Lemons, I Have Down...

But what do you do when life gives you boiled peanuts? Or more specifically, your friends and neighbors notice that since you haven't harvested any peanuts, you've escaped the inundation they are currently suffering, and help you out there. And you can't just say thanks and put them in a cupboard. I don't have cupboards, for one, and for two, boiled peanuts need care. They mold, and get sticky... it's just bad.

Anyway, the answer is: make peanut butter cookies! Except I can't for numerous reasons (I didn't have a recipe, you can't make peanut butter from boiled peanuts, you can't make peanut butter without either the appropriate rock configuration or a food processor (ha!)), so I made butter balls with lots of nuts in them. They fell apart; they tasted funny, especially the first batch with the mayonnaise and cinnamon; and I gobbled them down before they even cooled. Then I got lazy and just crushed some up and roasted them with a little oil and sugar, why bother with the flour and the mixing?

And with spare yams, which Sam's wife insists on giving me at least once a week, you can boil them, mash them, and bake them into your bread. Very interesting, especially if in between steps you seasoned them up for potato salad.

Tiganikuru (I thought they were chick peas, but now I don't think so, because they grow underground like peanuts and have to be shelled just like peanuts and come in steaming big recently-boiled-need-to-be-dried bags from helpful neighbors, just like peanuts) can be made in to hummus that is rather stellar, regardless of their status as actual chick peas or not. Just add oil and garlic and cook a little more (for sanitization of kitty chewing and grimy children hands helping with the shelling).

And now, after all this talk of food, it's time for my grilled cheese sandwich and a nap, maybe not in that order.


But perhaps I'll let you know what's going on in my life, first. I've actually started to do some work, in the shape of picking out exactly which questions I want to ask in my baseline survey and writing them all out to the best of my ability. I'm going to discuss them all with my homologue tomorrow after the market, which I would have done already if he hadn't had to go out of town for a funural this week. That's why he's not in any of the cotton-picking pictures, even though I took them all at or near his house.

Other than that, I'm simply living simply, trying to be a good Malian housewife (sweeping, cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes... all by hand and with very few shortcuts) while also being a good Malian good ol' boy (drinking tea, asking how ones whole family is, talking about what America is like and how to clean water), and sometimes staying sane. My bike helps a lot, because when I'm on it, the endorphins kick in, and even when it's just sitting in my yard looking pumped to go, it makes me feel free, like this whole country is my playground if I want to go there (even though I never do actually go anywhere unfamiliar alone - I don't trust my sense of direction).


As far as missing goes... It helps so much to know that you're safe and sound in America, eating good food every day you found at the grocery store (I dream of shopping Ameriki style at least twice a week), drinking clean water that came into your house on its own, peeing inside where it goes back away to get treated on its own, driving a car (or riding a bike, or even walking) on even, maintained, paved roads with rules that protect you and real safety features, and generally living where your life isn't predetermined by your gender, where you were born, or who your parents are. So please, go on living the good life, because it helps me out here. I miss you, but I'm always happy when I think of you. What I really want is to know that you're doing well. I know I have that long wish list, but while those things delight me, it's more important to get letters, cards, wall posts, text messages, and emails full of day-to-day good news about your lives in America. They say the people who disconnect the most do the best, but I am not far-sighted enough to see harm in cheery messages of little successes and happy chances. So please write when your dog graduates from Obedience Class 1, and let me know that you got a 96 on your last exam, and write about snow (it makes me smug, and only when I dream do I consider that I miss snow, too). I in turn, will try to send you little cards with my cheery day-to-day news, of the bugs my cat can catch now, of the new food my friends are heaping on me, of the schweet new dish I bought at market to store yams in.


My mind is a little hazy right now, it's been a long day of biking 30k on not enough sleep, eating food that upsets my stomach (but it tastes SO GOOD), and trying to cram two weeks of communication into one afternoon. My plan is to nap, to chat with my parents on Skype, and to get myself to sleep for real again by midnight here (6pm in TN, 7pm in NY and points east; now that Daylight Savings Time has ended). Tomorrow morning I am catching a ride all the way to the dirt track into my village, so I can afford to skimp on sleep a second day in a row, but my head and stomache will disapprove strongly if I don't rest soon. And nobody wants that.

Therefore, may your village find the morning peacefully, god grant you the peace of the night, and please tell everyone I say hi!