Chapatti

Another cooking related post. Get ready.

My Nairobi mom, Betty, decided I should learn how to cook chapatti. What is a chapatti you ask?

That is a chapatti.

It's kind of a mix of a tortilla, naan, and a pancake. It probably uses enough cooking oil to make all three. Originally, chapattis are from India. Mama Betty says Kenya perfected it, like France with the croissant or New York with pizza. 

How to make chapatti:

Boil water. Add salt. Add to chapatti flour in a big bowl. My mom says its a mix of barely and wheat, but the bag just said wheat. So I think you can just use wheat. Someone try it and report back. 

Mix with a wooden spoon. Mom says this is crucial because you just added boiling water to the flour. Makes sense. Once the flour is cool, mix with your hands. Here, it's always a better options to use your hands. If the dough is too sticky, add more flour. If it's too crumbly, add more water. Mix until not sticky. 

You may have noticed by now that there are no measurements and no length of time in which to mix. Measuring when you cook is not important. 

When the dough is no longer sticky, make a small well in the dough ball. Fill with vegetable oil. Mix well with your hands. Then, roll it out.

Easily the happiest chapatti maker ever

Brush with cooking oil...



Then roll into a log. By trapping the oil in the dough, it makes the chapatti have layers, making it fun to eat and not like a pancake.










Cut the log into sections and fold the edges over, making smaller dough balls.

Aren't they cute?

Chapatti pan

Next, roll out the dough balls while heating your chapatti pan. You all have chapatti pans, right?

 

Christmas themed towel in the background

Place flat chapatti on the pan and wait till it puffs. Spin the chapatti. Then flip. Brush face-up side with more oil. Once that side puffs, flip, and repeat brushing. It will look like this

NOW YOU TRY!

In other news, we got an apartment. It's not too far from where we are now, which is nice. I visited my ISP site, which was also awesome and really helpful. Too helpful almost, most of my questions were answered. I have a month to do this project, but I'm now almost done...more sight-seeing I guess.

Sunday morning we are leaving for a week in Tanzania. Get ready for a much cooler post upon return. As exciting as chapatti is, it's really not. Thanks for reading anyway. :-)

Kitika Amerika, hizo inaitwa "man food"

Last weekend we left Nairobi (yay!!!) on a student-planned trip to Mt. Longonot. Mt. Longonot is a dormant volcano, or now just a giant crater. So, at 6:30 am on Saturday morning, a group of eleven students boarded the Jazz Quartet and drove two hours outside of Nairobi. One man on the way up said that up and around the top of the crater was about 12 km, or about 7 miles.

I went with the phonetic spelling of the mountain (taken by Alex)

The climb was steep, dusty, and awesome. About halfway up we could see wild giraffes off in the distance. If you look closely enough at the following picture, you can see them too.

bottom right corner. The things that look like trees, but aren't

                

<~~~giraffes






It was about an hour and a half climb up. Once we got there, the view was unreal. The “top” was truly the edge of a crater. The flat part, starting from where we walked up to the edge of a straight drop down into the bush-covered crater, was probably about 6 feet wide. These are the pictures I got…

facing away from the crater center

carter wall

…before my camera decided that then would be the perfect time to stop working. This is sad, as the view only got prettier. The rest of the crater rim consisted of higher peeks that were actually more narrow and steeper than the initial climb up. Some parts were about two feet across from edge to edge, both side with a fairly straight drop. It was single-file for most of the way, occasionally consisting of grabbing onto bush roots and hoping the sand wouldn’t give away. It was the perfect mix worry and awesome, with an incredible view the entire way. Please enjoy these pictures that other people took:

The group (taken by Kelsey)

(taken by Grace)

(taken by Arianna) 

(taken by Alex)

On the way, we encountered an exercise group who were running the mountain. There were some parts of the crater rim where it was (or so I thought) absolutely impossible to run without certain death, but they were doing it. One man who passed our group shouted “Get dirty and get fit!” We were defiantly dirty, but I don’t think I would run that mountain if you paid me. I like living too much.

I can’t really do Mt. Longonot justice in this post. It was easily one of the coolest things I have ever done.

Sunday I finally cooked for my family. I offered to do lunch since I was going to another student’s birthday dinner that night. The menu: sloppy joes and butternut squash mash. In the morning I went to Nakumatt, a giant super-store in Kenya that sells almost everything, to get the ingredients.

Shopping list (thanks mom)

Ground meat

Brown sugar

Ketchup

Mustard

Garlic powder

Buns

Onion

Salt

Pepper

Squash

I knew I could get the squash and onion the way home at one of the vegetable kiosks for a better price, so that was easy. For those of you up to date on American veggie prices, you’ll know that a butternut squash goes for about $1+ per pound. At a Nairobi vegetable kiosk, you can get a HUGE squash for 100 ksh, or a dollar. Fun facts.

At Nakumatt, the first place I went was the sugar isle. Right now, there is a sugar shortage, which is strange since sugar is typically a pretty productive crop in Kenya. According to my parents, it is due to corruption. The politicians can afford to import their sugar, so proper funding wasn’t given to the sugar farmers within the country. My parents said that some farmers were even paid to not grow sugar in order to promote the international sugar market, which obviously didn’t work out so well since normal people cann’t afford imported sugar. Due to this, the sugar isles in all the grocery stores are empty, and the one or two bags that are there are now double the price they were a few months ago. Customers are limited to one bag per shopping trip, but they are lucky to even get that. Luckily for me, brown sugar is not as popular, and there were about 10 bags still on the shelves. 1kg was about 250 ksh, or $2.40.

Ketchup is not a condiment here, or at least not as we know it. Heinz is available for about 300 ksh extra, or you can just get tomato sauce for 50 ksh. Tomato sauce is not pasta sauce, but instead some liquid-y tomato goo pretending to be ketchup. I figured this pseudo-ketchup and a small pack of tomato paste for 20 ksh would suffice.  Mustard is also crazy expensive, but ground mustard seed is not. Everything else was pretty easy.

I got home and my mom did something I never expected- she left me alone in the kitchen. This was good though, since I probably looked like a complete spazz trying to peel the squash with a kitchen knife (no peelers). Cooked that with a little salt and brown sugar, easy enough. Cooking the sloppy joe filling was also not a problem.

When I went to serve, I discovered my mom had invited two of her friends to try my food. Pressure. I served my host-dad first. My host-mom had also informed me that if dad likes something, he won’t say anything. For example, my mom got her hair done, and dad didn’t say anything. I didn’t tell her that that probably just means he didn’t notice, but instead used this information to gauge whether or not he like the food. I handed him his plate with a scoop of squash and a sandwich and explain that, in America, sloppy joes are “man food”. Maybe I confused it with the Manwich, but I was promoting it any way I could.

The rest of the family and friends were served, but I wanted to know dad’s opinion. Clearly he was going to be the toughest critic, so I watched him. Bite one- didn’t say anything. Bite two- nothing. Bite three, fo…NOOOOOOO he’s speaking! It was in Swahili, and to my brother Edwin/ Patrick (he was home for the weekend). “Edwin, kitika Amerika, hizo inaitwa ‘man food’”.

Translation: Edwin, in America, this is called man food. So wait, is that a good thing or bad thing? I tried the sandwich. I’m not a beef fan, but it wasn’t bad. Actually, considering I made it, it was pretty good. The squash mash was also good. And... WHOAMYGOD DAD TOOK SECONDS. On everything. SUCCESS. The rest of the family shouted their approval from across the room. My mom even asked for both recipes and then let me do the dishes. Never happens. I’m usually not allowed to touch anything in the kitchen. She did say that she though the food would have gone well with ugali, but I expected that. 

Overall, a successful weekend.

The last week has been spent typing up my independent study proposal. More on that when I actually get approved. This afternoon a few of us are apartment hunting in Nairobi. Also more on that when we find one.  

Triunfo del Amor/ Mimi ni mKenya?

 So we’ve been back in Nairobi for about a week now, meaning life is relatively normal. So here are some fun things that I haven’t mentioned yet.

Every night at 8pm, Triunfo del Amor comes on the TV. This is a Mexican soap opera (Triumph of Love) in which the actors are dubbed with English voices that don’t fit them.  It seems like everyone here watches it. The show comes on right before the 9 pm English news. “Waiting” for the nine o’clock news is my excuse for getting sucked into this show. My two sisters love it.

 You see, Maria Desamperada is an orphan who grew up to be a model. She falls in love with Maximilliano (Max), the step-son of her boss, Victoria. Little does Maria know that Victoria is actually her long-lost mother, and her father is actually Juan Pablo, a devout Catholic priest that Maria is close too. Victoria is constantly lamenting the loss of her daughter and despises Juan Pablo’s mother who is has a vendetta against Victoria for making her son unchaste.  At the same time, Victoria is having marriage problems with her husband, Osvaldo, an actor. She works too much to have time for him, so he goes gallivanting off with a much younger Linda, who just so happened to be Maria’s roommate. But Linda in engaged to Juanjo, a simple minded firefighter. Juanjo is the cousin of Cruz, who is the gardener for Victoria/Osvaldo’s house. Cruz falls in love with Fer, Max’s step sister and the daughter of Victoria and Osvaldo. She is dating Federico, who is the son of Rodolfo, a sinister man who had raped Victoria (the mother of both Fer and Maria in case you’re getting lost) in her youth and is now using that to blackmail her. At the same time, Max is trying to hide his relationship with Maria from his disapproving step-mother/ Maria’s boss/real mom. He is also trying to avoid the advances of his ex-girlfriend, Xmenia, who conveniently also works for his step-mom’s modeling company. Xmenia can decide if she wants Max or the much older Guillermo, who is also the rival of Osvaldo.

Both the plot line and adlibbed dialogue are terrible, but I can’t stop watching. Stupid soaps.

Other strange news: Did you know that Miano is a Kenyan name? It is commonly found the central area of the country. It is a Kikuyu name, a very large tribe in Kenya. When I first went to get my visa the visa-man looked at my passport, looked at me, and asked “You’re Kenyan?” I laughed, because obviously I’m not. He was the first person to tell me that my name is common, but I thought he was kidding. Since then, every time I give someone my full name they respond “Is that really your name?” Yes, it is my name. It’s actually Italian. There’s even a little town in Italy called Miano. No, I don’t think that my ancestors were actually Kenyan, but I’ll look into it.

Oddly enough, my Nairobi host family has not said anything about my name. They are of the Luo tribe, and the Kikuyu and Luos do not like each other. Both are very large tribe and have a lot of political power, so of course they clash. Though while I’ve been here, I haven’t met another Miano.

Finally, this Sunday I’m cooking dinner for my host family. This could go ok or really badly, there’s not super-awesome-amazing outcome. If you scroll a little further down you’ll see that I mentioned that my mom loves ugali. As far as I can tell, she loves ugali more than her own kids. So I already know she won’t like whatever I make because I already know I’m not making ugali. Stacy will probably like it. Edwin’s home for the weekend but I have no idea what he likes. They want me to cook though, so I am. I’ll let you know how it goes. 

Kijiji Living

I’m back in Nairobi! Shall we just go day by day over the last two weeks? I think so.

Friday

In the afternoon the group went to Carolina for Kibera, the organization featured in the book I just finished reading.“It Happened on the Way to War”is the autobiography of Rye Barcott, the founder of CFK and a Marine. [read this book] CFK’s mission is to control the ethnic violence in the Kibera slum through soccer and trash pick-ups. The program also contains a health program and clinic.

 

That night we were picked up by our “school bus”, which is a giant electric blue tour bus with the name “Jazz Quartet” scrawled across the front. The Jazz Quartet took us to the Nairobi bus stop, where we boarded a bus to the coastal city of Mombasa.

-11 hours later/ Saturday-

Arrive in Mombasa in the morning and head to the SIT Kenya: Mombasa office. Mombasa is a two part city- Old and New. We stayed in the Old half, which, although touristy, was much quainter than the New half. The area is predominantly Muslim and many store signs had the Arabic translation of the Kiswahili name underneath. Our first mission was shopping. Although Mombasa and the coast area is much warmer than our elevated Nairobi, tank tops and shorts (or pants really) were not going to fly in the Shirazi village. Instead, we purchased kangas and muumuus. A kanga is a large piece of decorate fabric that is divided in two.  Typically the bottom has a Kiswahili proverb or phrase. Kangas can be used for everything. They are skirts, head scarves, shawls, blankets, cushions, curtains, doors, snugglys for babies, pillows, a cure for cancer, towels, table clothes, and awesome. Muumuus are the things your grandmas wear. The pros of these are that they allow for a breeze and can double as a tent. After the shopping trip and a quick clothes change, we were back on the bus on the way to Shirazi.

Welcome to Shirazi. Our bus turned off the road and drove a mile and a half in to the village, smacking tree branches the whole way and nearly tipping over once. Our bus drove past little houses, some made of mud with dry grass roofs, others made of concrete. Kids, both of the human and goat type, were everywhere. By the time our bus stopped, a huge crowd had gathered to watch us exit the bus.

As I exited the bus, I heard on girl who appeared to be a little younger than me say to the person next to her “Wao ni vidogo”. “They are small”. I didn’t know how to say “No really, I’m much taller than I appear. It’s just the illusion of the gigantic muumuu I’m wearing” in Kiswahili, so I just smiled. This was my primary means of communication over the next week. Shirazi, unlike Nairobi, only speaks Kiswahili. The children in school knew bits and pieces of English, which was a life saver in many situations.

The students were lined up and presented to our families. Each of us was given a mosquito net, jug of water, toilet paper, and were sent on our way. My mom was introduced to me, and we hugged once on each side. She appeared to be older than most of the mothers, and this was confirmed as we walked. Everyone was passed shouted “Shikamoo” (sound familiar?), to which my mama replied “Marharaba”. There’s a special Shirazi way to say it, so it sounds more dragged out and emphasized, like “MaaaarhaaaaraaaaBAAAA”. There is no greeting too long in the village, which made punctuality difficult since everyone greets you on the way to school.

My house was one of the mud houses, but it was surprisingly big inside. The dirt floors were nicely swept and I even had my own room with a bed. Across from my room was another bed room, and my mama’s was next to mine. The large center room was used for sitting and a bit of storage. The kitchen was outside. It was a small hut with a cooking fire in the corner. Dishes were also washed out side, next to the chicken coop. The bathroom was also outside behind a too small sheet of plastic. There was the shower stone, the water bucket, and the can-on-a-stick to scoop up water to pour over your head. The water came from a pump shared by that section of the village, which I later learned was all part of my family. The toilet was a hole in the ground, but a very clean one with a covering.

After the brief tour, I met who I thought was my host brother. Faruki  was eight and knew some English. Next came Tema, who I believe was my cousin. At least I think that’s what my mama said. She then told me my Shirazi name was also Tema (this one I understood). I love my Shirazi name- it is simple and easy to say. Next came Mohammed, a thirty year old man who I thought was my uncle. He spoke great English and further tried to explain my family relations. He told me I had four brothers and sisters, but only one brother was still at home.  He introduced me to my nyanya and then my aunt, who was also the host mother of another girl on our trip. She was dubbed Asha by the 10 year girl who live with nyanya, Mariamu, who I thought was also my cousin.

That night we sat outside for dinner on a large straw mat with a candle. We had rice cooked with coconut and spicy chai. The chai was amazing. Easily my favorite food thing in Shirazi. We all ate from on plate using our hands. In case you are wondering, it is very difficult to eat rice with your hands. While I was making a mess trying to not drop the rice, another boy joined us on the mat. He greeted me in English, said his name was Hamisi, and asked me about my trip. After ten minutes of conversation, I finally asked who he was. Hamisi said he was my brother. Turns out Faruki is my nephew, and my 21 year old brother Hamisi was the last child in the house. Faruki was my mom’s grandchild, the son of her only daughter. Mohammed was my cousin and Tema was more distantly related. Apparently “brother and sister” refers to not only your actual brother and sister, but also your cousins on your dad’s side. Your “cousins” are just you cousins on your mom’s side. This is because you can marry the cousins on your mom’s side, but cannot marry the cousins/brothers on your dad’s side because you share a name. 

Confused? I was.

The Family

Faruki

Me and mom

Mariamu

Tema

Hamisi

Sunday

Woke up on Sunday and took my first ever bucket shower. Mornings were warm, and it actually wasn’t too bad. My mama feed me mandizi (little fried dough triangles) and gave me an old kanga. The students were going to the beach for the day. We took a boat out into the Indian Ocean to a sandbar known as Paradise Lost. Observe the awesomeness:

Monday

First day of school- Shirazi style. At 5:30 we woke up to the call to prayer. The only person I ever saw pray in my house was Hamisi. There was a small hut in our family’s area where he and one other man, who I didn’t know but was probably related to, would go to pray. The rest of us were then awake with nothing much to do. It was hard to go back to sleep because now the roosters were awake. If roosters are awake, that means EVERYONE has to be awake with them. Even if it means crowing repeatedly outside of my window.

 SIT met in the local Madrasa, the Islamic school for the village children. Since it met in the afternoon, we were allowed to use it in the mornings. Our Kiswahili lesson started at 7am to avoid the heat and ended at 10:30. The SIT students then migrated down by the Shirazi beach to sit under a little hut on straw mats. The breeze from the ocean kept things cool. That night, Asha and I gathered a huge group the random kids wandering around our houses for a game of Quack Diliosa. Of course the counting part was done in Kiswahili. I can count to ten like no one’s business now.

Tuesday

Now that we had settled in somewhat, the mamas decided to make things interesting. A few of the girl showed up to class in what could only be described as prom dresses, provided by their mamas. I never had to wear a prom dress. Instead, my mama dressed me in tie-dye muumuus and flowy scarves. I think she would have flourished as a hippy.

After Kiswahili, we sat and listened to village elder. He, with the help of a translator, gave us the history of Shirazi. The ancestors of the Shirazi people came from Iran in the 1800s. The sailed to Mombasa, then to Lamu, then to the Shirazi area. They were traders but then settled in the area. They married the local people, and Kiswahili was born. It is a mixture of local languages and Arabic.

That night we played more games with the kids. My favorite was on that we mzingu called LA LA. Everyone stands in a circle and sings a song in Kiswahili (one of the phrases was “la la”) while each person takes a turn dancing in the center.  We played until it was too dark to see the person dancing, and then went home for dinner.

I’m sure most of you have seen the movie Elf. Remember the scene where Buddy the Elf makes his version of spaghetti? Spaghetti with sugar. No one but a fictional character would eat that, right?

Right?

Wrong. It’s a Shirazi specialty. And honestly, it’s not too bad. It’s too sweet to eat much of, but it was edible. After Elf-spaghetti, I washed my hand and placed it down on the mat. While struggling to talk to my mom about the day, I felt something bite my finger. It didn’t hurt, but it felt like a pincer type thing. I yanked my hand back, and my mom sprung into action. She grabbed the candle, chased down whatever it was that bit me, and squashed it with said candle. I thanked her and walk over to see what it was. It was crush almost beyond recognitions…but it looked like a scorpion. I asked what it was called, and my mom gave me the word. I grabbed my little Kiswahili packet of words to find what she had said under the list of “Bugs and Pest”.  Neither the word she gave me nor the word for scorpion was on the list. In a panic, my Kiswahili was suddenly awesome. “Umwa ya mdudu. Mbaya? Inaua?” Meaning “The bite from the bug. Bad? It kills?” Ok, not the most poetic thing to have ever been said, but it was one of the rare occasions where I actually got my point across. My mom laughed at me and said no, I would be fine, and that now we were going to go visit Asha and her mom.

I decided it wasn’t a scorpion and that I had over reacted. Once at Asha’s house, our moms began to show us how to make mandazi. Mariamu and Faruki were helping as well. While rolling out the dough, I Heard my mom telling those who understood Kiwhaili the bug story. Faruki suddenly turned to me and said “You were bit by a scorpion!?” Ok, so I didn’t over react. Good news it was the not dangerous end of the scorpion.

Wednesday/Thursday

These days we went on field trips. The first day I went to an island called Funzi. Their story of civilization is basically the same as Shirazi, but their economy is now completely different. Funzi is a big tourist destination. A man that the tour guide referred to as “the Swiss-Italian” had built a huge and exclusive resort on the island using the money he had earned from the drug trade. After a brief exiling from the country of Kenya and a small bribe, he took up permanent residence on Funzi. Gives a whole new meaning to his white powder beaches.

The next day was a trip to Bodo. Some of the other students and I had previously visited Bodo when we had gotten lost on a run. It is about a 40 minute walk from Shirazi. On the way back we took piki-pikis, or motorbikes. Two of us hopped on the back behind the guy driving. So fun. Bodo looks just like Shirazi except they have electricity and a clinic. That night I talked to Hamisi about why Shiraz didn’t have electricity. He said the said the electric company claimed it was too far from the main road. Bodo is 5 km from the main road, while Shirazi is only 3 km. My math’s not great, but that doesn’t make sense.

 Also that night I got my family’s history. This was a part of a homework assignment for our field study seminar, but I was honestly curious. Hamisi filled me in. He was the youngest of four children and all but him had left home for work. He worked at a nearby secondary school teaching Islam and had sent his application to the government as a part of the recent influx of open teaching positions due to the recent teachers strike agreement. His dad and mom were cousins, but his dad had died when he was 12. Surprisingly, his mom never remarried even though it is very common in the village.

Friday/Saturday

Both of these days were pretty similar. We learn more games that we didn’t know the words to and learned to make samosas. We also went to visit the clinic that SIT is building in Shirazi. It is not yet finished and definitely needs a lot of work.

Village Elder in front of the soon-to-be clinic

Sunday

Me and Asha

This was our first free day to completely spend with the family. Our moms took us to get henna and picot. Henna is the orange bit, picot is actually hair dye, but used on the skin. The process took forever, but the end result was so cool. Henna is used as a send off gift and is typically given to a girl engaged to be married. The rest of the day was filled with congratulations instead of goodbyes, which is probably better.

Sunday night was our last night in Shirazi. Asha and I mad samosas and mandazi one last time. My mom sang us a song in Kiswahili, then we sang the Lion King’s Hakuna Matata for her. She at least thought it was funny. Then our moms gave parting gifts: a hand woven and painted straw hat and purse. It was incredibly thoughtful and cute.

I did not want to leave Shirazi. Sure, sometimes monkeys break into your bedroom and go through your bag. Sometime the grass roof leak. Sometimes its three AM and you have to decide whether to brush the plate-sized spider off the toilet or just wait till morning. Sometimes the spider wins. But the village was the best part of the trip so far. I learned more in the ten days we had spent there than I had in the last three weeks in Nairobi.

Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday

We had to leave Shirazi anyway. My mom walked me to the bus at 7am, our meeting time. The bus arrived two hours later, late even by African time.

We drove back to Mombasa, where we stayed for the next week. Mombasa, although it was not Shirazi, was much nicer than Nairobi. Cleaner, friendlier, safer, and warmer. Here we were actually allowed out after dark. Our hotel was located right next to a mosque which he had its loud speaker facing the hotel’s windows. 4:45 is the time Muslims in Mombasa get up to pray. Every. Single. Morning. Most mornings the man doing the call to prayer sounded pretty good, but a few mornings his substitute took a turn. The sub had an unnaturally high voice, but he certainly made sure it was impossible to sleep through.

Our health seminar continued in Mombasa, but we had the afternoons off.  We had dinner at Jamal’s, our academic director, house on Thursday night. Friday night was the 10 hour trip back to Nairobi.