It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

And I’m not talking about back to school shopping at Staples.  I’m talking about Christmas, which in our world means vacation time and visits from family.  My parents and sister will arrive in Nairobi today!  

Current location of the Jantzi family plane entering Sudanese air space

It also means a likely vacation from blogging, so for all you avid readers out there who can’t go a day without checking to see if there is some new literary masterpiece from Kaitlyn, or whatever drivel I throw up in between, you might want to break with routine for the next little while. 

Hopefully you too have some family or friends around to fill up all the extra time you’ll have on your hands.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good rest of December.

Eat Like We're There With You: The Spicy Boiled Groundnut Episode

I have oft thought about posting recipes on this forum for some of the yum-tacular food we make in Rumbek. Our diet - heavy on the rice, lentils, and tomato paste, light on the veggies, fruit, and most things fresh - can leave something to be desired. However over the past 2.15 years Luke and I have learned some delicious ways to morph thesameoldthing into something a bit more tasty. 

So without further ado, the first of a (possible) series entitled: Eat Like We're There With You.

This Episode: The Spicy Boiled Groundnut Snack

(North American Translation: The Boiled Peanut)

This recipe has been modified from somewhere off the internet, I don't remember where, but I thank the Google for the ongoing assistance it gives.

Step 1: Be gifted with an enormous feedbag of raw groundnuts (or procure some through alternative means)

Step 2: Wash groundnuts, scrub well. Do your best to pick out the ones that look like they harbour alien species you do not wish to ingest.

Step 3: Put the following ingredients into a pot

- a bunch of groundnuts

- enough water to cover the groundnuts

- 2 or 3 cloves crushed/chopped garlic

- 3 hot chilies (more or less to taste)

- 2 Tbsps salt

- 2 Tbsps sugar

- 1 Tbsp all spice

- 1 Tsp ginger

- 1 Tsp black pepper

Step 4: Bring all ingredients to a boil. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Step 5: Remove from stove, leave in water. Go to bed. 

zzzzzzzzzzzz

(that's you sleeping, although why you make a "zzzz" sound is beyond me)

Step 6: Sometime the next day remember about your spicy boiled groundnuts. Have a salivatory (root word: salivate) celebration while you drain the water off the little legumes. 

Step 7: Eat them! For best results crack the shell between your teeth so that you get some of the yummy flavour juices into you mouth. 

Step 8: Try not to develop an unhealthy dependence.

That's all for now folks. Hope some of you North Americans are able to get your hands on some raw gnuts to make this dish. It's a fan favourite in these parts.

Well, this was quite fun. Let's do it again sometime!

Handlebar Moustache and Carrots

Movember is over.  Females around the world are breathing sighs of relief.  I was asked to participate but decided that the movement might not translate that well to Rumbek.  People already think I’m strange enough without me intentionally messing with my physical appearance.  But as a tip of the cap to those who did go through the month long process, I shaved 2 or 3 weeks of beard into this sexy look which made one public appearance at our local Afex hotel/camp establishment for a few hours before disappearing later in the day.

On an unrelated but equally sexy note, we recently received two carrots imported from Juba by one of the other tenants in the compound.  Sorry no picture of this as they were consumed within minutes of their arrival.  Then just yesterday we heard that there were a few boxes of carrots in the Rumbek market.  We haven’t actually seen them ourselves but we did get another carrot from one of our friends here - also consumed immediately.  The prospect of adding a new vegetable to our diet is exciting even if they’re being imported from Uganda like much of the rest of our produce.