Changes

Anyone who reads this blog even a little bit will notice that there's been a few changes going on. After changing my picture to some Peonies, I've gone back to a picture of Botswana. My sister, in a way that sister's can only do, commented that the Peonies looked like a funeral ad. Nice! But honest at least. Personally I love Peonies and this picture reminds me of the Montreal Botanical Gardens (which are amazing) and traveling over the summer and all things lovely. Apparently it doesn't really do that for anyone else. Of course I could have ignored her comment, but she is my big sister, which made any attempt at ignoring her futile. I would have looked at those Peonies everyday and thought "does it really look like a funeral Ad? Really? No. But maybe?" So a Botswana sunset it is. Maybe it will change again. I am open to all suggestions and comments.

Thought I would quickly share photos of lunch yesterday. This is pretty standard Setswana lunch. Pap served with chicken, gravy and vegetables. Yesterday's vegetables were spinach (hot) and beetroot (cold). The menu doesn't change very much - the variation comes in the type of vegetable served - you get two teaspoons of vegetables and so far I have had mashed pumpkin, salad, canned corn, spinach, beetroot, coleslaw and potatoes. Potatoes are a vegetable, not a starch here.

You can also change your carbohydrate, although I generally stick to Pap. Pap is maize, I think. It's a porridge type mixture that is made over the stove with lots of stirring and mixing. It's the stuff that's being made in the all the documentaries you see on TV about African villages. You know, where the women are all pounding something cooking on the open fire? Well that's Pap, or a variation on the theme. It's a gelatinous, porridge. Like oat porridge when you've left it standing too long and it gets cold and jelly-like. It tastes like it looks (bland), but seems better than the brownish-Pap, which is made with black-eyed peas, or the white corn porridge, which has whole pieces of corn in it and for some reason make me sick.

Served with a soft drink the price is 21 pula (AUS$4). Pap fills you up. The nutritional content is probably incredibly small, I'm not sure if you even digest the stuff. But it sits in your stomach and keeps to full throughout the day.