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Published: December 1st 2008
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The week we returned from Kande Beach, we all went out to get Ethiopian food to celebrate (or mourn) Mike and Lesley’s departure from Malawi—the first in a series of abandonments by my best friends here (alas, thus is expat life). The restaurant is basically run in the home of an Ethiopian family; the mom is the chef, and her kids moonlight as servers when they have customers. It's a very cozy place and despite the difficulty of obtaining the real ingredients to make
injera—the delicious, sour Ethiopian sponge bread that is the basis of every meal—her food tastes totally authentic. She also makes her own
tej, delicious traditional honey wine, and typical music plays in the background. We reminisced about all our good times over the last few months, and laughed about all the absurd things we had observed in the office, and then waved the happy couple off for their next foray, into Mozambique.
Otherwise, work continued as usual at the Refugee Status Determination Unit. At this point we had just concluded a 3-week round of interviews, so I was spending the next month in the office, writing up the decisions from the interviews I’d just completed.
And she pulls it off without a hitch!
Even I was impressed with myself - look at this spread! :) This entails doing lots of research into the country conditions where the applicant comes from
at the time she fled, to assess whether it is consistent with what she told you compelled her to flee, and also what the conditions there are
now, to assess whether there is still a risk there that requires her to seek international protection in Malawi. Once those elements are established, I then have to do the legal analysis part of the decision, to determine whether the person fits into the criteria of the refugee definition. This is often the most challenging—and fascinating—part of my work, because I get to delve deeply into complex, nuanced legal issues—which the geek in me loves 😊.
We didn’t let our depression at losing our favorite Canadian couple sink in for too long, though—the Friday after they left I hosted my first dinner party in my flat, with some colleagues, neighbors, and new friends. I spent all day Saturday running around to Lilongwe’s various grocery stores (as I mentioned before, you can never find everything you need in one place!) and at the huge vegetable market in order to prepare an intercontinental meal. I found
pain de singe, the strange baobab fruit you may remember from my trip to Senegal, which is eaten raw here, for dessert, along with fresh peas to make the wonderful Rwandan recipe I learned last year in the camp from my friend’s mom. For the main course I didn’t get too exotic, just some chicken and potatoes to bake with garlic (
naturellement!), rosemary and lemon. There couldn’t be a meal at Martina’s house without some pasta thrown in, so I made spaghettini with garlic- and basil-infused olive oil, fresh tomatoes, and feta cheese, for some Mediterranean flair 😉.
I was just getting my hands dirty with the prep work when…the power went out! Committed not to allow Malawi’s Electric Supply Company to ruin my first dinner party, I improvised, lit a bunch of candles, finished the chopping, and the power came back just in time for me to put my dishes on the burners and get things cooked before it was obscenely late. (We sat down to eat around 9:45pm—pretty standard at the Pomeroy household anyway!) Ok, ok - if I were Baba Booty I would have done all my prep work way in advance...but not bad for
Action shot: Tayllor getting seconds
Left to right: Caroline, Olivier, Sebastien, me, Tayllor, Lisa (can't really see her though) a first try! It was a really lovely evening and we managed to finish almost everything (except the monkeybread, which was decidedly
not a hit, and sat practically untouched on my dining room table for the next week at least).
After dinner the newcomers to Malawi were eager to check out Lilongwe’s nightlife, so we all headed out to Chez Ntemba, the Congolese disco in town that caters almost entirely to Africans. We ran into lots of other friends there (which is inevitable in a town with only 3 dance clubs!) and danced the night away.
The following Monday was July 14—yet another Independence Day celebration, for Sebastien aka Le Baguette Man, a bona fide
français, and myself as an honorary French fry. His status as a wearer of berets entitled him to an invitation to the French embassy’s annual Bastille Day festivities, at noon, so I tagged along in the hopes I could French-speak my way into a few
tranches of baguette 😊. Not at all shockingly, there was a full bar serving wine,
in bottles, from France! (A real luxury in Malawi, where you almost only ever see boxed wine from South
My living room - peopled!
After dinner I finally had occasion to make use of all this living room furniture - we all hung around and chatted. Africa.) But much to our mutual disapproval, there was no lunch being served. Sebastien was especially horrified at this blatant disregard for the most important meal of the day in France on this, its national day—“
C’est incroyable!” he kept repeating. Even more offensive to his national culinary pride, the highlight of the hors d’oeuvres were mini pizzas. But we had fun schmoozing about with our boss Henry (who got invited on his own steam despite having no French connection 😉) and a great number of French people we never knew lived in Malawi, on the grounds of Kumbali Lodge (the only hotel Madonna will stay at when she visits Malawi 😊.
Allons enfants de la Patrie, le jour de gloire est arrivé! Love,
Martina
p.s. I realize my blogs are getting more and more out-of-date, thank you Steve for reminding me to keep publishing—and for bribing me with yet another book so that I actually do it 😊. I only have two weeks remaining in the country, so no more books please! Those that many of you already sent will be donated to the Dzaleka Refugee Camp Library next week!
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kpoms
non-member comment
my my
dinner at 9.45 is normal?! i would say 9 at the latest! but wow - definitely all sounds sooooo good. will have to pass along the recipes for the chicken & pasta dishes! yummy! wow only 2 more weeks!! i'm so excited to see you at christmas. woohoo! get home safely!