Thursday, February 25, 2010

Kang Kang!


Yesterday evening I cooked in the restaurant where I have lunch everyday as promised to the waitresses. I had been told to cook a boeuf bourguignon to properly represent France but it takes a minimum of 2 hours to cook this dish and I have a lot of work right now. I needed something simple and convenient so I chose something that was not too complex to cook and has an ingredient that everyone on the island eats in big quantities rice; I cooked a risotto.


Family Format: 3 dishes in one

I went to the restaurant at 6 PM to start cooking, at that time there are only a handful of customers so my activities wouldn’t disturb the restaurant business. I am not a good cook, my wife does 99% of the cooking not because I am a macho but because to be able to travel with me she doesn’t work. Whenever I cook, I use a great software on my Nintendo DS called cook lessons that guides me step by step. Thanks to this software I have cooked my first risotto, my first boeuf bourguignon, my first lasagnes… This time I didn’t need the DS as it would be my second time to cook that dish. I listed the ingredients we would need:
- 1 onion: OK
- 1l of water: rain water OK
- Butter: OK
- Parmesan cheese: NOK there is no cheese on the island
- Mushrooms: NOK there is no mushroom this week
You would normally need some white wine but you can’t find any wine on the island but it is more of a problem not to have any mushrooms because they should give the flavour to the water in which the rice will cook. Thankfully there was some mushroom soy sauce to replace them otherwise the risotto would have tasted like rice.



As we were preparing the dish, the girls were following all my recommendations, they would sometime even fight to be the one who would stir or cut something. The kitchen was very hot, in such places the only way to get some cold air is through the door or through the window. I learned a few local words that I will try not to forget because the pronunciation is quite different from ours around here. They don’t pronounce the R the way we do and you almost never here the L even if it is there. I explained to them that I would have liked to show them a typical French dish but it would take too long to cook, they seemed motivated to cook for hours. With the work days I have, I don’t have the strength to cook something complex.



It was time to taste the dish. The risotto was not perfect because of the lack of parmesan and mushrooms but the result was tasty enough. If they ask me to cook again I will have to find a dish that has ingredients easy to find on the island. Anyway it was good (Kang Kang).


La suite!

Monday, February 22, 2010

The Cook


Now that we changed hotel we have to have diner in the hotels restaurant were each evening there is only one menu (1 entry, 3 main courses and 1 desert): the dishes are not that good and are expensive. The Otin Taai hotel is lost in the middle of nowhere so we have no chance of finding another restaurant in the area. Luckily we discovered that the restaurant where we are having all our lunches stays open till 8PM and does take away. At the end of the work day before the driver takes us back to our hotel we go get our diner. Last Thursday as I didn’t want to eat a fried dish (most of the dishes are fried here) I asked if it was possible to the chicken boiled instead of fried.



I laughed hard when the waitress said that it was not possible, she didn’t understand what I wanted. I then explained what I wanted to one waitress who really understood English. She was surprised by my request so I told her that I could show her if she didn’t know how to do it. I was in the kitchen showing everyone in there how to proceed. They only had pans and woks which is normal as they fry almost anything. I grabbed a wok and put it on the burner, the waitress took some water from a bucket to pour in the wok but I stopped her to ask where the water was coming from. It was rain water which is quite commonly used around here, I told her to fill half of the wok with the water then to add the chicken only when the water would be very hot. It was quite a show for the other waitresses and their friends who happened to be passing by. It really looked like the women had never boiled anything before. When the chicken was cooked they put it in a Tupperware for transport added some rice and a spoon. I thanked them for the chicken and the waitress who speaks good English replied that she thanked me for teaching her how to boil the chicken.



In this restaurant you really have to be careful which word you use to order something. For example if I order some french fries I will get fried rice because I should have ordered chips to actually get my fries. When I order 2 slices of bread they will think I order two sandwiches and I will get one with butter and another with cabbage.
On Friday when we came to get our diner one of the waitresses asked me if I was coming the following week because she wanted me to show her something to cook. I will see how I can change the restaurants menu so that there is more choice.


La suite!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Art Of Wasting Time


Today I wanted to tell you the reason why I have only been once to the beach since I have been here but it will wait because yesterday my colleague and I were thrown out of our hotel. I have been staying there for a month now and was supposed to stay there for at least another one but it seems that having a reservation doesn’t mean anything in this place.



In the morning my colleague received a phone call from someone at our hotel saying that we were supposed to check out at twelve. After trying to discuss with the woman he came to see me so that I would explain to her that the company we are working for made reservation in the hotel for the duration of our stay. I told her that I wouldn’t checkout because my room was booked for 2 months and my colleague room was booked for a month. She seemed to understand. Two hours later, she called back saying that one of us could stay till Thursday and one of us had to come to checkout now. We went back to the hotel to discuss with the management, they only thing they could to us was: sorrrrrry but you have to leave. I called someone with a high position in the company and asked him to solve the problem. We waited for him quite a while and when he finally came the only thing he could say was that there was a miscommunication between the hotel and the person making the reservation in their office. We expected him to come and tell them that it was their mistake and that we would not stay, we were quite disappointed. The person who made the reservation couldn’t be reached for more explanation because she had taken a leave and her mobile phone was off. We indeed had to move. I have been staying in this hotel for a month now and they couldn’t find the time to let me know that I was supposed to leave on February the 16th that is rich!



There are very few hotels on the island, the one we were staying was very convenient because it is a five minutes walk from the work. Also it has a restaurant where we can have dinner, there aren’t a lot of restaurants on the island and even less open in the evening. It is also very close to the stadium where I play volleyball. I usually find a good thing in any bad situation I find myself in but in this case I can’t find any. We have now moved to another hotel which is 30 minutes away from work, the drive should normally be 10 minutes but the road has so many holes that you can’t drive fast: it’s a little bit like riding a rollercoaster without the speed. The new hotel is of course more expensive than the last one and doesn’t even offer better services. If I want to continue playing volleyball everyday afterwork I will need to get organised but with the way work is going (I will talk about it in a week or two) it will be challenge. In all we have lost a half day of work just because the hotel people are too stupid to warn me. It seems I have a problem with hotels lately, what do you think?
I like this place, I like this place, I like this place... If I repeat it enough times it becomes true!


La suite!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Let’s Dance


Last Friday I discovered the dance parties in Bairiki. I met my volley-ball partner at the maneaba where they spend most of their free time. There was music and many people aged from 8 to 30 years old were sited on the floor; again I was the oldest person in the room.
As I was sitting I was asked to introduce myself in front of everyone because very few people knew me; someone was translating as I was speaking in English. Hello my name is, I come from France, I am staying at Mary’s Motel, I will stay here 2 months and I am happy to be here. I was then asked my age, what I was doing on the island and my room number (I declined to answer the last question).



After introducing myself, I took a sit on the floor; the young one where so fascinated by me that a lot came to sit next to me to be able to get a closer look. In the beginning I didn’t really understand why the DJ was never allowing a song to be played in its entirety, he would stop the songs after 30 seconds or 1 minute; it was pretty weird. Someone explained that the way the evening works is that everyone has to pay for the song he wants, how long the song will be played depends on how much he pays. It is a peculiar concept but that is the way they do things. Instead of ending up with a nightclub type of atmosphere it would be more like a family party where even the kids would pay for their songs and would not hesitate to dance.



Most people pay 10 cents for a song and will get a very short song. When you choose you con decide if the song is for everyone or just for you and your dance partner. Here nobody dances alone, you have to ask someone to dance with you either for a personal dance or a shared dance. I was invited to dance and made a lot of people laugh because of course I don’t dance the same way they do. When the song ends you thank your dance partner with a specific gesture: both ends start at the bust and then unfold as if you were opening a window. This exact gesture is also used to designate your dance partner, he or she is not allowed to refuse the offer.



I returned to my hotel room to put a few songs I like very much on a USB drive to have a little bit of fun on the dance floor. The first song I chose was personal, so I was dancing with my dance partner in front of everyone. The songs I chose later where shared and each time I made sure they would last long enough by paying 50 cents. Kids love to dance, it is a real pleasure to see them have fun on the dance floor. There is no alcohol at this party, to pay for a song is not common for me who really loves to dance but it doesn’t stop you from having a good time.


La suite!

Friday, February 5, 2010

Volley Ball


I have now been playing volley ball after work for a week now, it is one of my favourite sports. Here you play barefoot on a concrete court, I can tell you that in the start it was difficult. The way you feel the ground is totally different and you don’t have the little cushion the shoes provide when you fall after your jump. I have to be careful not to hurt myself, 2 years ago a colleague of mine hurt is Achilles heel while playing basketball and I replaced him in Tahiti.



Every evening roughly 20 young meet on the court to play volley ball, they play 3 against 3 or 4 against 4 depending on how many they are. I still don’t know how much you need to win a gain because very few speak English. They usually play till dusk then its spike the ball time. This week they invited me to join them after volley ball, they spend the evening in one of the many buildings that can be found on the island: it’s a like an open field but covered with a very low roof. They call those maneaba and explained that after having diner at home they meet there to spend the night, their home is boring so they prefer being together. Those kinds of shelter can be used by anyone, they are often dedicated to meetings in the week-end. This week I taught them how to play the Uno card game, it is great fun when we are more than ten to play the game. Tonight I will go to a dance with them, it will be interesting.




La suite!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Family


Moments ago the daughter of my colleague Toroko came by the office to see her father. She is the eldest of 7 children and tries to enjoy her holidays as much as she can before she has to return to school next week. I asked her if she liked school and she didn’t answer until she was sure that her father wasn’t listening. Which child her age likes school anyway?




La suite!

Monday, February 1, 2010

Gaelle And Henry


Last week I had the pleasure of getting to know Gaelle and Henry two tourists from Wallis and Futuna visiting Kiribati. Thanks to them I have discovered that Wallis and Futuna is a French overseas collectivity, it seems that I am worse in geography than I thought.



This nice couple was blocked on the island because there was a hole on the airport runway and no plane could land as long as the runway wasn’t fixed. The problem is that there are only 2 flights a week-end between Fiji and Tarawa and there is even less flight between Fiji and Wallis (one a week). Moreover Air Kiribati which is in charge of the runway was forbidding planes to land, the planes from Air Fiji couldn’t come to the island anymore and the couple had to take a flight from Air Calin to Wallis; who was responsible for what? As long as they were in Tarawa, Air Kiribati would take care of their accommodation but once in Fiji who would pay for the hotel bill as they were waiting for their flight with Air Calin? As Air Kiribati only flies to Kiribati’s islands, they have no office in Fiji for my Wallisian friends to go ask questions. Of course other people were blocked on the island but their bill would be paid by their companies as they were not tourists.



Gaelle is one of the 5 physiotherapists of Wallis and Henry is a teacher at the agricultural high school. He used to be a farmer and travelled a lot in Africa as a French aid worker, they met in Chad were she was working for an ONG. We spent the week talking about the different things we have seen in the world, it was great to share experiences. I didn’t ask them why they decided to settle down in Wallis after so many travels, maybe they needed to be in a quiet place after seeing so much of the world. I wonder if it is a feeling I will have when I stop travelling.
The runway was finally available a full week after being broken and they went to Fiji to wait for their next flight. I have to admit: waiting for a plane in Fiji is much better than waiting for a plane in Kiribati.


La suite!