  I don’t have a pizza stone, so I greased and floured a metal pizza pan, stretched it to fit (more or less) and left it to rise in place 20 minutes.  Next time, I may give it 30. I oiled and spiced the crust (oregano mostly), added sauce (Prego from consumables) and cheese (local) and some more oregano.  No toppings this time, since I wanted to see what a plain cheese pizza would do.  Preheated the oven to 500 degrees (probably closer to 450, my oven runs a little cool) and cooked it for 10 minutes.  The crust didn’t look done so I gave it another 5 which burned the cheese a bit.  Still, the crust turned out well for a thin crust pizza.  maybe next time I’ll give it a short pre-bake without sauce and cheese, then finish up with all the toppings on.

I have enough dough left over for another pizza, or I may try to make a calzone.

Next on my list – half-sour pickles, but I need to accumulate some jars and find a source of small pickling cucumbers.