Tomorrow will mark two weeks since I first arrived in Ethiopia again. The past few weeks have been exciting, annoying, and extremely rewarding all at once. Seeing Mike again for the third time in over a year is always incredible. What I really couldn’t get over was how coming back here felt a lot like going home. It’s foreign from everything I know and am used to, yet there is this strong sense of familiarity that I cannot make sense of… especially when I come back to Bonga.
Life is difficult. We have no car, running water (or fresh water, or hot water… actually all forms of water are pretty rare), fridge, toilet, peanut butter. It was especially difficult on Thanksgiving. I was determined to cook this eloborate meal from scratch. I now know what ‘from scratch’ actually means.
Anyway, I really wanted to make this green chili corn bread. So this means getting the dried corn from the market, walking down to the corn mill and somehow trying to translate just how corn-mealy we want our corn meal. We got 3 different variations. Alemua (Mike’s sweet compound friend) did us a huge favor and sorted the 3 out for us. Then there’s the cutting of the chilis, and since I’m an amatuer I promptly stuck my finger (fresh with green chili juice) into my eye when it itched. Lesson learned. The whole day continued on like this: Jon (Peace Corps friend), Mike, and I baking and testing and blasting jazz music. It was a gorgeous day of laughing and sun and yumminess. It yielded one amazing batch of veggie chili, some sweet potatoes with marshmallows that wouldn’t melt… and corn pudding. Despite our efforts to make the dutch oven work in our favor, the bread just wouldn’t get hot enough.
The point of the story is this: Thanksgiving, or any day for that matter, is a gift– and it’s the journey– the process of getting to the goal, that counts. That’s what counts. Slow down and smell the flowers… or life will pass you by.
the pics are amazing! and you are so stunning in that black&white…as always!
Wow those stars are amazing. We should never take for granted what we have here, huh? Great story and definitely puts things in perspective…again haha That's awesome you can tell these stories though. Love your pics, as always!!