Why was mummy kissing Santa Claus? An Aussiebarian perspective.

The silly season is rapidly approaching. There's even a shop in Stone Town decorated with a tree and everything.

But the real thing I learnt about Christmas came from the spice market.

We all know mummy got caught kissing Santa Claus. But until today I never realised he'd been dosing her up on nutmeg to get her into the "Christmas spirit", so to speak.

So there you go, Christmas cake spices will never be the same again, now we know they are "better for woman that given up desire for making or to fulfill their men".

;)

Aussiebarian life hack 2: instant pasta sauce

Thanks to my terrible susceptibility to supermarket sales strategies, today I came home with a jar of green Genovese pesto.

Lack of refrigeration had killed my leftover pasta sauce (which was completely awesome FYI: garlic, onion, thyme, tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, a splash of vinegar and salt and pepper), and I was heartbroken until I realised I had pesto! Added to an equal amount of tomato paste, it turned into an awesome stir-through sauce. Nom!

Not what I thought I'd learn in Zanzibar, but I'll take it :)

It doesn't look like much but trust me on it's deliciousness :)

My phone is flirting with me o_O

I thought the the rumours of husbands thinking their wives were having affairs due to unsolicited automated phone calls from their mobile providers were at best exaggerated and at worst, poppycock.

Then I got this message:

To translate, it says: 

Close your eyes sweetie, ok open them, and read the following words:

I love you and I will never betray you. For more, dial *148*08#

Creepy much? Bearing in mind only the fumbua macho part, and not the kwa megi zaidi part, pops up on most phones when the message comes through. Not good for paranoid partners!

So there was that one. And then they decide they want to take our relationship further:

Again, a clunky translation: 

You ask me how long I will love you? The answer is I loved you yesterday, today and I will love you tomorrow, every day and forever. For more tips, dial *148*08# NOW!!

Word to the wise: if someone quotes lines from their mobile provider to you in text messages, you might not be onto a winner. Especially if they forget to delete the "for more, dial" part.

PS: I started writing this in August. Since then, Zantel has kept sending me messages, even though I never answer his calls. Ah, unrequited love :)

Swahili 101: How to say hello (just say everything!)

The one thing a phrasebook won't tell you about Swahili, or at least Zanzibar Swahili, is that they do greetings in a BIG way here. By which I mean, if you're with anyone you might remotely be acquainted with it's completely acceptable to say pretty much every greeting you can think of. So you get to learn your greetings.

Here's an example (with rough translations).

A: No problems? (Hujambo)

B: No problems.

A: Wassup?

B: I'm cool.

A: How've things been lately?

B: fine. How's home?

A: good. Are the kids fine?

B: they're fine. How's the village?

A: good. How are you this morning?

B: fine.

A: good?

B: very! And you, are the kids good?

A: they're all good.

B: thanks to God!

And now you can move on with the day

http://africaenpositivo.com

When it comes to saying goodbye, it's a different matter. Don't be surprised if the person on the other end of the phone answers your question with "ok" and hangs up. Face to face, goodnight often works, and goodbye for semi formal situations, or see you.

But don't skimp on the hellos until proven otherwise!!!

Aussiebarian Savoury Mince

I don't think my childhood would have been complete without good old savoury mince. In our case, mince, onions, frozen peas/corn/carrot mix, a bit of Worcestershire sauce (later to be joined by barbecue and soy), maybe a stock cube, and a heck of a lot of gravy. AWESOME the next day (or 3) on toast for brekkie, and unparalleled as a jaffle filling.

So I've been on a sambusa (samosa) kick for the last few days, and I thought I could kick the habit by figuring out how to make the meaty goodness inside. 

I didn't manage to get over my sambusa cravings but I did come up with something edible that I think is the Aussiebarian answer to savoury mince (no gravy powder here :( ). Next time I want to sauce it up a bit with more liquid and a bit of flour.

You will need:

250g beef mince

2 onions (about as much onion as beef is ideal)

1 small carrot

1 clove of garlic

1/2 inch of ginger

1 tbsp chopped fresh coriander

Juice of 1 lemon

1 large tomato

1/2 dessertspoon garam masala

1/2 dessertspoon curry powder (I ended up with Zanzibari curry powder: no tumeric, the colour comes from mango powder).

Method:

Prep: finely chop veggies, make ginger and garlic into something approximating a paste.

1. Fry the onions until just soft and set aside.

2. Fry the ginger, garlic, garam masala and curry powder in a little oil with a little lemon juice.

3. Add the mince and remaining lemon juice and cook until meat is brown.

4. Add carrot, tomato and coriander and simmer until carrot softens.

5. Add onion and cook until warm.

6. Serve. We had it with bread.

Creative Eavesdropping 101

Random ramblings:

I love overhearing things and imagine the rest of the story. Yesterday in the kitchen I could hear a little kid saying "apple. Apple! Apple!!!" With increasing exasperation. In my imagination, the Dora DVD has frozen at the question and answer part and he's cranky at the tv. More likely he just wants an apple, but I like my version better :)

Cute nephew type to add visual appeal. Not the one I could overhear.

From the archives: Wedding Henna :)

My only real bow to Zanzibari tradition was to wear henna on my wedding day. Which I'm glad I did, because I can't think of any other occasion for which I'd be willing to sit still in awkward positions bored out of my brain for three hours waiting for paint to dry ;) here's proof I survived!

The prettiest my feet have ever been :)

Henna hands!

Waiting for paint to dry

The henna house :)

Post-paint

Rings!

Henna hands post-wedding :)

Who said you don't need to know Indonesian in Zanzibar?

Some people don't always understand why I want to keep up the bit of Indonesian I know, when I live in a country where I don't actually know of any other Indonesian speakers.

Apart from the years of work it took to get the meager knowledge I have, and the fact that I could talk to lots of different folks and understand all those "tambal ban" signs in Java,

Look who's laughing now:

Fabric fragrance. But if you didn't know Indonesian, you'd just have to guess.

I got it for free, so I'm guessing the shopkeeper doesn't really know what it is.

Eat that, haters. My brain is slow to switch from Swahili to Indonesian when I'm trying to write, but at least I can read, and know how to use this pretty smell stuff, mothballs, and other imported goodies.

Ah I love languages! 

Remind me of that when my head is exploding from not understanding family tomorrow, okay? ;) and the next time I ask a patient if they have any problems with their door, when I mean to say back. :)

Ramadan noms #2: Vipopoo (tiny dumplings in sweet spiced coconut milk)

I was talking to some colleagues the other day when the conversation turned to food (as it does when you're hungry), and they started asking me if I knew vipopoo. I had no idea what they were talking about, and the best translation my dictionary could come up with was "butterflies" (sorry dictionary, vipopoo and vipepeo are not the same thing. It's Zanzibar, not Zambia;)

So I got a quick run down on how to make these special little dumplings in sweet spiced coconut milk, and I even managed to understand some of it, but to be sure I asked Dr Google for some help and quantities. 

Fat lot of good that did, we lost power most of the day, so I remembered the dough proportions but apart from that we winged it, and came up with a delicious sweet fast-breaking food with an Aussiebarian touch.

Behold, Aussiebarian vipopoo (mini dumplings in sweet spiced coconut milk)

Ingredients

2.5 cups plain (wheat) flour

3 cups water

0.5 teaspoon salt

1L (4 cups) coconut milk

0.75 C sugar (more than the recipe because I was winging it)

Cardamom pods, about 10

1 cinnamon stick (not traditional but totally worth it)

Vegetable oil, for rolling the dumplings.

Method

1. Bring the salt and the water to the boil

2. Add the flour bit by bit, mixing well (you might want to take the mixture off the heat for this. This recipe (http://www.alhidaaya.com/sw/node/2628) says to mix it like ugali until it's like really stiff ugali).

3. Knead it a little if you can to smooth out the dough, otherwise wait a while until it cools. Our dough was really ugly!

4. Moisten a flat surface and your hands with vegetable oil. Take handfuls of dough and roll them into long, skinny snakes (maybe 1-1.5cm diameter). Break off 1-1.5cm (or I think you could make them big marble size with no problems) pieces, roll into (hundreds) of little balls and set aside. You may need some daytime TV to help you here. Kids could do it too, I think their snake and ball making skills are more than up to the challenge.

Snakes!

Marbles!

Sauce time!

5. Bring the coconut milk, sugar, cinnamon and cardamom to the boil, making sure the sugar is stirred in well.

6. Add the little dumplings to the coconut milk mix and simmer. The recipes say 20 minutes or so.

7. Serve.

The sauce thickens and the dumplings soften up a bit: apparently this is normal. I'm sure you could substitute whole spices for ground ones with no trouble.

What you end up with is something with the taste and consistency of that yummy, gooey interface where the apples meet the pastry in apple pies. Sooooo good :)

Thank you Ramadan for sweet gooey goodness that doesn't taste like actual butterflies :) there's an upside to this fasting bizzo!

Ramadan noms 1: Aussiebarian Moroccan Spiced Tomato and Lentil Soup

It's Ramadan. And I saw an acquaintance had cooked up Harira, this delicious looking soup, and had to try it. But I was too lazy to bother with following a recipe and didn't know if we had the right spices, so this is what we ended up with, and we both liked it :)

Behold, Aussiebarian spiced tomato and lentil soup :)

Ingredients (serves 4)

1tsp coriander powder

1/2tsp cardamom powder

1.5tsp cinnamon powder

1tsp turmeric powder

2tsp cumin powder

1tbsp vegetable oil

2 cloves garlic (finely chopped)

1 onion, finely minced

2tsp grated ginger

4 large tomatoes, as finely chopped as possible

1/2 carrot, finely chopped (about a cup or so)

1/2 small green capsicum, finely chopped

1/2 sachet tomato paste

1 cup red lentils

4 cups of water (or more if required)

Salt, 2 heaped tsp or so

Pepper, 1-2 tsp or so

Method

1. Mix all the dry spices and add the to a hot large saucepan. Dry fry them for a couple of minutes.

2. Add the onion and garlic and vegetable oil and brown. Mix well with the spices and after a minute or two add some water if it smells like burning :)

3. Add all the veggies and the ginger and another 1/2 cup of water, simmer for 3-5 minutes.

4. Add tomato paste and 2 cups of water. Stir everything well then add the lentils, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and then reduce to simmer for 30-45 minutes or until it looks ready.

5. Keep covered and serve when it's dinner time!

Notes: 

1. it looks like I do a lot of chopping but... I don't. I have a little Tupperware chopper (thanks mum!) that does most of the heavy lifting.

2. I was making little dumplings (vipopoo) so I chucked a handful in for fun.

3. If you have a non-stick pan you could probably omit the oil if you wanted to. But our saucepan catches every. Single. Time.

4. Most of our cooking successes seem to be flukes. It's basically a once only test kitchen, in Women's Weekly terms. So we can't accept any responsibility for things that don't work ;)

Enjoy!

Swahili 101: You're like the shell of an old coconut :)

And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Because apparently, when you put the shells of old coconuts in a fire, they blaze up all spectacularly. Or in Swahili terms, "they're happy even when they die".

So next time someone calls you a kifuu don't be offended. They're just complimenting you on how happy you are :)

Grating coconut, getting into the kifuu spirit.

Biology Graffiti

Graffiti, Hurumzi St, Stone Town

I love this. Chalked on to the outer wall of a local school. There used to be a mitosis part but I think they cleaned it. But this little gem survived :)

Swahili 101: Cooking With Trees

My colleagues are incredibly kind.

I was trying to explain that we only have one burner on our stove, so sometimes the guys use the outdoor kitchen, i.e. a sandy patch where you set fire to some sticks and end up with cooked food. i.e. wanapikia kuni. 

What I actually said was they cooked with trees. Basically tantamount to pyromaniacal koalas, or dragging a few big trees together, setting them on fire and trying to cook.

Ah bless her soul, she didn't even laugh. Unlike me when someone told me if you keep cats inside their leaves will fall out all over the carpet.

You know how they say don't play with your food?

I don't really care about that ;)

Making kachori on Urojo Day.

Happy kachori mix (mashed potato, lime juice and a hint of chilli)

Kachori kasa! (Kasa=turtle)

The final product :)

Your Horoscope for today: The Bucket.

Sorry to all you Aquarians out there, but I have some bad news:

Your star sign is The Bucket.

Don't believe me? Here's proof.

Stars column in Nipashe, a popular Tanzanian newspaper

Ndoo=bucket in Swahili.

So apparently yesterday was a good day for Buckets to reflect on what they had done in the past.

Other star signs' translations make more sense: a lion for Leo, scales for Libra, a crab for Cancer.. I suppose buckets can hold water though, so close enough.

But gee whiz, the 60s and 70s might have been a whole lot different if it was the dawning of the Age of the Bucket. And if the command module for the Apollo missions was called "Bucket" I can't imagine the astronauts would have been quite so keen to clamber on in regardless of how many test pilots they tried to get involved.

Peace out!

Running for the bus

Usually I'm not one for daladalas. Being squashed into a 10 x 4 foot truck tray with 24 strangers just doesn't do it for me, and I get cranky when I can't feel my legs.

Daladala after the crowd had thinned out a little

Wednesday it was worth catching a daladala though for this quirky little observation:

These guys were hanging off the back of the bus. About 20m shy of the police station, they get off and start walking. 20m after the roadblock, the bus stops, and the guys you thought were getting off start running :) Some days the conductor decides to take a leak. After the other blokes get on, the driver forgets about his mate and starts driving off.

And that's how Zanzibaris train for track and field.

Despite the entertainment, when they tried to convince me to get out of an almost empty daladala 10 minutes from home and back into a sardine can, I couldn't do it. And that's how my 45 minute walk home turned into a 2 hour walk home :)

Glossary

Daladala: local bus. Apparently they "never get full". You can catch an actual bus with a strict 25%-ish overcrowding limit ;)

Reasons to love live-in in-laws #2

This is what I woke up to this morning:

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you: it's a clean sink! And I didn't have to lift a finger!

Lately I've defied my old Kingaroy ways and been the kind of person who *gasp* does their dishes straight after dinner.

Last night, I tried, but got told to relax.

Ahh I have an awesome shemegi!!!

Glossary:

Shemegi: brother-in-law

Chocolate coffee beer! Woo!

Zanzibar is known for men sitting around drinking tiny cups of local coffee on street corners. Dig a little deeper and you'll hear people from Unguja drink coffee, people from Pemba drink tea.

Turns out both are redundant.

Meet Malti. Non-alcoholic "malt drink" soda. The brown one is coffee flavoured. Or more specifically, mocha.

Like any Aussie, I have a cultural attachment to the smell of beer. But I just can't get past the alcohol flavour. Give me Maison over Moët any day, and I'll have a vodka and pineapple juice without the vodka please! 

Here we have basically chocolate flavoured fake beer. With a hint of coffee. I think at least part of the fake is because alcohol is haram, verboten, against the rules in Islam. And the guy who owns the big non-coke soda (/dairy/ferry/flour/football/juice) company was originally Zanzibari, apparently, and this archipelago, like my other favourite archipelago, is 90% Muslim.

Chocolate coffee beer has cousins:

Malti pineapple: probably too much pineapple fanta, not beery enough..

Malti Apple: for those "real men" - more beery than Malti GingerLime and Malti Coffee combined!

So we have options. But give me chocolate coffee beer any day.

Ah... Life is good!!

Peace out <3

You can buy what?? Episode 2 (episode 1 to come: hey, it worked for George Lucas)

Sometimes I wonder what kind of customer vibe I give off.

Today a man decided to try to help me learn about Islam by me buying a book. His book of choice: it seemed to be about the significance and interpretation of menstrual fluid in Islam. There's a book for that??? And I need it today why???

I mean, props to celebration of the goddess and all that, and with my deepest respect for religion, but... I didn't think I came across as the sort of person who needed that book. 

But then again, I did earn the Bimbo Bag :)

And I didn't even notice I was carrying a tramp stamp on my shoulder ;)

And the odd thing is, now I've thought about it, I'm kind of interested to see what it says.

Maybe I am the sort of person to read a Muslim guide to the moon goddess type book. Hrmm... I can feel a book review brewing.. ;)

Zanzibari Life Hacks #1: keeping meat fresh in a fridge-free world.

We've lived the last 6 months without a fridge. It's honestly not so bad: we buy veggies every couple of days, something meaty for the boys every day, nothing to it.

But how do you keep meat fresh? It's tropical, and the best markets are 3 hours away by the time you wait for the bus and walk each way.

Well, here's the secret:

My seat mate's solution to the refrigeration issue.

No worrying about meat going off on the way home; just butcher when ready! I think she'd keep for a good few days if you decided to have exotic aquarium fish or octopus instead. 

'Drive through' dead exotic reef fish and octopi at Kinyasini

It seems obviously really, although I can't see this catching on at Woolies any time soon ;)

Incidentally, I saw some cute chooks today on the road to the bus stop. Why did the chickens cross the road?

The road to Hamburu (the daladala station/bus stop) with our local shops in the background.

There's a Fort at the end of our street...

The view looking down our street

We're lucky enough at the moment to have two places in Zanzibar: the house with the 1 minute walk to the beach and gorgeous breezes, and an apartment in the heart of town.

For those of you who know where I've place in town with you it might seem obvious. But it was only a couple of weeks ago that I realised:

There's a fort at the end of our street. A FORT!!!

With like, brick walls and turrets and stuff, that's older than all the mzungu stuff in Australia. 

To backtrack, I spent the last few years in the peanut (and navy bean) capital of Australia. The last two years in particular, I had a backyard view of arguably the most iconic structures in the district: the peanut silos. 

At home in Oz with my awesome view of the silos.

At the end of my street were the peanut roasting sheds. When the roast is on, half the town smells like peanut butter. Depends on the wind direction and stuff I suppose. I love peanut butter!! So I was pigs in mud, in love with my awesome spot within sight of the silos and smell of the sheds.

Fast forward 6 months...

So, at the end of our street in Stone Town (Shangani, where the port and hotels and city tour and Persian baths and slave market and cathedrals are) is the Old Fort. It was built on the site of a former Portuguese church and later used to defend against the Portuguese, hold prisoners, that kind of thing, at the end of the 17th century. Nowadays it's a cultural and heritage site, home to festivals and markets and traditional music that floats in through our bedroom windows some evenings. 

As if that wasn't enough, when I look out the windows next to the door to the apartment, I see... Not just the neighbors washing lying on the roof, but, The House of Wonders: the Beit al-Ajaib.

The Beit el-Ajaib

To put this in context, this building has actual cannons out the front of it. Fat lot of use they were, cos in 1896 it was the site of one of the shortest wars in history (38 minutes, apparently: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zanzibar_War). It was called the House of Wonders in part because it was the first building in Zanzibar to have electricity (I'd make a cheeky comment about electricity in Africa except we've been pretty lucky lately with power and I don't want to jinx it, touch wood). Anyway, it's a special building. A harem used to live there! Then it was a museum. Right now it's the backdrop to scenic roof-laundry pending repairs:

Our neighbours' laundry

From the roof you can see the ocean, the fort, the harem house and Forodhani Gardens simultaneously.

Turn 180 degrees and you'll see the rooftop restaurant of the hotel I booked to stay in 4 months before meeting and deciding to get married to my Mr Aussiebarian, who had a place literally 30 seconds walk from my hotel (we met in Nungwi, before I knew this, though):

And here I thought peanut silos were impressive :) (I still do!! I'll always be a nut who's 'bean' to Kingaroy :) ) but I can't help but think the fort wins :)

Any opinions?

Cathedral, Mosque and I think a mobile phone tower...

Oops! Mitandio fail!

Glossary:

Mzungu: white person. Strictly speaking, you would say "wazungu" for plural, but in our version of kiswa-english it's easier to leave the prefixes alone.

Mitandio: headscarf