Felica Food Network

As a Felica (yet another name for white person) in Sandema cooking is an adventure like no other. I have had a thoroughly enjoyable week of exploring the possibilities, and having minor missteps that always end in laughter. Here's a brief overview & my tips for success for Sandema cooking. 

On Groceries 

• Forget everything you have ever learned about grocery shopping. You don't have a fridge and it's 40 degrees outside. Buy enough vegetables for one day, or two if you have to. Be prepared for them to be mouldy on the second day. 
• Come to terms with it now: Buying eggs will become a balancing act and it will take you a week to finally succeed in getting a full batch of eggs home unbroken. Buy extra, double bag them, and hold the bag on your wrist as you ride home. Ride slowly through the unavoidable pot holes, and extra slow over the rocky-dirt sections of the road. Essentially, ride slowly. 
• If a bag of powdery stuff only costs 10p (~5cents) it's not corn flour. Disregard the lady in the market, she is only saying yes to your question because she doesn't understand you. If you buy this bag of 5cent yellow stuff you are buying ground up tree bits that have no english name. You should also then not put this in your tortilla recipe; it won't end with edible results. If you add this to your tortilla recipe, you should certainly sample it with your host sister to see her reaction. 
• Similarly, if you ask about a bag of seeds and the lady tells you it is in fact pumpkin seeds, don't buy it. Don't try to toast these. If you do though, definitely toast them in front of your host sister. When she tells you it's an inedible seed that needs to be ground and added to a fish sauce begin raiding your cupboard and holding up every food item. "Is this a tomato?! Is this salt?! Is this flour?!" you can say. Watch her laugh hysterically as she confirms you do correctly know some of the food items here. 

On Facilities 

• If you feel like you are being electrocuted when you pick up a pot off the stove, you aren't. You are however being attacked by hundreds of tiny bugs running out of the potholder and up your arms. You may want to handle this by screaming, throwing your arms up in the air, and slapping them off. If you're lucky you will succeed in flinging half these bugs into your roommate's hair just before your african hosts come into the kitchen. Chaos and laughter may ensue.
• If you need water from the kitchen sink move the large brick from off the spout, and fiddle with the inner workings of the tap until water comes out. Turn this off as soon as possible to avoid wasting it, and replace the brick. This will require you to balance the heavy side of the brick slightly to the right of the tap. If you don't get it just right the tap will continue running. 
• Don't try to substitute a freezer as a fridge. Your host family won't be impressed and all your bags of purified water will burst.

Cooking is strictly serious business in Sandema. 

On Hosting 

• Murphy's law suggests if you invite the other interns over for a home cooked meal to celebrate your first week of your internship, your stove will run out of propane and you will have to cook over a charcoal pot. 
• Your host sisters will find it hysterical and wonderful that you are cooking over a charcoal pot in the courtyard. They will however, not approve of the flatbreads you and your roommate roll by hand and grill, or the giant pot of vegetarian chilli you prepare. You may not approve of the fact that it takes 4.5 hours to cook dinner. Such is life. 
• When your host sister's friend Janet arrives to watch you cook over the charcoal stove tell her firmly: "Look! I am learning to be a better African wife!". The fact that you are cooking chilli might dispute this argument, but maintain that you are learning and it's all part of your plan to find a good husband.  
• Enjoy an evening sitting on the roof, under the stars, eating delicious food. Felica cooking in Sandema might not be so bad after all. 

The 'happy first week' rooftop celebration for the SFDers.