Meetings today at the University of Nairobi to see if they want to set up an agreement with us.
I really like the way they make chapattis here, so I have been asking for advice. Since most of the people that I work with are men, this has resulted in a great deal of discussion and phoning of wives. The answer is that much depends on having the proper pan, which is heavy and thick. When I said I would like to get one, I was told that you can’t buy a real one in the store…it is necessary to get a locally made one, and they are only sold beside some road or other. I assumed that was the end of the story.
Tonight when Normand came to pick me up for dinner, his driver gave me a present. He had a acquired a “real” chapatti pan for me. This is an interesting object, a little bigger than a dinner plate, slightly concave. If you look at the bottom, it has clearly been beaten out of one of those steel plates they use on the road. It’s certainly thick and heavy. All he asked in return was for me to send a picture of my chapattis.
For dinner we went to an Ethiopian restaurant. The food is shared, it’s served on a large tray. The tray is covered with a thin layer of something like bread called injera..it’s a kind of sourdough made out of a grain called tef. It’s made with flour and water and then it ferments before it’s cooked so it’s full of little holes and quite lacy.It has a texture vaguely like a thick paper towel, which sounds unpleasant but it’s actually quite nice. On top of this layer, they place bits of meat, and vegetables and lentils . You tear off a piece of the bread and use it to pick up the food. We managed to eat about half of our dinner, and I am now so stuffed that I practically had to roll up the stairs to my apartment.