Merry Christmas

          On Christmas Eve, we walked to the open air market.  I saw two people purchase live chickens.  One lady put the live chicken right into the back hatch of her little KIA car not in a cage or anything.  She didn’t put anything under it.  I bet she will have a mess on the carpet of her trunk.  The live chickens were selling for 2,000 Naira ($14).  I dared Clint to buy one and fix it for Christmas dinner.  He bragged about knowing how to do it but he didn’t buy one.  I probably would have been laughing hysterically watching him and crying for the poor chicken at the same time.  You know that thing pregnant ladies often do, laughing on one breath and crying on the next.

pineapple custard over crepes

          Clint made crepes and pineapple custard for us.  We have both tried to make the custard before.  We see custard for sale at every market.  Both times it flopped because it was either too watery or a chalky paste.  The directions on the container are so vague like the person making already knows what to do.  Well we didn’t.  I found some directions online but it still didn’t work.  This time Clint found a video with no sound.  On the second try he did it.  It is hard to describe.  When you pour the boiling hot water onto the paste you make and just stir a little it suddenly expands into a pudding consistency.  It really looks like magic.  No wonder we couldn’t get it right without the complete directions and the video. 

We were afraid to add too much milk and have it turn runny again so we just quickly put it on top of the crepes.  As I was eating and the custard started to cool it hardened like plastic and kind of tasted like it too.  The left over custard in the bowl almost couldn’t be dished out.  I got a really bad stomach ache later in the day.  Clint admitted he didn’t eat any of it after I told him what mine was doing as it cooled.  I think we will give the rest of the jar away.  We are done trying to make it.

My Santa Stocking

This morning, when I woke up and came out into the living room there was a gym sock on my laptop.  Clint had this silly grin on his face.  He said Santa came and gave us Christmas stockings.  We each received a Lindt chocolate bar.  I had wanted one since we saw them appear on the shelves recently with other Christmas treats.  They were 700 Naira a piece (apx. $5).  I felt pretty spoiled to have one all to myself this morning.  It even had nuts so Santa was being very thoughtful.

Our lovely outdoor furniture

I gave Clint a plastic table and chair set for Christmas.  He got it early so we could enjoy sitting outside during our month long winter break.  This would seem odd except this is the warmest time of year here.  The temperature really doesn’t fluctuate more than about 10 degrees all year long but in the winter months it is the dry season.  The first few months we were here if it didn’t rain during the day it rained at night.  We were told the rains will return in March. 

Clint gave me a counterfeit Scrabble game we found in the market.  The board is made of poster board and the letters are cheap plastic.  The letters easily slide off because the board will not stay flat.  During our first game today Clint drew two letter Q’s.  We should have counted the letters before we started.  Oh well it was fun and we don’t have to use our Internet time to play anymore.  We played a Christmas version.  If you made a Christmas word you added 5 points to your word score.  I had more Christmas words than he did but he still won the game as usual.

For dinner I made an apple pie.  Clint made spam with pineapple, baked potatoes and macaroni and cheese.  It was the best we could find.  I took a plate out to our guard.  I told him I knew it wasn’t his traditional food but I hoped he would like it.  We were told chicken and rice is what they eat.  I think that is what they always eat everyday of the year.  We ate our pie outside and played cards as the sun was going down.  This evening we had a Skype call with our kids.  Tim had stayed the night at Cyndi and Ryan’s house.  Cyndi put on her African dress for us to see.  Tim’s gift is still in the mail.  I sure hope it arrives soon.  We got him a wood mask and a cow tail whip.  We both called our parents too.  It was nice talking to family.  I especially appreciated all the Merry Christmas posts on Facebook.  We are really lonely right now with school not in session and all the other expats gone.  Getting a chance to chat using all our forms of technology has made it bearable. 

Our evening almost ended on a positive note and then we found something horrifying.  We were readjusting the foam pad on our bed and discovered a huge cockroach was under the foam close to wear Clint’s head lays.  It was only moving a little when I lifted the foam.  I think I may have partially squished it when I was kneeling on the bed.  What we don’t know is if it was at some point inside the net with us while we were sleeping.  Either way we were freaked out about it.  The bug thing just never ends here.   Clint wanted to look under the mattress and under the frame after seeing it.  I said, “are you sure you want to open that can of worms.”  What if we saw a whole bunch of them alive under there?  I don’t know if I could ever get a good night’s sleep again.  He said he couldn’t sleep with the unknown.  We did lift them both and look and saw nothing so I guess we both can sleep now.

He was pretty flat but still moving.

Merry Christmas to all and have a good night!