As requested, my new fan in my lovely kitchen. There is nothing not to love about a ginormous fan.
Look closely and you can see some Ethiopian things thrown haphazardly alongside the six foot fan of destruction.
Fall has finally arrived in Seoul. Unfortunately, it only lingered a few days before shooting straight off into winter. Ah, the blissful two days of fall. Enjoy the randomly interspersed pictures that have nothing to do with the rest of this entry.
I have recently discovered that I love hosting. One of my friends visited from down south requesting comfort food. Like an idiot, I suggested lasagna.
Normally, this does not seem like a terrible suggestion, but when you begin to understand that Koreans do not eat cheese – it becomes quite a bit of a situation. After a week of searching, I found one store that stocked extremely expensive lasagna noodles and ricotta cheese imported from Italy. Apparently, I was aiming for expensive and authentic.
Authentic, that is, until I started to fret over mozzarella. There is no such stress like mozzarella stress.
Although I had ransacked specialty stores all throughout my section of Seoul, I was sadly missing anything resembling mozzarella cheese. In desperation, I went shopping after school to our local bulk store, Costco, in hopes that I might find some cheese substitute that might be reasonably agreeable on lasagna.
I eventually found myself standing in front of a cheese-filled cooler entirely filled with sharp Colby Jack cheese. Despondently, I turned to leave my cheesy Italian dreams behind me. As a turned, a bright green bag caught my eye. An enormous bag of individually wrapped string cheese gave off a holy glow. I leaned in close to read the fine print, praying that it might just be the holy grail of mozzarella. My breath caught, tears sprang to my eyes - I had finally happened upon it! After my long search, the travails had finally come to fruition in front of the cheese freezer at Costco.
If the ancient Romans cooked lasagna with string cheese, then I can guarantee that my recipe is genuinely authentic. If not, mine may just be a first. When living as an expat, you make due with what you can find.
Even if that may be a bulk bag of string cheese.
I live in a different world. One of my students was absent on Friday so her family could take a three day trip to Japan. I couldn’t contact a parent for a week because he went to France. I have three days off from school in February and I am planning a trip to China.
When did this become normal?
Last weekend, I went to visit a friend in the south. After two hours of standing on the subway, I collapsed into a lump on her floor. She stared at me for a few moments, picked me up again, and shooed me out the door to visit the Korean-American Friendship Festival.
It was a festival of friendship and many things more. I enjoyed cotton candy, concerts, shopping, and mimes on stilts. While wandering through the streets above, I bought a gigantic decorative fan. This gigantic decorative fan is taller than me. I quite enjoyed the questions of several Koreans who were testing their English skills about my fan. While wrapped up, it looked rather like a sword. I think they were concerned for their safety.
I enjoyed the antics of the mime on stilts, but was rather disturbed when he started to talk with a kazoo. Apparently the children were amused, only the adults were frightened.
My friend had to drag me away from my discovery of the puffed rice cake maker. The rice cake mixture is poured into a circular clamp, held shut for several seconds, and shot out of the clamp by a giant burst of air. The flying rice cakes are so impressive, a cage has to be placed around the machine to contain the velocity of the dangerous flying disks. Next time you snack on a rice cake, please remember their deadly power.
Although I am sure this looks deliciously appetizing, it is decidedly not that. This is a common street vendor food that is found all over Korea. My friend would gradually inch closer to guess the food, but each guess was farther and farther away from the truth. I was thrilled to be the one to finally enlighten her in the same way someone enlightened me.
It is silk worm larvae.
I am completely serious. I hope you enjoy your lunch now.
There are things that happen while living abroad that can occur in Western societies. Make no mistake, no person is safe.
Specifically from the ever intimidating bouncy castle of doom.
Friday last, my school had a welcome-back picnic with games, free food, magicians, water guns, and four different bouncy castles. I volunteered to help out where ever needed and I was stationed at a bouncy castle far away from central traffic. I was thrilled because it meant that I didn’t have to wrestle small children away from the castle to wait their turn.
I was told to go find the bouncy “lion” and to use my best judgement about the number of students permitted on at a time. I wandered aimlessly searching for the mysterious “lion” before stumbling across a domed, twenty foot inflatable room with a lion head strapped on at the top. Initially, not many students found my little corner zoo, but those who did returned for many more turns.
Eventually, five upper-elementary aged girls begged me to allow all five of them in at one time and I foolishly agreed. Never again.
Nor should you ever make such a mistake if you ever find yourself the dictator of a bouncy lion.
The girls bounced peacefully for a few moments before conspiring to all run to one corner of the castle. After impact, the castle began to sink in despair. I reprimanded the girls with the proper teacher voice and demanded that they leave the castle at once. I was holding open the entrance until I felt something bang against my head.
It just so happened to be the chin of the lion that had previously been twenty feet higher in the air. I held the face above my head like a professional wrestler about to throw a chair - while shouting at the girls to flee as if their lives depended on it. Since I was out of the way, no one knew my plight.
After several minutes of students watching me while I attempted to support the rapidly deflating zoo animal, a fellow teacher stumbled across me. He was casually eating watermelon as he walked around the corner, only to discover me propping up a lion head and shouting for the girls to run for their lives. He ran to my aid and redirected the air flow of the bouncy castle. Thankfully, no one was injured from the mishap, but I have now developed an irrational fear of bouncy castles and an entirely reasonable fear of lions. After all, it tried to eat me.
Just remember, bouncy castles are evil and will try to eat your children. This may happen anywhere in the world, but I simply have a gorgeous environment to help me cope.
Until I poured my bowl of cereal this morning and a roach came out. After squealing and flailing around violently, I caught and released it outside. Hopefully he will not remember the joy of the chocolate Rice Krispies and return inside. I do not think my heart is strong enough for it.
Things on my mind:
1) No matter what the Britons I spent the afternoon with say, Ethiopian samosas are a very bad idea and I wish I had never ever ever had that one at the bazaar.
2) Hearing said Britons imitate an American accent is amusing as it sounds.
3) I really wish I hadn’t had that samosa.
4) Stupid African Union meetings in Addis which slow down the internet to rediculous proportions.
5) No samosas ever again.
6) The British custom of tea and coffee to fix all ills is absolutely absurd and does not work.
7) Samosas no longer on the “permitted foods for Jessica” list.
And so, obviously, I have decided that samosas are a very bad idea. Sure, I can eat only injera (fermented pancake batter, then made into that nasty tangy bread) for three days straight at exceptionally shady Ethiopian restaurants, but the samosas made at a church bazaar have me wishing I could happily remove my stomach for the rest of my natural life.
Hooray for me.
Moving on. Last Wednesday, I visited the Addis Ababa Fistular hospital. If you have no idea what a fistula is, as my Aussie friends say, “Good on ya.” This particular hospital was written about in a book called “Hospital by the River” and visited by the Oprah show. Of course, where Oprah goes, I must follow.
Life for women in Ethiopia is extremely difficult. I have seen very small women carrying huge sacks of grains on their backs – sometimes the sacks are much bigger than the woman herself. As a result of this manual labor and very poor nutrition, Ethiopian women are extremely petite. Combine this with the facts that there are only one hundred and ten doctors in the whole of Ethiopia and many women are married by the age of fifteen, pregnancy and delivery are life threatening for the majority of Ethiopian women.
I was given a tour through the hospital by one of my student’s mothers. Her husband is the CEO of the hospital and their passion for their work was simply breathtaking. Walking through the gardens of this hospital, smiling “Tanasalin, dananish?” at women who had gone through the most horrific experience of their lives only to become the mother of a stillborn and mutilated for the rest of their lives is simply heartbreaking. Only one hundred and ten doctors for a country of dying women. The vast majority of those doctors are based in Addis and never venture out to the country side.
It makes you wonder why you are so lucky to be born in the West, why you are so lucky to be a member of a culture that values women. With the small number of doctors, it is no wonder that thousands of Africans die every day due to complications from birth, leprosy, malaria, and AIDS. It seems like an impossible task to ward off the impending attack of these diseases which does not inflict the western world so strongly. You can’t help but feel that even if a cure for AIDS was found, there would be no way to save Africa because of the limited resources and the poverty of the people and the ignorance of the rest of the world.
It is truly overwhelming. Although this post has changed from a post about samosa sickness to one a bit less lighthearted, I hope that you wont’s just read through it quickly. Please, stop and pray for Africa’s future. Please pray for a miracle.
Ok, so apparently I am full of lies. And cookie dough. Perhaps five rounds of pre-made chocolate chip cookie dough would have been a little too much. Perhaps, that and the snack sized bag of barbecue chips to balance out the sugar and then the three slices of raspberry danish because I was beginning to have a sugar crash.
I am not a glutton. I only play one on my blog.
So this weekend I graced my friend’s second wedding reception with my monstrous appetite, visited the marvelous Book Loft and got lost in the shelves and corners to such an extent that I had to ask directions from a poor desperate child huddled near the self-help books when he only wanted to find the new Series of Unfortunate Events episode, and tasted thai food for the first time. Congratulations, you made it through the world’s longest sentence.
You get a cookie.
Ugh, no more mentioning of cookies.
Though my experiences with the tasting of the thai food, I have discovered that I am quite adept at using chop sticks. Of course many people have proven themselves to be quite adept at eating with chop sticks, but if you fully comprehend the remarkable state of my clumsiness then you will truly marvel at my skill.
Yes, when you fully understand my clumsiness, you will also marvel at my ability to walk in a straight line. A fact which astounds me everyday.
My amazing skill with chopsticks developed a few weeks ago in my Social Studies class when a friend read a reading rainbow book and taught us the proper technique to chopstick holding. I feel that maybe jujitsu would have been also helpful, but I suppose that in the short-run, the chopsticks were the best choice. After a few minutes spent attempting to pick up a pencil, I felt fully prepared to tackle the world of asian food. I vowed to eat every food within the following week with the chopsticks and perhaps learn to fold origami with the tiny little food-sticks. And then I promptly forgot.
I do not know these chopsticks of which you speak.
When I practically illustrated my amazing chopstick skills on Friday with a friend, I renewed my vow of only eating with the chopsticks because chopsticks make food more amusing than the first time I mixed catsup and mustard together and called it a side dish. Alas, this time the vow was still quite short lived. Surprisingly, chips are not easy to eat with chopsticks. Luckily for me, Ethiopian food is eaten with clean fingers and much injera. No chopstick skills necessary. Though daunted by the chopstick/chip disaster, I determinedly took up the sticks again with my ramen. I have to say, through two attempts with the ramen/chopsticks, I am quite amazing at bringing the food to my mouth. With no mishaps reminiscent of the chip disaster, though perchance more amusing and less polite.
I think I may now be prepared to attempt origami with the chopsticks. I will get back to you about the cranes.
