Fantasyland, USA

This Kraft bag of white and pink marshmallows invites readers to join its
giraffe mascot in the "unreal world of Manhattan." I'm assuming this is
somewhere between "Peter Pan's Flight" and "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride."

Two good links on Nigeria

Read a little bit about Nigeria, oil revenues, bad incentives, and corruption here and here.

A very South African exchange

"Howzit?"
"Hectic, but we're winning! First place would be to have it all done now now."

The miscellaneous

1) During the weekend I had brunch at a place called Nice, and it lived up to its name. On the menu: “Scrummy Crumpets.” With a name like that, I had to order it.

First, crumpets: turns out they are small, sweet pancakes. Pancakes are always a winner in my book, so we’re off to a good start.

Next, bacon: bacon makes everything better. Rules of The Bacon Game: name something that tastes worse when bacon is added. It doesn’t take long to play, because the list is very short. ( Apparently even bourbon is enhanced by bacon. HT to Nancy.)

Layer with strawberries and cream, which I would consume in mass quantities even by themselves, and you have a winner – though if you manage to come up with a bad recipe using those ingredients, I’d be amazed.

2) Over here, an “American breakfast” includes baked beans.

3) You know you’re in a low-income country when radio ads tell people to SMS to a certain number in order to receive a call back from a salesman.

4) Google Maps is slightly behind Coke’s marketing in “products that amaze me” (it even tells you which exit to take from roundabouts). However, it hasn’t fully adjusted to Joburg security, because there are frequently situations where it looks like you can get from A to B on neighborhood streets only to discover that the area is gated and closed off. Fail.

I usually think of a "0 km/h" speed bump as being... a wall.

5) I have complained on here before about the lack of straight citrus juices in SA.  If you take a look at this carton, it has a bunch of oranges on the front and says, plain as day, "Orange juice."  If you take a look at the ingredients, though, the first ingredient is "deflavoured apple or pear juice."  Deflavoured juice... in my juice?  Aren't you just left with sugar water?

6) I will again sing the praises of South African braais. Last weekend I was at a “bring and braai” (the braai version of potluck – everyone brings a meat to put on the grill). The end result is a big pile of meat of various cuts/seasonings. So good, but I’m still manning up – sometimes afterward I just want a salad. Maybe with some bacon…

Just to prove my point

After going off about bacon this weekend, I thought this was relevant. The
French girl on my team bought these bacon-infused Ritz crackers for our
team room.

Different perspectives on different worlds

I had a long chat with a friend who has been living in China for three years and will be there for a few more. It was a very refreshing conversation and fascinating as we saw both striking similarities and differences in our experiences and the people around us.

As I traveled in college I quickly realized that those who haven’t left the U.S. simply have a limited ability to understand the stories and experiences one brings back. Living abroad takes this to another level, and I have realized this is one reason why expat communities are so strong: even if I’m in South Africa and someone else is in China, we both understand each other’s life better than anyone in the U.S. can.

Last week I was talking with an Afrikaner who specifically said he wouldn’t want to live abroad because he was afraid it would change him. I couldn’t argue with that. But what kind of change is it? I would argue that it is a development – each lesson I gain from being abroad teaches me two things: something about the people/area around me and something about who I am/where I come from. It is no coincidence that a touring Frenchman wrote a defining account of early America.

Afri-Tex-Mex

What does it take to make decent texmex here? Well, it took me three grocery trips, lots of confused grocery stockers, and some tortillas flown in from the U.S. There was some improvising, but I was pretty happy with what I dubbed “Afri-Tex-Mex.”

It’s something I had wanted to do for a while, but it finally came to pass because I got a shipment of tortillas from the U.S. That’s right. A friend’s dad is a pilot who was flying to JNB, so I met him for a meal and got some tortillas from the deal.

The final meal was tacos and Spanish rice with chips and salsa – a slight downgrade from the planned enchiladas, Mexican black beans, and the rice. I got curious and tallied everything up. Final cost? ~$8/head. Not bad vs. going out, but relatively expensive for home cooking.

In my quest to put together this meal, I was buying a bag of Bandito’s chips and as I got my card out and signed the receipt the cashier looked at the chips… turned them over… looked at me… and finally asked me something like, “what are these?” I told her they were plain chips for salsa, not like that would enlighten her at all. She said in an amazed voice, “They’re expensive!” She’s right. As discussed before, chips are pricey. I also found that Bandito’s has a monopoly on all things quasi-Mexican (the only jalapenos I found are also Bandito’s, and I saw taco sauces).

I came up short when looking for black beans.  There are plenty of beans, but just no black beans either in canned or dry form. I may be able to find them at a specialty store.  I also gave up on chicken broth after several guys all staring blankly when I asked for it.

I was at a point of crisis until I found out that cilantro is coriander leaf. I didn’t realize this until I went to my third store and found someone who made the connection. Once I found that out, one of my key missing spices turned out to be ubiquitous.


At that same third grocery I finally found lime juice… in an expensive, small jar.  Lime and dill are some of my favorite seasonings, so this is disappointing.  

While shopping I was wearing a t-shirt I got in Honduras that was designed by a friend I work with at Building a Future. A guy in an elevator turns to me and says, “All the way from Mexico?” I let the Honduras/Mexico mix-up slide, and then he says: “That must have been a heckuva canoe trip.” Yes, yes it was…