(written 25Nov2010)
So there is kind of a rotating cast of characters in my life. There is the man I call my “nice neighbor” who lives across the street from me. There is the “bread stealing neighbor” who lives directly next door to me. He is the elementary school director and he did come into my house once under the pretense that he had heard I was making bread. And then took some of that bread and was forever branded. He actually is a fine dude. He tells me when there's mail waiting for me in Basilla. His wife is really sweet, I like her a lot, but I can just barely understand her French. And I'm absolutely in love with their kids cause they are all so darn polite. There is also the “margarine lady”, who runs the financial groupment that I attend every six days. I call her the “margarine lady” because one time she took some margarine from me. The “nice neighbor” has yet to steal anything.
Anyway, the nice neighbor comes to my house every morning around 8:30 to say hello. He drops off fried dough that his wife makes, and always brings oranges and grapefruit. We talk about America. And basically I just love him to pieces. He's like 60 years old (I think he said 57) which makes him really respected in the village. He works with the school parent-teacher association, he runs a farm with loads of animals, and he's always dropping by the health center to pay his respects. I think he may have said at one time that he is the son of the village chief? But I don't really know who the village chief is so that's unconfirmable.
So he has this pretty big garden that's fenced in to keep the animals out. And his really sweet son with girly embroidered jeans runs the garden area, where they grow tomatoes, pimont, and okra. Apparently the pimont (peppers) get bought by someone in England and turned into a drink? What? I'm thinking maybe Tabasco-type sauce? He reserved a plot in this beautiful garden for me, and I'm getting vegetable seeds from some other volunteers, and I'm fairly sure the son is just planning to do my garden for me. Anyway- that's a side note that I'm sure I will come back to once the garden is actually planted.
So the nice neighbor's wife makes fried dough which she sells at the school and at local marches. And we've sort of got a little cooking exchange going on. She really likes this orange bread that I make, so yesterday I offered to bring all the ingredients to their house and we could make it together. Which is the first time I've really done anything like this, or hung out at their house for that long.
Their house is huge. There's a big yard with turkeys and chickens and goats. They have an avocado tree, an orange tree, a mango tree and a guava tree, so it's beautiful and has lots of shade. They have like three different stove areas. And I think it's sort of just a community spot. The wife of my bread-stealing neighbor says it's because he “loves men” that everyone wants to come hang out with him. There are always kids everywhere- and the nice neighbor himself has four sons, so I've always been sort of intimidated to go there, and I was hoping that the cooking session would be a good excuse.
So I went. And all throughout this cooking demo they were just rapt- asking me about substitutions and cooking temperatures, and using different baking pans etcetera etcetera. On my stove, the bread takes an hour to cook, but on coals it ended up taking two hours. This whole time, I was just chillin in their yard. These women came with basketfulls of oranges, which they loaded into giant sacks and onto motos to send to the market in Aledjo. Neighborhood kids showed up everywhere to eat from the orange pile. My nice neighbor showed me how to peel the oranges better (I was dragging the knife towards me like a pirate, and everybody else drags it away). I think I ate about 16. In the meantime, it's gets to be lunch time and they provide food for me (naturally). And then he asks me if I want to go back to my house to eat in privacy.. which is kind of weird, but not really weird for Benin, where they will leave you to eat by yourself as a sign of respect. But of course I stayed with everyone else and hung out.
When the bread finally came out of the oven, there was like suddenly a mob of people there. There were kids scraping the brown bits off the bottom of the pan, and little hands shooting out from everywhere to grab little cut up pieces of the bread. True to African style, the whole loaf was gone in about a minute and thirty seconds. It was ridiculous.
After that I wasn't going to leave because they had some kid washing all my pans. So I was planning to wait until that was done and then head out. But when the pans were done, the neighbor gave me the sad face, and asked if I could do my work there instead of my house. Which actually sounded great, because his yard is like 10 degrees cooler than my house. So I got my book and came back and read in a nice chair under the avocado tree for like another hour or so. My neighbor went inside to take a nap. And I got my one wish. I was sitting, in village, reading. No body was talking to me. People were just doing their chores and stopping by to say hello to the mama. This little boy that I adore was playing soccer by himself over on the other side of the garden. It was delightful. And quiet. And cool.
When the nice neighbor came back out he brought me dinner. While we were sitting around, a bunch of little kids had killed one of the goats and had been boiling it up for dinner. I was really hoping to not be a part of that- and they brought me macaroni with fish so I thought I was in the clear. But one little boy came over and brought me a goat ball. And I pretended that I thought it was for the little girl sitting next to me. But then the neighbor came over and told me that the kids wanted to make that for me and that it was a gift..So I decide, how bad can a goat ball be really? And I took a bite. And there wasn't anything particularly horrible about the ball part, but it was just sooooo goaty! They hadn't added spices or fried it or anything. It was just boiled goat, and that is what it tasted like. It was gross. And it was at that moment that my wonderful magical dog came barreling in from the cornfield, and I gave him the goat under the table. The nice neighbor made me this drink that's supposed to keep you from being gassy after you eat a meal with beans in it. The recipe follows!
So by the end of the evening, I had spent 9 hours at this house. Which is a personal record in every way possible. I was just chilling, shootin the shit, eating oranges, playing with Atti, playing with kids, reading, and having a lovely time. They gave me more goat as I was leaving, ended up being two meals for Atticus. My neighbor said that even if no one's around, I'm welcome to come chill in their yard by the trees any time I want. And I think I will.
I remember sitting under that tree, and for the first time, thinking that I really could live here.
Shelly's “Start an Africa Riot” Orange Bread
2 c. flour
¾ c. sugar
½ tsp. Salt
½ tsp. Baking soda
1 egg (or 2 Tbsp. Mayo if you live in Africa)
1 Tbsp. Orange peel
¾ c. orange juice
2 Tbsp. Oil
Mix it all up! Grease your loaf pan really well. Seriously.
Bake at 350ยบ for 50-60 minutes, and let it set 10 minutes before you take it out.
Enjoy!
The Nice Neighbor's Recipe for “Bonne Digestion Lemonade”
(to be drunk after a meal with beans)
lemon/orange/grapefruit juice
water
sugar
baking soda
He wouldn't give me quantities for any of these items. It's all supposed to be to taste. But that baking soda will keep you fart free!
