Theme Nights at The Nyumba Ndimu AKA Food, food and more food!

The guests arrive!

So Megan LOVES to cook and while she was here blessed me with several yummy meals.  And I'm totally spoiled now and don't want to cook for myself because it just won't be as good!  Miss you Meg!

Here Kate and Susan are checking out all the amenities the house provides....backyard, quiet, etc....working the deal...

Chilling the in backyard

Megan also loved cooking for lots of people and we have a couple of food 'theme' nights.  The first night was Mexican Night and we had Susan, Kate and Emily from Mlango Moja here as well as Sarah from just up the road here in Isamilo.  

Only picture I have of Emily...with our laundry.  doh!

Little did Susan and Kate know this was a ploy to get them to love the house so they would want to move in here...muhahahahahaha!  I love it when a plan comes together!

The chickens a la Megan cooking away

Megan cooked chicken in some sort of orange juice marinade, chimichurri sauce, homemade tortillas, some incredible melted cheese dish (I wish I could remember the name) and salsa. OH! And Megan attempted homemade tortilla corn chips - while not a complete success, they were a valiant first try and something to be tried again.  They still tasted amazing! Kate brought a yummy rice dish and Sarah brought guacamole (why have I never eaten this wonderful concoction before! - YUM!).  

  

Sarah and Kate in the candlelight....with our feast

It was a FEAST!  And we got to eat by candle light since the power went out just as we served dinner.  Super romantic!

To complete the Mexican theme, margaritas were served with sugared rim of course!  Once the lime juice ran out, we used the juice we made fresh that morning - mango, pineapple, passionfruit - awesome!

Fast friends and soon to be roomies! Missing from the photo is Tito, Sarah's wee dog.  

The next theme night was Italian.  Megan made, with assistance from moi, the sous chef, eggplant parmesan, chicken/bacon/veggie pasta sauce, salad (oh, how I miss salad!) and cheese bread.  Emily brought a vanilla bundt cake flecked with chocolate shavings!  I'm ashamed to say we didn't even cut into it - we just started eating it with our hands it was SO GOOD. 

Me after one and a half glasses of Kate's deliciously
deadly sangria and a couple of Shan-tinis!  

 I was also bartender for the evening and since we had some left over Cointreau from the margaritas, I tried to come up with something that use that.  Cosmos!  Also, no cranberry juice to be found!  So we got Red Grape and hoped for the best - and the Shan-tini was created!The fresh produce is amazing and easy to get every day.  The fresh produce is amazing and easy to get every day.  

A farewell to Megan!

For Megan's last night in town, we had a evening IN and ordered PIZZA!  I must say, it wasn't like home but better than I expected!  We ordered a couple more than necessary (oops!), but 

we had leftovers for a couple days which was nice. 

Kate again made her awesome sangria (Konyagi is involved too!) and she improved upon Emily's cake - by ICING IT!  I didn't think it was possible to make it better!  Sooooo yummy!!!!

The piece de resistence!

All in all eating here has been totally amazing.  I'm definitely missing some convenience things like a microwave....and a can opener!  I've not attempted the knife and hammer trick yet!   I also miss cereal, it is VERY expensive here, and I refuse to pay it.  I've eaten more peanut butter in the last few weeks than I have in years!  

There is definitely a lack of processed foods here and the fresh produce is available everyday all day...you just need to pick the right stall to get the best stuff!  

And as this sign says:

It's all Hand Suckin' Good!

Until next time, Heri! (Cheers!)

 

A view from yet another hotel!

The ex-pats in Mwanza, well some anyway, have Happy Hour Mondays at 5:30 at establishments around the city.  We joined one once at the JB Belmont Hotel.  I believe this is the most recent hotel to OPEN although the building has been up for a while.

They also have a nice rooftop patio albeit covered in astroturf..practical and adds a little 'je ne sais quoi.'

It is a little farther south from The Gold Crest and also looks out over the water (west viewing) but I've also snapped a couple views on the city (looking east) on the other side.  Map here.

City views

Lake side port views - cell tower to the right..they are EVERYWHERE.

The crew for the night (L-R): Liz, Ally, Jessica (all USA), Megan, David (Germany), Allison (USA), Emily, Susan (Canada)

Obligatory signage shot. 

More views from other places soon!

Asante sana!
Shannon

The View from the The Gold Crest Hotel

I promised you some pictures from the top of The Gold Crest hotel.  This is probably the newest and nicest place in Mwanza proper - from the little I know about it.  It has an excellent roof-top patio where lots of ex-pats go to hang out and have a refreshing beverage. Food is average and they have karaoke here every other Wednesday...it's quite the experience!

From a previous post.  Megan, myself and Susan enjoying said refreshing beverages. 

From what I can piece together, these views are from the west side of the building and look south west.  I've included the Google Maps link.  This is supposed to be a panorama but I don't have any stitching software yet to do so plus I'm not sure of the correct order of the pictures anymore!:-(

The middle building there is Tanesco - The Tanzanian Electric Supply Company.  More like the 'we supply it whenever we want to company! ARRGGHH!

Bismarck Rock in the distance

One of the ports in Mwanza.  It is situated on Lake Victoria. 

This is Nyamagana Stadium.
Some sort of religious event was happening that day. 

This is a close up of Bismarck Rock.  Not been there yet.

 The landscape of Mwanza and area is quite interesting.  It is a port city yet has lots of rural areas in the vicinity.  Roads are paved in town - the MAIN ones - but the side 'streets' are dirt as are the rural roads.  When it rains, they change shape...sometimes daily and sometimes by the minute.  Their solution to fix the road is to send a road grater down and flatten it out. Which succeeds for a day or so but also makes the road NARROWER which makes it even more harrowing!  More on driving later.

Mwanza is know as The Rock City due to all the random rock formations.  I'm not sure if you can see from the photos - Bismarck Rock is an example - of the rock piles that just jut out of everywhere - it just happens to be in the water.  The 'hills' you see are just giant piles of rock (from what I can see) with vegetation growing and covering what it can.  Houses sit in, on and amongst the rocks.  It's quite amazing.  I'll try and get some more photos later but most of the real cool formations I see from the road while traveling to clinic.  

More views from other areas later!

Baadaye!

The Humble Abode

Pole (sorry) for my absence!  Things take so much longer to do around here, I don't seem to have as much extra time as I thought I would!  Besides the random power outages and the internet disconnections and computer issues...but why bore you with that!?  

Here are some shots of the lovely house I'm living in.  Our landlady is Mama Mary and she is fabulous!  She is a Clinical Officer (one step below a Doctor) at the Seko-toure Hospital.  She owns her house just the street over, plus this house and the house behind us.  She said this place was built in ~1996 and I think she has recently repainted it inside and out.  She is great - if anything breaks, she is on it the second we tell her.  We went to her house for dinner the other night.  If I thought the gardens here were lush, they are merely a mini-version to her place!  She has a banana GROVE, a giant avocado TREE and massive passionfruit trees.  Not to mention the dogs (mbwa), geese (bata), chickens (kuku), rabbits (sungura) and I'm sure there were other creatures we didn't see.  

She has hired a boy named Freddy to live here full-time to be the guard and gardener.  He is very sweet and is always waiting for us if we get home late.  He gets Sunday during the day to go home and go to church.  He is trying to learn English as we try to learn Swahili.

Megan left yesterday, February 16th, and two WHE interns, Susan and Kate, have moved in here with me.  I'm so glad....this place is far too big for one person to rattle about in!  Here are the pics!

We don't ACTUALLY have an address.  This is what we tell the taxi drivers:  Isamilo, Barabara Nyanshana, Kwanza gatei - which means Isamilo area, Nyanshana road, the first gate you see.   They sometimes don't know exactly where but with a little sign language you can manage to get here!

This is the gate that goes out to the road.  Mama Mary wants to install more wire to the top to make it higher.  

Our lime green establishment!  This front porch is officially 'The Office.'

Close up view of The Office - internet reception is optimal out here for one of the providers.

The front gardens - giant palm tree they extract oil from, three papaya trees, some young passionfuit and banana trees and countless plants that I only see in mixed baskets at home. Freddy takes good care of it.  The far back corner is the 'garbage area' - all garbage gets buried here or in most cases, tossed in the closest tree or bush. 

Two orange trees and there is a 'lime' (which is more like lemon) tree here and on the other side of the house.  Freddy gives us a bag of goodies when they are ready. That little gate at the bottom of the wall is where the mongoose get in to rummage in our garbage area. 

This is my first room.  Sleeping under a mosquito net is KIND OF like having a Princess bed - but not quite!

Bathroom/shower - above ground toilets - classy establishment!

This is my new room - Megan left yesterday and I moved into her old room while Susan got my room and Kate took one of the other two spare rooms.  

This room comes with extra closet space - not that I brought tons of clothes but at least I can spread them out now!  

The other bathroom/shower.  This one has an actual toilet paper holder - SWOON!

View of kitchen from the pantry area.  Sink and drain board on the right.  The counter where we prep is to the left.  

View of kitchen from dining room.  Fridge and stove - which has two gas elements as well as two that run on hydro as does the oven.  This means we can COOK when the hydro is out which is KEY!

The dining room.  The wall is concealing the built-in hutch for dish storage.  Since Susan and Kate have moved in, a water cooler has been added which is awesome! 

This is the living room.  Still decorated from Christmas.  

This is the other end of the living room.  This is MY office.  Where I sit and scan all the study documents into my computer.  Hours upon hours I have spent here and hours and hours more to come!

Hope you have enjoyed the tour of my living accommodations!  The next post will be on why I'm here and what I'm doing while I'm here.

EDIT: I forgot to tell you about the LOCKS in this place! It's a bit like Fort Knox.  It take a good 5 minutes to unlock the door to get out and then relock it when you leave.  Each lock has to be turned at least 2-3 times in order for it to be shut properly.  I'm glad for the safety but it's no good when you are late!  Here is a picture of the keys I must carry around with me...these are all for the house and gate and the locks on my cabinets.  

Until next time!

Shannon