Nenya.net

Blundering in the dark

Last week, we had some truly terrific thunderstorms for those of you who like watching them (N.B. they can get a bit boring after the while but the light shows are still pretty spectacular), so much so in fact that it was still very heavily overcast when I got up in the morning, reminding me of the middle of winter in the UK when I much prefer to hide beneath my duvet than face the cold of a new day. Anyway, it was still warm, so that wasn’t an issue, but the potential problem was the darkness- when there’s no NPA in the mornings (quite possible/probable) and the clouds are keeping the sun from shining, it can be a real pain to get washed and dressed and ready for the day- at least here I rarely wear socks so am unlikely to get to the office and realise I’ve got odd socks on. So of course, the main way to get around a lack of light is to light a candle. Now perhaps you’re one of those people who gets up in the morning, is totally awake and fully functioning from the moment yours eyes are awake/the alarm goes off, I’m not! It usually takes 2 alarms to get me out of bed and even then my sense of awakeness is probably questionable, so trying to light a candle without dropping the match, burning a hole in my mosquito net or anything else that’s likely to happen while in a semi-cognisant state is a bit of a trial. Ah well, I’ll just have to hope that on the mornings when there’s not light that there is NPA (or that I remember where I put my torch) J

Saturday was great fun- after a most relaxed morning (slightly more relaxed than planned due to closing my eyes for a 5 min doze and waking up 3 hours later) and contemplation of the fact that I really should do some exercise and even making the arrangements to do so, I received a call from a friend, who had a spare ticket to the football match between Sierra Leone and South Africa that was happening that afternoon at the National Stadium and she asked if I wanted to go. Well, I wasn’t sure (it was raining at the time) but after having been told that it was in the covered stands (about ¾’s of the stands are uncovered), which would give protection from sun or rain, I agreed. The match itself was a bit scrappy- at times it seemed the ball never changed teams except through a foul or a mad kick from one end of the pitch to the other. Having been shown the football stats, which seemed to indicate that South Africa was the better team, my limited knowledge of football seemed to suggest that SL were actually playing the better game, tho’ neither side seemed to be able to actually get the ball into the goal. Sierra Leone scored from a penalty, which helped the atmosphere get a bit livelier and then fraught with tension as the match came into the last 20minutes and people realised that they only had to hold on for a bit longer in order to win, which eventually they did and led to a huge outpouring of emotion from all the Sierra Leoneans in the stadium (and outside it as well).

Some of the main advertisers in SL are the mobile phone companies, who are also happy to sponsor events/ places, as long as their colours/ logos are brightly emblazoned thereon. At the national stadium, the light towers (have never seen them working but the metal work’s in place) and the exits are in bright red and yellow-sponsored by celtel (one mobile company) and the seats/blocks of concrete (so that they can’t be stolen/easily broken) are sponsored by Comium- 3-tone blues (another mobile company). SL’s national stadium doesn’t have the flashy signs and automatically changing ad-boards that you generally see in the football matches of western teams- there just isn’t the money for it!

Lobster at Franco’s was Sunday’s highlight and it was delicious; we also shared a crab between the party, which was more fun than food. One person in our group asked for ‘Crab Venus’, which is crab in white wine sauce and therefore a slight variation on what several of the rest of the party were having, which was lobster in white wine sauce. We were told that grilled (or even steamed) crab was possible, the lobster in sauce was possible, but crab in sauce was not possible. One of our group tried to make the waitress see that since both the crab and the sauce were available, surely it wouldn’t be difficult to put them together…? But it didn’t happen, so we just shared a grilled crab between us and enjoyed trying to pull it apart with (and in some cases without) the nutcrackers that we had been given. The crab was v tasty, but certainly not the dish you should have if you’re hungry as there’s quite a bit of work to be done to coax the meat out of the crustacean!

Labels: crab, electricity, football, lobster, rain

posted by Nenya @ 3:14 pm