Today

I'm currently sitting quite contentedly...
contently...
content...
with an UBER-large cup of SUMATRA-Starbucks-blend coffee, straight from my french press. You see this weekend was another fabulous power-out-all-day-and-night-during-the-hottest-time-of-the-year weekend. The only silver lining I found was that my coffee that had been stuck to the bottom of our freezer ever since that last major power-outage weekend, was finally acquitted from its charges and set free. This morning I had no need to make myself any coffee. This morning, our directors decided to treat the entire staff to a fit-for-a-king buffet at a nearby hotel. It was glorious. I went back for seconds and thirds and I won't make you jealous by describing in full the wonderful first taste of actual maple syrup on waffles that I've had in months. I also made sure to help myself to enormous cups of coffee, sent from our neighbors, the Togolese. From there, the day progressed quite nicely, as it was Africa Union Day and students had the day off. I spent time cleaning up my classroom, writing exams, and sweating my arse off. The power hasn't been constant enough to run my air conditioning ever since I got back from Europe. Complaining was not my object of this blog post so I will continue.

The afternoon proved cloudy. Thanking God for his natural shade on Africa, my friends and I played a bit of volleyball after school and went running. We love cloudy days around here. I then began to make the dinner I have at least four times a week: boiled peas and carrots, throw in noodles, strain it all, add butter and seasoning. Easy-peasy.

HOWEVER...dun, dun, duhhhhhhhhhhhh...

I received this lovely package from my parents a few weeks ago. It was truly fantastic and included, among other amazing things, a potato bag. My mother's friend's mother makes these little cloth pouches that are like little miracle-potato cookers. I've used it once before and my potatoes that I cooked in the microwave, with this magic potato sack, came out all perfect and baked as if they had just come out of the oven! Wonderful! Apparently it was lucky that they came out alright because I found out that if you don't stick a wet paper towel in WITH the potatoes, inside the sack, the whole set-up might just set on fire. Phew! We don't own any paper towels, because paper towels are too expensive for something that does the same job as a rag or sponge, but maybe it's time to invest? Here's why...

I decided to add some SPUNK (or should I say "SPUD-nk"-hehe) to my average peas, carrots, and noodles dish by trying to "bake" potatoes in the micro again (this time-I was sure to add a wad of wet-with-clean-water toilet paper to be safe). I followed the directions, same as before, but after the 8-10 minutes, when I opened up the micro-door, black smoke came rollin' out. MMmmmm that's a CLEAR sign that I've been trying something new....THIS IS WHY I ALWAYS STICK WITH NOODLES AND FROZEN VEGGIES.

Anyway, after the girls asked what I had burned this time, I showed them.



My heavyweight potato became a lightweight, all shriveled up and dry. The wad of toilet paper became a stiff, whitish-brown mass. The potato sack, itself, became stiffer than before with added leopard-like spots. Waiting for my hot-off-the-stove noodles dish, I decided to dissect the shrunken potato. Here's what it looked like on the inside after I SAWED it in half:



And here's what it looked like after I tried some:



Just so you know, burnt and shriveled potatoes taste like tiny, crispy fries that got left in the freezer for about ten years without that nice deep-fried oil flavor.

Tired from my potato excursion, I sat down with my bowl of noodles and veggies and decided to drink my wine from the bottle. We've almost broken our way through two sets of four wine glasses and I had already had enough screw-up for one dinner.

With a few more exams to write, I decided that THIS would be the perfect time to enjoy my bold-Sumatra. It (with me under my spinning fan) is soooooooooooooo goooooooooooooood.

I apologize for any of you who may have found this story to be mundane; I pray that your evening will show more promise than mine. I also hope that you all enjoy your last two weeks of fiesta in the States, because come June 8th, I'm crashin' the party.

I can't wait to talk to you all!!!!! If I don't see you, I swear it's nothing against you, it's just that I'll be Flight-of-the-Bumble-Bee busy this summer. I'll let you know how these last two weeks progress, I know you'll all be on the edge of your seats, waiting to find out. :)

Lots of love,
Meg

P.S. Happy Birthday to my fabulous, wonderful, fantastic and beautiful friend Jamie, who turns 25 today. Love you too!