Good start to October

Well, September did not exactly end on a high note.

Sleep is pretty hit or miss for me. The other night I was woken up by the sound of gunshots. I was anxious at first, but then I remembered that I was in Tanzania (in my six months here I've never heard actual gunfire). I quickly found the source of the noise. One of my co-workers had left his phone in the workshop and for some reason had selected machine-gun fire for his ring-tone. And I have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to call him at 1 AM, but they certainly did not endear themselves to me.

The previous night, I had a customer call me at 11:30 PM. It was pretty garbled call, and he even tried calling me again and asking me to call back. I told him I would talk to him during business hours the next day. I somewhat regret the fact that my phone number is on some of the company's promotional materials, but only because I value my sleep. I also had some issues with sleep because power outages* through off my work schedule and made me miss my last two IDDS meetings :(

Anyway, October has been much better. There was a certain tone of urgency at work to fill a large order, but fortunately some of our long-standing accounting mysteries are sorted out and we've put some simpler systems in place so I will be spending much less time working on that (read: banging my head against the computer monitor). I have some exciting projects in the pipeline which will allow me to interact with people more and my computer less. Tonight I spent a bit of time soldering (more to come tomorrow, likely). Not exactly a typical Saturday night, but I was happy to revisit a skill from much earlier in life.

Also, food has been pretty amazing. So I know most people discourage my lifestyle, but I make do on two larger meals a day (for people with different living situations, I'm sure five or so smaller meals is a much better option). We're two days into the month, so I've had four meals.
#1: Pilau (basically the East African version of pilaf), which is one of Tanzania's richest meals. I kinda wished it was spiced a little more and had a lot less oil, but I'm always grateful for other people's cooking. (NB: If you look at the recipe in the link, I can assure you that the sort I eat is much less fancy).
#2: Quiche. I was reading through the Peace Corps cookbook and realized that the recipe seemed doable. Certainly not as fancy as American quiche (I used day old milk which had already separated instead of cream, for example), but the crust was actually pretty amazing and we were thrilled by the taste. Jodie would probably invest in me if I opened a restaurant here :) , though my failures are often as spectacular as my successes.
#3: Cheeseburger and a milkshake. It was a long week at work, so I decided to treat myself to lunch in town. It wasn't the prettiest burger I've had, but it really hit the spot (especially since I hadn't eaten for 18 hours at that point). I can't say that I would recommend the fries, however. I'm a much bigger fan of African style fries (I suppose I should say chips, as that's how people refer to them here), and they usually have pretty lousy American fast-food style fries.
#4: Steak with steamed broccoli and carrots. My friend Mic is Tanzanian, but is much better at making "American" food than Jodie or me. It was amazing. Steamed vegetables might be the next big thing in our kitchen :)

And I'm on a quest to meet some new people here in Arusha. I figured I would start at the place where all the cool kids are sure to be found: the library. Today I left work a bit too late, but at least I learned the hours that the library is open. I also visited the Alliance Francaise (I don't know where to find the cedille to spell that properly), which was closed as well, but that's a bit closer to my house, and could give me a good opportunity to get some of my French back (July was an unfortunate reminder of how weak my French has become).

Yep, October is shaping up to be a good month (knocking on wood), so stay tuned!

* Power outages are supposed to be rare as an election nears. The ruling party usually tries ensure that the voters have a very positive association with their tenure. It was surprising more for the timing than anything else (I'm fairly accustomed to unreliable power and can usually take it in stride). However, Tanzania draws a large share of its energy from hydropower (I'm a bit too tired to pull up a stat to back this up) and I believe that this is the time of the year when the rivers run the slowest. Here's hoping the rains pick up soon and get us going again!