too many and not enough

With a little help from my friends
Saturday, 30 October, 2010

Nicky told me she’d come get me at 8 this morning. We were going to make bread with her mom. So I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. But she didn’t come. Instead, Seglinde and Ndara showed up for a short visit. I had things I wanted to give both of them – a notebook and a self addressed, stamped postcard to Ndara and a pair of Teva sandals to Seglinde.

Around 11, I was tired of waiting so went to Nicky’s house looking for her. It’d been almost 2 months since I was last there, so I walked in the front gate instead of the back way directly to her house. I had to greet Augusta first.

While I had been waiting patiently for Nicky to come, Nicky and Mukoya had gone to the river and found a tomato plant. It was full of tomatoes and they moved it to their garden. They found Lengi, an older boy who stays on their homestead, and yelled to him, “Yinye wa kutenda?” What are you doing?

He told them, “Na kukuyogha.” I’m bathing. They had to leave the riverside because Nicky’s a girl and can’t go there when a boy is bathing. Instead, they went to the market just down the path from their house and bought bread for breakfast that had been made at their home the day before.

We I got to their house, I found Nicky, Kunyima and Seglinde pounding mahangu.

“Seglinde, you came here just from my house?” I asked her.

“Ghii.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, ‘Let’s go to Nicky’s?” I would have come and pounded all morning with them.

“They did not make bread today,” Nicky told me by way of explanation for why she didn’t come get me in the morning. I had figured as much. “But tomorrow, they will make.”

Kunyima had already cooked dimbombo and cabbage before I’d arrived. It was brought out for lunch when the pounding was finished. Nicky went on a hunt for nandungu, chili, to make lunch more exciting. She started ripping it up with her fingers, no need for a knife here.

“Touch your eyes when you finish,” I challenged her.

She looked at me with laughter in her eyes.

We ate lunch, a little spicier than usual, their mom surprised I enjoyed it with nandungu. I even got a piece of it in one of my bites, and the other girls looked at me in surprise and worry.

After lunch, the heat was too much to take and we took off for the river. Seglinde wanted to bring her clothes to wash, so we made a turn at her house first. We went to a new place for me, down paths I couldn’t find my back on. There’s a canal that was dug in the ‘80s to channel water to the mission’s hydroelectric plant. The water is much calmer and there’s even nice enough grass in the shade to sit on. There were too many small kids for me to feel comfortable swimming, so I sat with some older learners in the shade who were also not swimming.

On the walk back, Nicky showed me her new tattoo on her shoulder. However, it wasn’t an actual tattoo, just a bite from Seglinde.

We left Seglinde at her house and Kunyima and Nicky came back to mine where I made dough for fat cakes, showing off my talent to Kunyima for the first time. As we walked, stories were told.

“Kunyima, did you tell Nicky about swimming in the sea?”

“No.”

I told about the time we drove around for 4 hours looking for a beach, when we left one at the start of our drive.

“Madam, remember the fat cakes we ate in Rundu?” Kunyima asked.

“Ghii. We had to wait too long to get them!”

“Why?” Nicky asked, not having heard that story from our adventure to Swakopmund either.

“She was still making them! But they were too small and not enough sugar. I told you all, ‘I can make better cakes than these’ when we ate them!”

“Ghii,” Kunyima laughed in agreement, remembering her last trip to Rundu.

We let the dough rise in the sun, Nicky and Kunyima sharing my iPod and singing horribly along with the songs I couldn’t hear. A fire was made with only one match thanks for Kunyima’s genious fire making skills and the oil was put on the get hot. We tried a small fat cake to see if it was ready, but when it stuck to the bottom of the pot, making a mess instead of a fat cake, we had to remain patient until the oil got hot enough.

“There is less today,” Nicky said, looking at the dough that was almost finished after just three sets of cakes going in the pot.

“Ghii, I made less because I don’t want left overs, I want us to eat them all today because they’re better hot. Who wants to eat cakes that a day old and cold?” We were all in agreement there.

“Who would win if we had a competition?” Nicky asked. “Me and you, who would win?”

“I would win!” I told her confidently, remembering the times when I had to force feed her a final half of a fat cake so there would be fewer left overs, a look of pain on her face.

“No no!” she told me, equally confident that it would be her.

“OK, next weekend I’ll be away, but the weekend after, we’ll have a competition. No, tomorrow we will, you, me and Kunyima.”

“And Ndara,” Nicky added. “Kunyima with Ndara and you with me. Two competitions.”

“Yes, Ndara too. But all four of us together. I won’t eat tomorrow before eating the fat cakes. We’ll finish all my flour!”

“Yes yes, don’t eat. The flour will be finished!” Nicky agreed as we finished today’s fat cakes with Vermont Cheddar Cheese shake that is Nicky’s favorite.

“It’s boring again after the fat cakes,” Nicky told me after we had eaten and cleaned up.

“What do you want to do?” I asked, thinking the answer would either be to watch Cinderella or The Lion King.

“LET’S WASH THE FLOOR!” Nicky said a little too enthusiastically. I’d told them that I would wash the floor tonight, since I had cleaned the house last night and I wanted the whole thing to be equally clean.

“Really?” I asked, pretty incredulous.

We got brooms, magic castile soap and a bucket full of water, moved everything that was on the floor onto my bed (all of my belongings fit in cupboards, closets or on my bed, I’m really downsizing) and began throwing water on the floor and sprinkling it with soap.

I was pretty useless, letting them do one of the things they do best – get things really clean.

“Let me see the thing your mom sent me,” Nicky demanded. I’ve been holding out on giving her the gift my mom sent until I’m going. She sent a notebook with a note inside telling Nicky to “write down the things you want to remember.” She read the note and I told her that after every time we hang out, I write a story so I can remember it later.

So as the floor dried, I took my computer and together, Nicky, Kunyima and I remembered our day together and put it here for everyone to read and for me to remember later, while Nicky picked my sunburned, peeling skin off my back. Now THAT is love.

As we put my house back together again with a clean, dry floor, I was hanging up my three jersies – a hoodie, a fleece jacket and a nice athletic hooded top that I found on Mt. Monadnok a few years ago. I felt like 3 was overkill to bring back to the states.

“Kunyima, do you have a jersey?” I asked as Nicky jealously looked on even though I gave her a green jersey in June.

“No.”

“I’ll take that one and I’ll give her mine,” Nicky quietly told me.

“Here, it’s yours,” I told Kunyima as I threw her the jersey from the mountain. She put it on in the stifling heat and we walked home.

I can’t believe I ate 9 fat cakes
Sunday, 31 October, 2010

At 1pm on the dot, exactly on time, not 45 minutes late for African time, Ndara, Nicky and Kunyima showed up at my house to eat as many fat cakes as we each could. I had already made the dough a half hour earlier and it was sitting in the sun rising. Nicky and Ndara went to collect some more firewood, Kunyima made a fire and I brought out all of our supplies – pot with left over oil from yesterday, bowl full of more dough than it’s ever seen at one time, bowl of water, pan to hold the finished products and the holey spoon to let oil drain off the cakes as we take them out of the pot.

We’d agreed to eat in teams – Nicky and me agains Kunyima and Ndara. We’d all barely eaten all morning in preparation. I’d only had some toast and an orange, many hours ago. Nicky’s greeting to me was, “I can see you’re ndhara.” I can see you’re hungry. I was.

The fire made, the oil sizzling, Nicky started putting cakes in and I watched and flipped them around as they browned. Nicky would lick the bits of dough that stuck to her fingers until I finally “yelled” at her to stop because her stomach would be full of dough instead of fat cakes!

The first batch was extra brown – a little burned and we all knew they wouldn’t be tasting. The oil was too hot, so I pulled some of the wood out to get the flame down and the rest of the cakes looked great. When they were finished, we waited, not so patiently especially for me, until they were a reasonable temperature. Then we sat on the stoop and dug in.

There were about 35 cakes and it took us less than 15 minutes to eat them all. Nicky, Kunyima and Ndara had a plan – eat fast and eat the smaller ones first. We all ate about the same speed at first, but then Ndara and I pulled ahead of the two to other girls. I picked up the last cake, it was a big one, and made Nicky take part of it. Ndara was struggling to finish his final one, so I grabbed half. He realized I was on the other team and wouldn’t let Nicky have any, even though his face was too full and it looked like he might throw up. Ndara ended up eating 10, I had 9, Kunyima 8 and Nicky 7. So my team lost, but I got second overall. And if we’d had more cakes, I would have definitely won – I was still going strong when Ndara was suffering. I would not have been happy afterwards, but the glory of winning would have been worth it!

Ndara had to go almost immediately after we finished so he could hike back to school. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to say a proper goodbye in December just before I leave. Kunyima lay on my thermarest, Nicky sat on a drum because of my general lack of chairs and I sat on the floor in front of her while she played with my hair and we watched The Lion King. Nicky knows about 90% of the words before they’re spoken. I’m always impressed with that.

After the movie, I was feeling cooped up in my house so told them we had to go somewhere. We found someone to cut their hair and then walked the long way home. On the walk, we talked about me going to town next weekend and what I have to get – for me and for them.

“You’ll get mahangu to pound?” Nicky asked, yesterday I’d told her I want to pound mahangu on my final night here, at her house, kill a chicken and then leave with the mushungwa to bring home to cook porridge for my family.

“Ghii. But if I buy next week, can I wait to pound in December?” It took a long time to get them to understand that one.

“But you can get more then next time you go.”

“I won’t go again, this will be my last trip to town before I go on my way to Windhoek.”

“Heeey!!”

“Next weekend to town, then here for 3 weekends and then I leave. There are only 5 weeks left. Do you want to know how many days?”

“Ghii.”

I gave it some thought – I leave the village 5 weeks from this past Friday, “33.” I got a look of extreme sadness from Nicky. “I know,” I told her, agreeing that it’s sad. “The other night, when I couldn’t sleep, my mom sent an email and asked how many days left. I wrote back and told her ‘Too many and not enough.’” I explained my reasoning in that there are too many days until I get to see my family but not enough days to spend here anymore.