Vive le Dash

Cows.  There are just so many of them.  All the damn time.  Crossing the road.  (That is a road, promise.) As far as the eye can see.  (Goats too.  I like them less.) Even when you go visit your buddy.  There to great you.  Fucking cows.

People gots ta eat.  In the Extreme North, they need to eat better.  I seem to focus a lot of my work on nutrition education, particularly for mothers and children, but really everyone needs it.  One of the things I want to get going in Bogo is soy.  It's relatively cheap and definitely so when considering the nutritional value. Plus, turns out, it can be delicious.  On paper I'm trying to help out people.  In reality, I'm just hungry and will lose my mind if I eat any more damn massed up millet. Now making soy into an edible product is apparently difficult and an all day affair.  Which is exactly why I need to teach other people how to do it for me. STEP 1:  Soak the beans for a bazillion hours (or twelve).  OK, easy enough, wash 'em and throw out sticks or twigs or whatever, then toss 'em in water over night.  Now they absorb water, so make sure there is plenty.  Else you end up with the top HALF moldy by morning...

So I managed to load a video online.  It is incredibly short and of pretty poor quality... but look what I can do! We'll call it a test.

A little while ago I was exploring Maroua.  Someone told me of a tiny shop that sold some things imported from France.  I'm sure you can imagine what I was hoping for... and I found it!  CHEESE.  And not that silly laughing cow crap that tastes sorta but not quite like creme cheese.  Now they only had two kinds, but one of them was GOUDA (the other was a brie sort of something).  I may have spent what I make in a day and what some people here make in a week (or year, depending), but I bought myself some damn cheese. What did I do with that cheese?  Anyone who has had the luxury of spending a late night after a few rounds with me knows that my favorite thing to make in the world is grilled cheese.  Or a quesadilla, same thing. Yes, that is mayo.  If you aren't using mayo, you are doing it wrong. Just a couple of other ingredients that are relatively easy to come by and we were off to a good start. You can almost smell it. Bagu...

Let me tell you about the time I brought a prostitute home. I went to a spiffy dance.  Actually that may not be an accurate description.  It was far too much like a high school dance.  Or with the way kids are growing up today, maybe it was more like a middle school dance.  Except no one showed up on time.  We got there about two and a half hours late and were basically the first to show. No one danced for probably almost two hours, which was odd because it was clearly a dance floor and they were blaring dance music.  The chairs were all lined up around the walls leaving a gapping floor clearly meant to be danced on.  Eventually, they did some speeches honoring whoever was supposed to be honored and then they lined up some honorary men and paired them off with the few women who were there.  There was an incredibly awkward slow dance that lasted maybe thirty seconds before being broken up. Then, finally, real dancing began.  I'm in...

I may have mentioned that I really have no credentials to be a health volunteer.  Being outdoors and working with my hands always appeals to me though and so I've often thought that maybe I should have ended up an agro-forestry/environment volunteer.  They hang outside with farmers and live in the woods and work the fields which all sounds kinda cool to me. Turns out that I probably am not cut out for that either.  Erin, the agro near me, told me to start a compost in my yard.  And I did: Hooray, giant hole to not tell the landlord about! Dig hole.  Easy enough.  I know, vaguely, what to put in there.  Organic stuff.  Not meat.  She was kind enough to mention that occasionally throwing sand on it stops the smell.  Since I'm dumb and did it directly under my bedroom window, I do this pretty regularly.  Oh and pee in it.  For the... nitrogen maybe?  Beats me. Anyway, the hole filled up fairly quick...