I don't remember eating a sexy beast

I know that I always say that fruits and vegetables are available easily and cheap here, but then I never elaborate and tell what we make of them

If you have been paying attention, you already know that one of my flatmates is vegan, which means he doesn't eat or drink anything that is of animal origin. No eggs, no milk. Since we usually cook together, the household is practically vegan, with a few kilos of cheese here and there, because it's good, and I should bring home some local cheese next time, and beause it can be added to most dishes at the very end, therefore inducing a case of cake eaten and had.

In the indian store and on the market we can buy different types of lentils, couscous, beans and chickpeas, and every time somebody comes back from the developed world, they bring some quinoa with them. These then can be combined with the aubergine-zucchini-squash-cauliflower-tomato-bell peppers team, and they usually end up being very tasty dishes. If I make the soup, I start with the obvious onion-paprika base, and throw in everything I can find, blender it and at the very end add a little powdered coconut milk. If Marcello cooks, the soup has more of a minsetrone feel to it, I tend to pour that all over myself, and Rafa just squeezes lemon juice into everything.

The avocados here grow to a decent size, and zucchinis even bigger, so it happens that the combination of those two end up as fake (zucchini) pasta with avocado sauce. Noms.

Sometimes the chickpeas make it to the soup, but most of the time they serve as base material for the hummus. Luckily for us, because of the indian contingent, there are a few well-equipped indian stores here, and tajina (pureed sesame) is always accessible. Which is good, the hummus needs it. (As pesto usually has cheese in it, we don't keep any at home, so nowadays, if life gets hard, I eat tajina with a spoon from the jar. Nothing is unsolvable.)

One of my favourite creations is fresh spinach being sautéed (any expert is more than welcome to provide the appropriate English term for this) in olive oil with garlic, mixed with mushrooms and quinoa in the wok. I can eat that standing right next to the stove. I could, if my flatmates weren't circling in the kitchen, like vultures, waiting for the dish to be of edible temperature.

Ratatouille (again, please be shy with your English term proposals. The household and life in general is largely multilingual, if I don't know a word in English, I throw it in French. Or Hungarian. Spanish. Swahili.) is an obvious choice, and the advanced version at that, with aubergine and some sort of squash. Aubergine happens to be my other love, turns up in grilled version as well, usually hiding under tomato sauce,

but I have also made ugly but tasty purée out of it. I can make ugly but tasty purée out of pretty much anything, last weekend I put carrots in the hummus. I would have put more, but the boys thought that the carrots chips will be afternoon snacks and ate half of it straight from the oven dish. This then gave me the brilliant idea of making some more for the Tuesday movie night, something to munch on, which is not processed potato chips from the store, but also doesn't require my dancing in the kitchen for hours, as I do when „we” are making pizza.

My dancing in the kitchen for hours usually has some surprising results. Such as: baklava (vegan), chocolate cake (vegan), rainbow cake (vegan, but tastes very artificial),

garlic cheese bread (no, not vegan. It requires cheese, garlic butter and love. A lot of love.),

Grandma's pogácsa (also not very vegan), banana bread (vegan)

or stuffed bell peppers (vegan upon request). Aaaaand! Last weekend we made sushi and tempura! We spent about three hours in the kitchen, and devoured the outcome in less than nine minutes. And then all went straight to a food coma. It was great.

All good things come to an end (but there is nothing new under the sun)

I've talked about this before, but back then I just started thinkging that here nothing and nobody is consant, and once, not so far from now, I will be standing in the empty flat, because the boy have moved out, and I will be the most senior in the office because everybody else has left, and it doesn't matter that I know it's normal, and that in an environment like this people come and go even faster than usual, I will hate it all the same.

And it's particularly strange considering that I don't plan for (warning! Big words ahead!) ever or for long term or until retirement etc either. So I am here on a temporary basis, but how dare the others not want to be part of my life forever from now on, even after my life is not going on here any longer?

If somebody suspects hearing some stagiaire-life echos, they are not mistaken. And not only because the timetable of the stagiaire times „Monday language classes, Tuesday skate night, Wednesday Apoteca, Thursday swim day, Friday preparations for Saturday's party and Sunday recovery, debrief and press release” only differs a bit from the timetable we have here: Tuesday is movie night, Wednesday is Chalet, Thursday quiz, Friday Coco Jamboo and Saturday Tango Bar (Sunday is for recovery, debrief and press release), but also because everything is so fast and intense. Somebody showed up at our housewarming in November and we thought he was kinda weird (he was on time! and kept systematically opening bottles of sparkling wine), and then we spent a whole weekend with him in Kigali in February (Miss Rwanda was there too), and his farewell party lasted a week because we hated the fact that he was leaving us. At the Christmas party I thought that girl wasn't very original with her (my) red dress idea, and I don't like competition anyway, and now we are planning a seaside getaway for the Easter weekend. The girl I met on New Year's Eve and thought had an interesting face is now my Sunday coffee-in-sweatpants buddy. And of course the Doctor didn't even need all 75 days of this year to figure out my role in the group, or my frustrations and my tricks trying to hide them, but it's his job after all.

My role in this group, by the way, not very surprisingly, is to always have bandaids, sunscreen, napkins with me, to always know the timetable, to make sure everybody has their passports and nobody is hungry, ever. It may or may not be a coincidence, but our household has become the foster home of all the lost kids, where you can show up on a Saturday if you don't remember where you left your car on Friday, where you get fed soup and/or pálinka if the salmon-strawberry cake combination was a little too much for you, where all your love stories can be told, and where nobody is hungry, ever. I am very happy about this, because it just ended up being this way, and because we share all the feeding, pálinka-pouring, love story-listening and other tasks that come with foster-parenting.

All this of course doesn't make the whole situation any less schizophrenic: we all (or almost all) believe to be here on a temporary basis, but at the same time we all (or almost all) are currently calling this place home. Because there is no other way to do it. We all (or almost all) have a concept of home, and most of us can even show it on the map, but that's where our nephews and nieces live. And maybe one day, not so far from now, we will live there too. And then somebody else will be standing in the empty flat, hating it. 

Holida-y

I was on holdiays! DRC didn't make it to the Africa Cup Finals, but they did win the „little final” so finished third afterall, so yay!
Let me start with geography. It is summer South of Equator now. Then consider that last time I had proper holidays was when Die Sömetings were touring Switzerland and Italy, and well, that wasn't yesterday. Then add to it that I grew up in a small, flat, landlocked country, and then spent a significant amount of time in little, flat, mainly landlocked countries since. And if somebody thinks that I'm a bit of a plant as in I can't go on for long without sunshine, well, they are not mistaken either.
Oh, and let's not forget that I currently live in a place where movement is a bit limited, and in addition everything is just far enough for us having to drive all the time, and where food is cheap and fresh, but the choices are rather limited.


Considering all of the above, I have to say it was quite a brilliant idea to choose the Republic of South Africa for my vacations. The country truly is the Australia of this continent: they have a funny accent and love their barbecues.  Other than that, they have on display: hills and mountains and valleys, two oceans, all kinds of wild beasts, and fair amount of sunshine. Oh, and nice food and pleasant wine.

So we didn't really do much more than driving a lot (from Johannesburg all the way to Cape Town, with detours and frequent beach stops), then walked a lot, ate well and supported the local wine industry. I am really not sure why I packed so many clothes as I refused to wear anything that had sleeves – a decent tan is a must.

The country is beautiful! It's probably also because of the season, but I couldn't stop being amazed and thinking these colours cannot be for real, and that maybe in this country public works mean repainting the skies and the ground.

Besides the sunshine-oceans-good food combination, the thing I really enjoyed is that in South Africa it's not eternal summer, the seasons actually change, I just happened to arrive at the right time. This makes people, tourists and locals alike, act differently. Like when in the Benelux the first sunny day arrives, and everybody is over the moon and all over the patios and walks up and down in town with a happy grin because maybe winter will end sometime, and maybe life has a point after all. And even if it doesn't, it's so much prettier when the lights are right. I've been missing this feeling and was really glad having found it again.
Of course summer in February also means (as I learnt) that the beauty industry moves down to Cape Town in November and stays and works there until March, because Europe and North America is up to their belly buttons in snow, and that can make it hard to shoot credible underwear commercials. I guess. So everything was packed with really good looking people, and it seemed it was their job to be gorgeous. This is a very pleasant background for holidays, but then also a bit confusing until you know where they all come from, and then at some point it can be a little overwhelming too. Ok, fine, I didn't cry much over the beauty of everyone around me. I did feel extremely sorry for myself over the unbearably, tackily beautiful places I had to be, and that the only way for me not to see the Atlantic from my balcony is to close my eyes, but even then, I can still smell it.