Learning curves for everyone

Kristen here....

Rolling out a pie crust for the first time...the secret is out, I always used to buy the premade ones at the store.

 

This week I have learned a lot about power.  Specifically, the electricity that runs through our house.  I never really gave it much thought before. We have had more constant power here recently as the rainy season seems to be coming to an end, but I never realized that the quality of the electricity can really matter.  As we have decorated for Christmas we have put up a few lights in the house and every night when we turn them on we have no idea what they will look like.  Sometimes, though when we have electricity and our overhead lights are on the current is so weak that our Christmas lights are dimmer than a candle.  Sometimes they don't light up at all.  This also affects our microwave.  Yes, we do have a microwave in our home, but you never really know how it is going to work.  The other night Dan was trying to reheat some leftover pasta.  The microwave turned on, made noise like it was working and all the lights came on.  However, after several minutes of reheating and the temperature of his food was no different than the temperature of the refrigerator that it came from and he gave up.  The next day he skeptically gave the microwave another chance and after one minute his food was hot!  You just never know.  I thought that microwaves were either on or off....apparently there is an in-between too.

We are also learning about the produce here.  It is not uncommon to walk into the little open air market in town where the locals are selling their fruits and vegetables and see something completely new.  Who knew that these are both completely ripe and ready to eat avocados?

Anyone want to vote on if Dan needs a pedicure? :-)



 

We also learned about tomato tree fruit today.  I am now really sad that I didn't take a picture of it.  The outside looks like a small purple roma tomato with a stem.  I asked one of the ladies there how to eat them and she gave us a demonstration.  She picked up one and bit off the bottom. Inside this bright red juice came out.  It looked like blood.  She described it as "sour, very refreshing."  I don't know if I am quite ready to sink my teeth into one of those yet. 

 

I am not the only one learning things though.  This week both of the regular anesthesiologists were on vacation so the hospital hired someone from Eldoret to come and fill in.  She and I were talking before one of my cases and she was asking me about life back home. She wanted to know what the most common diseases were where I come from.  I started listing off diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease.  She looked at me sort of funny and then asked, "don't you have malaria or typhoid?"  I had to smile to myself.  Our worlds are so very different.  I told her we do not have malaria or typhoid back home.  I then told her we also don't really have worms or parasites (I know some would argue about such a blanket statement, but compared to here we are worm and parasite free back home).  Her jaw dropped at this point.  She could not imagine a place that didn't have worms or parasites.  She began asking me how this could be.  How do you describe having totally purified, filtered water piped right into your home, ready to drink and parasite free to someone who has never even dreamed of such a thing?  Or how do you describe the FDA and all of the regulations that get put on the things that we eat? Supermarkets full of almost every food you can think of and all of it guaranteed to be safe to eat and marked with an expiration date. People here eat mostly what comes out of their gardens and on special occasions add meat to their diet that is butchered in their back yard.  Dan and I often laugh about how "cage free, all organic" foods back home are a premium.  Here just about every animal is "cage free" and is definitely not being fed any special, expensive, hormones as they scavenge around to eat anything they can find including the local garbage.  I am hoping that "cage free, all organic" back home means something different than it means here. 

 

The learning curve here continues.  We have had many good laughs as we learn the ropes, make mistakes and figure out the way of life in this new country.  Lots more stories to come!