Sunday, April 06, 2008

Miracles and cockroaches

John's away for the weekend - in Bulawayo for some strategic planning and the farewell of the Chief Secretary from the southern region. I find it cute and kind that people worry about what I will eat when my gourmet chef is not around. I always manage (although last night I had to cook my rice twice - and for about an hour and a half - but it didn't burn!) No matter how many times I watch John cook certain dishes, I simply cannot replicate. I have a theory that when I turn my back for one minute (which I always have to when cutting vegetables.... hmmmm, suspicious!) he does some sort of secret trick. But he argues this isn't true. Anyway, no reason to fear. Today, I cooked myself a lovely lunch of a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Now, some of you may be thinking that this doesn't actually involve cooking, but I didn't tell you that this sandwich was TOASTED! Actually, as I put my bread in the toaster, I felt like I was witnessing a tiny miracle! It's been a long time since we could get bread in the shops (because of government-regulated prices, which aren't high enough for bakeries to actually buy the supplies needed to bake the bread). We didn't even get this bread in the shops. It was obtained a typically Zimbabwean way (a mysterious phone caller with the message: "we've procured some loaves of bread - come with your money tomorrow and you'll receive further instruction.") Anyway, I was thanking God for the bread and the electricity to toast it, when 2 cockroaches crawled out of the top of the toaster from where my bread had just been inserted. It just seemed gross, but I quickly pulled myself together. I realized that sometimes in order to see the miracles in life, you have to ignore the cockroaches!

2 comments:

Max Vincent said...

This reminds me of the time I made a banana bread in Tshelanyemba. I grabbed the pecans (brought from Canada) of the shelf, and they were infested with little ants. I asked Dawn what I should do,,,, her response, "Its all getting baked, what difference does it make", so we had banana bread with pecans and ants...mmmmm

Johnny said...

Max, ants are tasty. So are roasted caterpillars and those large flying ants that you take the wings off of and then fry with oil and salt. But there is nothing appetising about cockroaches.