It's been a while (about a month or so) since I've
last blogged. Sounds like the beginning of a
confession. But it is true and the main reason for
the absence has been that it has been a quiet month.
There was a milestone on the 22nd of April and that
was the one year anniversary of my arrival in the village.
Time has gone by so fast that it is mind boggling.
Here are my reasons/excuses for the lack of posting.
It was examination time and then vacation time for the
learners at the school. When the exams come it is just plain
impossible to attempt any other activity.
Another reason being that the village generator has stopped
functioning (again) and that takes out any computer work
or showing of the films that we've made. It hasn't stopped
us from planning upcoming film projects though. In fact it
made us work on the topics of the movie over a longer
time frame and the result being that the stories have improved.
One movie (which I can't wait to make) is a plain comedy
without any HIV/AIDS or TB messages. The name we have
come up with is 'Omega must be Crazy'. Omega being the
name of the village. It will feature San actors and in fact it
is the idea of the San community counselor who works at
our clinic. The story seems great and I think that it is going
to be fun to make.
We have made some progress and that is with the logistics
of condom distribution. To make is simple ... where the box
of condoms were situated it took a brave soul to walk in front
of all the people in the waiting room of the clinic to get to
them. So we just relocated them about 5 meters of 15ft
from the original location and just outside the entrance. Now
they are flying out of there and no wonder there is so much
teenage pregnancy because if the way they are being taken
is any indication ... these people are pretty busy on a regular
basis.
Almost forgot to describe what the picture is about. My father
was noted for his soup making and the family would just
plain call it 'lefty soup'. There was no set recipe and it would
change with whatever ingredients were available. We all do this
I would imagine but his was really just about the best.
Today is a holiday in Namibia (workers' day or May day) which
is the same as our Labor Day in the States. So, sitting around
with some time on my hands and with the garden beginning
to produce, I decided to make my version of lefty soup. This
time it is just bush style (seeing as I live out in the bush of
Southern Africa) using the solar oven. The ingredients are as
dad would have used (what ya got on hand) ... a green pepper,
swiss chard and a tomato. All of that swimming in water
with thick white onion soup mix as the flavoring base.
I am not sure that I can do lefty soup justice because the only
spice I have is salt. So, in about 3 or four hours I should be
either thinking ... man this is good or ... man this is lacking.
But with being out here in the bush with limited resources ...
well ... we just do the best we can.
By the way, also inside the solar oven (in the blue pot) is
rice. It is so easy to cook rice in a solar oven. I put in
one cup of rice and add two cups of water, then place it
in the oven at about 8 a.m. Then when I return at about
noon or so, voila, perfectly cooked rice with no burning.
The bonus is that the pot is so easy to clean.
So that's about it since the last time I posted a blog entry.
Hopefully this month the generator will get fixed and we
can get moving on the movie making and the learners should
be coming back from vacation at the end of the month.
Got to go and stir the lefty soup.
