Summer in Kinshasa

This past week I have had lots of fun taking more flower pictures. First, I was very taken by this yellow and orange flower, so pretty!

Couldn't get enough of the palm tree reflection in the pool the other morning - almost too pretty to wreck by going swimming. The poor security guard saw me taking pictures alone at 6am and wanted to know if I wanted a picture taken of me! haha I said I was all set, just being Miss Amateur Photographer.

I just deeply cannot get enough of these flowers. I don't think I have ever seen anything so pretty.

 

 Imagine my surprise and pleasure, then, in finding that they have pink cousins. How gorgeous. Frangipani or Plumeria they are called. Not a great photo, but you get the idea.

Davy decided to help me show off my amazing birthday gifts! Finally borrowed the staple gun to stretch my fabric on the frame for my birthday. Notice the dress of the same fabric on the dresser!

My new workout pants are dirty, but I got fabric from my teaching assistant, flowers and the plate from students, glasses repair kit from my family, and numerous cards (plus ecards and online greetings). I am a very lucky girl! Many thanks to all!

No Davy is not yet professionally cat modeling, but I am sure he could be employed for some tuna.... Here he is relaxing on the porch. Gotta love him. Stay warm all! Until next week!

Exercise

I have been thinking about making photos like this for a long time... Unfortunately my dreams don't exactly match the reality (I don't have nice enough software) but this is certainly clear enough for you to get the point.  

This was taken when I was home for Christmas... that sweatshirt is so old and has been to many places including more chilly Town Band concerts than I can count and chores at Boston Post Dairy, hence the lovely poop stain under the "N". I do NOT need it in Kinshasa. Evidence:

New Christmas workout clothes! As you can see, my neck is red in both pictures but for very different reasons! Doing Crossfit in Enosburg was crazy, I wasn't sweating (relatively) at all. However, at the moment physical activity commences in Kinshasa I start sweating insanely as you can see from this post-workout picture. We are VERY lucky to have extremely effective air conditioning in our gym here at school, but I am still very sweaty. Then sometimes we work out outside completely and sometimes we need to use the outdoors outside the gym for specific exercises, which causes more sweat to ensue. At least I feel uber-productive and fit after sweating this much! (Yes mom, I drink water, even though I don't love it...) 

We are super super lucky to have a nice gym at TASOK:

 

This is what you see as you walk in the door. To the left, red legged box for jumping onto: I can NOT jump up that high but there are shorter ones for me to use. Weights behind the box. In the foreground is the do-dad that we use to hold up the weight lifting bar if we are doing a lift that doesn't involve picking the bar up from the floor. Always more pleasant from this height. To the right is the large black contraption that we use for pull-ups (I have to do jumping pull-ups with that little grey box holding me up) and other exercises like back extensions, leg lifts, sit-ups starting with your head lower than your legs etc. 

On the board is our warmup and WOD (Workout of the Day): Blake (The person it was named after): 100 ft (outdoors) walking lunges with weight overhead (I started with 25lbs and had to go to 15lbs, not sure why I didn't try 20lbs but 15 was plenty hard by the 3rd round), 30 box jumps, 20 wall balls (Squatting with a 15lb ball in your hands and then standing up and launching it up onto the wall in front of you) and 10 push ups. I did those exercises in that order three times and then called it a day... I was supposed to be timing myself but wasn't in the mood. Time: Slow and steady! That's me! To the right of the black contraption are the two A/C units and more equipment we don't use, as well as a water cooler and storage for the wall balls, smaller box jumping boxes, jump ropes, and other stuff. We are very lucky!

Have a great weekend all! Next week: Kinshasa Summer Flowers and Greenery!

That cat...

So the cat is used to being photographed much more frequently in Bakersfield (and in Enosburg for that matter) but I have managed to snap a few ridiculous pictures. Don't have too many of him luxuriating, but he does that a lot, rest assured.

First, Davy learned to jump into the cabinet with the drinking glasses. Cute. 

Then he learned to jump from the drinking glass cabinet onto the row of closets and run around. Cute.
How did I get up here again?

As promised: How much was that celery?

Hello all, thought I would do a food post this week because I have had some notable food fun upon my return to Congo. First, for some reason when I was on my luxurious solo shopping trip the Friday I returned, I decided that celery would be a nice addition to my school lunches and something I would look forward to eating. Like in France, you take your produce to a dude who weighs it on a special scale in the produce department to tell you the price. If you don't know or forget to do this and end up at the cash register with an  unstickered piece of produce, you get lots of dirty looks! Learned this in France though so now I don't forget (in general). I handed my celery to the weighing dude, and this is the sticker I got back.

12,875 Congolese Francs = $13.90.Command decision time. And I command decided to buy it anyway! Best celery ever! Was able to eat it in my lunches with carrots and share some in a chop salad with friends Thursday night. Just polished it off today. Worth it. (to me at least)

This is my assortment of veggies I cooked for last week, Squash at a much more manageable 2,934 Congolese Francs = $3.18. Turnips at 2,485 Congolese Francs = $2.70. I got the brilliant idea to make canned spinach into pesto (aka pretending that spinach is pesto!) Quite good if I do say so!:

At the same store as the celery (run by an Indian family who has kids at our school and gives us a 15% discount!) was this gem. Had to have two boxes (both good) just to puzzle over this:

Kellogs Museli. For gentlemen. More epic quotes from the package "Kellog's Museli is a breakfast cereal for men who script their own success. Gentlemen like you who know who they are and where they want to go."Really? I am trying to imagine a context where this marketing is sensible (Some sort of Arabic store where there's a men's side and women's side? Or just that only men would eat something as ridiculous as Kellog's Museli for breakfast?) The cereal did not poison me because I am not a gentleman, I actually thought it was good. Another amusing Congo food story for the books.

Lastly, you know how a lot of food says 'Store in a Cool Dry Place'? Well the only 'Cool Dry Place' in Congo is the freezer. Forgot to take a picture for you, but my freezer contains: Flour, Sugar, Cat food, noodles, raisins... anything that bugs might decide to eat. Rarely do recipes say "Take your flour out of the freezer to thaw it" but I now have that extra step! :-) 

We took the temperature this morning and it was 76F again. Didn't get crazy warm today, probably not to 90F but maybe close? Very pleasant! Love to all! 

Happy New Year 2015!

I'm back! I was pretty shocked to hear from people while I was home that they actually read my blog. Who knew? I am going to try to get back in a routine, here goes week one. Packing! You can see the top and bottom of the cat scratching post in the center, the cardboard box is full of kindle cases that my family repacked for me so I could move them to TASOK for the middle school kids, Twizzlers were a Christmas gift for friends, and the list goes on and on! This is not even a tiny percentage of what was actually packed. Last time was a lot of clothes and toiletries, this time I had shoes and lots more miscellaneous stuff! Fewer clothes.

Next for the flying. Here's Davy, chillin' in the Brussels airport waiting for the bus to take us to the Africa terminal, directly after he had soaped himself in the bathroom while running around under the automatic soap dispenser. Definitely the most exciting thing he did. Other than that, he basically slept the entire time and only got stressed once briefly during the Dulles-Brussels flight. 

Next for the unpacking job. Left Burlington at 2:30pm Monday evening and arrived in Kinshasa Tuesday night at about 11:00pm, with VERY manageable layovers, no long waiting anywhere, just long flights! Unpacked Wednesday most of the day until pleasant New Year's Eve festivities. Nifty packing job by Lat... my very special mug arrived in Kin unscathed. 

How did this much stuff get in those 3 suitcases? I thought I said I didn't have that many clothes!?!? New actual butt covering raincoat, thank you Aunt Laurel on the bottom right, new tall socks to keep the bugs away (Valentine theme and flowers from Aunt Sue) top of the pile... and on and on.

More stuff. This was the mostly school pile. Books are heavy. I had multiple 47 pound suitcases! Cake mix for my school birthday party! New dry erase markers, yay! Jam from Teed and Peg! New mail scale from Gramma! Oh my, I think the exclamation points have gotten away from me here! 

My salad spinner! No more soggy salad! 

All my new shoes, and some old. Feeling much better shod. (Much more well shod?)

And last but not least, most important piece of luggage and first thing to be set up:

For this silly silly animal. Love him very much, so glad that my family consented to keeping him for the fall. Thanks so much to them! 

We took the temperature today in our class for math, and inquiring minds in Vermont seem to want to know the results. At 10am it was 76 degrees F and the forecasted high was 89. I don't think it got there, but maybe we got to 80 I'm assuming, and very comfortable. Thunder to come I think. 

Stay tuned for next week: How much was that celery? And spinach in a can is the same as pesto, right? If you squint? Plus more temperature data.