The entire Melville area of Johannesburg lost power for about eight hours yesterday, and the timing couldn't have been worse for me. I've been relying on an electric blanket to help weather the cold nights here, but I didn't have that for the better part of last night. I went to bed without dinner since my cooker requires electricity to fire it up. Let's just say I was one very cold and hungry female last night. Thankfully, power was restored at about 12:30 a.m., which jolted me from my sleep immediately.
It struck me, how appreciative I should be to have access to what should be considered basic amenities today (water, electricity, good roads and transportation, and internet). I couldn't function without electricity for eight hours. By the time I left the office, there was already talk of turning over control to the London bureau if the generator failed to work. In the U.S. it was a similar experience when we lost power in the New York/New Jersey area due to Hurricane Sandy. I lost power at home for 24 hours, which was the best case scenario among affected households. A few of my friends camped at my place for more than a week, and despite not having phone or cable access, I was lucky to have electricity. Fuel scarcity, another normal occurrence in Nigeria, emerged and residents were asked to stay home unless in cases of emergency. We became powerless literally and figuratively.
If I was in Nigeria, it would be a different story. I would barely blink an eye if power outage occurs. Most, if not all, homes rely on gas-powered cooking stoves. And those who don't usually have some sort of back up available; likely in the form of a kerosene stove. Few people, typically those with 24-hour serviced generators, buy perishable food items that last longer than four days, and everyone walks around with a phone charger prepared to boost batteries wherever electricity is spotted.
This incident, and my initial proposed blog entry about my failed attempt to cook some beans, are a reminder on why home is always best. They make a case, though not that strongly, on why moving back home is ideal.
When I relocated to the U.S. (wow it's been 13!) years ago, it took a while to assimilate into the American way of doing things. Everything from the way I talked to how I dressed changed. My cooking habits also changed as I found myself experimenting with a variety of condiments and seasonings in an attempt to get as close to achieving that indigenous taste I was accustomed to. More than a decade later, I can say I've come quite close to perfecting it. Either that, or my friends visiting from Nigeria have lied to me. I learned to substitute the ugwu leaves from my mother's eastern Nigerian roots with collard greens or spinach, and replace the brown beans, common in Nigeria, with black eyed peas.
In Johannesburg, there's a small selection of beans to choose from. You get the abundance of red kidney beans and one or two other types, but no brown beans or black eyed peas. When a friend suggested I try white beans, I was all too eager to accept since they looked similar to black eyed peas. I found them in the fourth grocery store I looked and attempted to cook them to go along with this really nice duck I had marinating. Ninety minutes later, the beans were barely any softer than when I first put them on the stove.
As my very cold apartment is hardly the place to experiment cooking on two small electric plates, I gave up trying to replicate my indigenous beans as I had done with black eyed peas. I settled for noodles and a piece of drumstick from my duck. Savoring a nice, big piece of duck didn't quite go well with noodles in my book. So they sit in my fridge (hopefully unspoiled,) waiting to be devoured on a later date.
Do you have any stories on the struggle to adjust in a new environment? Share them in the comment space.
No comments:
Post a Comment