Food / Groceries

We spent a whole day last week shopping in Nairobi. We were mainly purchasing food, but also a few household items. That day, I was suddenly faced with the fact that I knew nothing. How humbling. Home in Durham, I have fine tuned my Costco, Target, Kroger, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods runs. Wow - did I just list 5 stores at which I shop?? I know exactly which products I want to buy where, and I know how to compare prices, products, amounts, etc. I know what I always want to have on hand as staples, what fresh produce I like to pick up, etc. I have a variety of meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that my family enjoys. Here, I know nothing. By the way, did you know that you can make your own maple syrup? We are "real" maple syrup fans (think Parker's Maple Barn homemade syrup from NH). But yesterday, I got past that and I boiled a cup of water, dissolved 2 cups of sugar in it, and then added a teaspoon of maple flavoring. Pretty good in a pinch! How about your own hot cocoa mix: powdered milk, cocoa and sugar. Voila! I've been learning a lot from some missionary cookbooks that are in our house. I am re-learning lots of things. I made a very successful lentil soup in the crock pot today! (But even the lentils are different here!)

Back to shopping -- we drove (a description of the drive is a whole other story - maybe for Alex to describe) to Nairobi which takes about one hour and arrived at the Nakumat (compare to Target or Super Wal-Mart, but without clothing for sale). We had to slowly go through each aisle trying to figure out where and what everything was -- a very difficult task, and the language is English, but everything is different somehow! You definitely don't want to buy the products you recognize, because those are the most expensive ones! Put in 75 shillings to the dollar and the metric system and price comparison starts to get tricky. Good thing I brought my trusty math whiz with me! Alex, who barely never walks into a store at home, bravely made it through three stores (Nakumet, the butcher, and Zucchinis - the fruit/veggie shop), with a break for a delicious indian lunch at the "food court" which, by the way, is totally different from an American food court (clean, people bring you your food, real utensils, etc.). The whole trip took about 7 hours (door to door). The worst part was, we got home and still felt like we barely had anything to eat. But I think I've gotten over the hump. Getting started on shopping/cooking is half the battle. Also, getting used to a new kitchen with different tools is difficult (at least for me). But now, I have baked cookies, have prepared several successful meals now and am well on my way to figuring things out here.

Milk is available on campus. Someone delivers raw milk in bulk, the cafeteria pasteurizes it, and then they fill our milk jugs (whole or skim, any amount in liters) with warm milk. The whole milk has cream on top! There is also a Kenyan man who works on campus who brings fresh eggs to sell out of his office, which we have been purchasing. Just off campus we shop at the Dukas (a tiny 7-11 type of store about the size of my kitchen at home and the vegetable ladies who sell fruits, veggies, homemade tortillas, and homemade english muffins). I've only been there once, but am about to go again tomorrow or Friday to stock up on fruits and veggies - they usually sell: carrots (which are deliciously sweet), peppers, onions, garlic, potatoes, avocados (about 10 cents each!), tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, cilantro, mangoes, bananas, pineapple, pumpkin, strawberries, and I'm sure a few other things as well). There are about 8 ladies selling mainly the same things, so we've been advised to buy one tomato at the first lady, a bunch of bananas at the next one, etc. Some people even say when they're buying tortillas, they buy 5 from each one just to keep things fair.

So far, we have thankfully not encountered any sickness due to food / travel. We bleach our veggies before consuming.

We have signed up to supervise the Cafeteria one night/week (read thought-free, cost-free meal for whole family) and have signed up to eat Sunday lunch (usually an old-fashioned Sunday dinner is served) each week through the term at the Cafo (as they call it here), which we hear is something that many people do here - so we'll have a great meal and fellowship as well.

We had been thinking about making our own yogurt back in Durham, but had gotten bogged down by all the technicalities and never actually started. We've asked a few people here and they say: just heat up some milk, add a little yogurt w/cultures and leave it in a warm place (behind the fridge, in the attic, etc.). We'll see how it goes!