Nigeria!

So right now my co-author is sitting across the table from me, and we are having a blace.  What the heck is a blace?  Answer #1: some random thing I just made up.  Answer #2: when one and one's co-author (henceforth "two") write posts for the same blog concurrently.  The first one to finish wins, but I haven't decided what yet.  I'll pick that when I win.

Anyway, MY post is about Nigeria.  Or, as I enjoy calling it, 9ja.  Because that's how the cool, hip kids spell it.  And while I'm not really cool, or a kid, I do have two hips, so....yeah.  And now, dear reader, tremble in fear, for you are about to receive an illustrated telling of assorted anecdotes from my increasingly-less-recent sojourn to Nigeria, land of languages, diversity, intrigue, and also credit fraud.
It's pretty – lush, and verdant, and a unique mix of first-world novelty, third-world apparent-ruin, and a sublime cultural charm found nowhere else on this Earth that I have been. 

Love of the braai

In the USA, NY-NJ-PA-MA in one week.  I celebrated being in here by seeing friends and family.  Mostly, I have been drinking and eating non stop thanks to great food and beer.  My cousins made my 4th of July a blast literally with the ridiculously grand display of fireworks.  Too bad I slept through most of it.

Now I in Boston to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday, Will's birthday and Sylvia and Scott's wedding.   Another busy week.  My mom is also tagging along in MA, just to be in the same state as me.  She hasn't moved to Africa (yet), but she couldn't stay in NJ while I was here.

The weather here in MA is....

What I never finished this one?  The weather was hot.  I loved every single minute of the trip to USA.   I love our family and friends.  Miss you all.

This was us about a year ago.  We are still just the same people with more stories to tell.  We are growing each day closer and more in love.  Our anniversary brandy is being drunk right now!  

Will and I are enjoying our evening, post braai.  The braai this evening was on wood instead of charcoal, which means we are becoming TRUE South Africans.  An honorable mention goes to me for the awesome rescue of the potatoes. 

Why braai in Africa? Perhaps because it is just another day of the year, perhaps because it is suddenly warm or because it is just so much fun.  I don't know what calls one to braai so much but the feeling is contagious.

Speaking of contagious Will came back from Nigeria with a cold, and I caught it.  It was not that bad, but I was able to kick it with antibiotics and paracetamol (acetaminophen).   After which we rescheduled our trip to Nieu Bethesda.  It actually happened this past weekend.  A new blog story to follow.

Tonight is an ordinary night in our lives.  It is just now being captured in a blog, something I haven't done in a long time.  I need to catch up on the things that are important in life.  So, if I have been absent for a while, I apologize.  Today I found out my work permit will be finalized (finalised) in about 14 days!  This has been a LONG time coming.

Our backyard has been steadily improving since we moved in to our house.  The garden was not a huge success although we harvested a few carrots.  Our tomato plants survived but without any yield. I am not sure what is going to happen with the spring season, whether we will tempt the garden again or not.  Now now *right now* we have planted spekboom, rosemary, and pelargonium. I am hopeful that my pelargonium lives.  This particular one is lemon rose scented leaves and blossoms purple flowers.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulacaria_afra - Spekboom - elephant bacon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelargonium

It is great to have the opportunity to learn the indigenous plants and indigenous languages (isiXhosa) and indigenous customes such as the braai.  We will have so many stories to tell in the future, so expect to hear "when I was in South Africa" a lot!

Here are the gratuitous food porn pictures you were waiting for:  

 Will has perfected the method of cooking steaks and boerewors on wood.  Our tiny braai cooking surface has served us well.  We even had a recent braai with Nigerian suay.  I love to entertain our culinary enthusiastic friends. Will and I plan to have many more parties in the future.

On gigantic bromeliads (and being 3 months behind in storytelling)

Man, this blogging thing is much harder than I ever anticipated.  Not that I'm giving up, mind you.  Nor that I expected to do it completely regularly and attentively, because that's just not a thing I do really.  But I did expect such merry excitement over every last little thing of our new (well, by now, really not-so-new) homeland that I would just gush ad nauseam.  Which I do, of course.  Just....not so much online.

Case in point: Big Pineapple. 

'Big Pineapple?!' I hear you cry 'What on earth do those words mean?'
They mean this thing:

At which point you should be thinking 'oh yeah, now the name makes sense.'