Let There Be Guacamole

July 15, 2008

Went back to Kimironko today. The money guys on the buses call out what sounds like “chimirango Kimironko” in a sing-song voice to attract riders. Will go back Thursday afternoon to pick up more Rwandan clothes. But I also shopped for produce. Managed to get a kilo of tomatoes, three small purple onions, three bell peppers, two limes, a small bag of garlic cloves, and the biggest avocado I’ve ever seen. It must weigh two pounds. The young guy who was negotiating with me (I say negotiating, but I just ask how much and pay that much—sorry RR.) was offering me this one and that one, but the lady sitting next to him shook her head until he picked one that met her approval. As they say here, thanks, sista.

As I was buying parsley and lettuce, another guy came over and spoke softly into my ear: “Coriander…rosemary….” When my brain worked out the translation of coriander to cilantro, I asked, “You have coriander?” Yes, he did.

I also bought a bottle of pilli pilli, and let me tell you that people here do not mess with their chiles. Straight habañeros. The tomato vendor wanted to sell me a small bag—about ten of the little explosions, but I laughed and said I knew about those. No thank you. But the bottled stuff is more easy to work with.

I also bought a little aluminum pot with a lid that will suffice for a salad bowl.

Everyone at the market kept offering the most beautiful veggies, pulling out the “special” ones—broccoli, and the anise-flavored bulb, as well as beautiful little beans. One of the vendors spoke English and I explained to him that I don’t have a kitchen here, but that the produce was beautiful. He said that I would come back, that this is a good market. And I agreed.

I also bought a couple of shopping bags. Here everything is recycled—reused really. Shopping bags are reused from the large ones in which food is shipped here. I’ve been looking for one that had something from Rwanda, and I found some good ones today.

BTW, if there are any conference organizers reading this, we want conference bags that we can use for groceries after the conference. Not fancy, but sturdy; not complicated, but useful.

Okay, so back to the food. I had lettuce and tomatoes for a quick lunch. It felt a little ana to count out lettuce leaves, but I was trying to keep track of the ones I washed with purified water.

So for dinner, I stopped by the little convenience store next to the inn and bought a dozen rolls, sort of like hotdog buns. Then I came back to my room and made awesome guacamole: three little garlic cloves and a third of an onion (I’m kissing no one, so what the heck, right?); two tomatoes, the entire avocado (what else could I do?); a small handful of coriander, and about a half-teaspoon of pilli pilli.

This deserves its own paragraph: when I opened the bottle of pilli pilli (which was bottled like soda), it fizzed just like thick, red Coke. Luckily, I was fairly close to the shower, and I held it over the tiles there. What a mess. About half a cup bubbled out. I thought about salmonella and other reasons that the stuff would fizz, but I took one tiny taste from my finger and decided that anything that might have been in there would surely be killed by the firepower in that bottle. I rinsed it off, being sure that no water got inside, and proceeded to try to clean up the shower. Remember that Rwanda is the land of a thousand hills? Well, my shower drain is in the uphill half of the basin, so I have to sweep the last of the water up into the drain with my feet. So after running the water for a sec, I rinsed off the huge thick puddle of pilli pilli and started pulling the water into the drain. So when all the red water was gone, I put back on my leggings (didn’t want them to get wet earlier), and the cuffs got a little damp. Which was fine, until it seeped into my legs that I had shaved this morning. I’ve heard of hot legs, but really.

Half a teaspoon of the pilli pilli in all that guacamole was almost too much. Almost.

Finally, I smooshed everything together in the little pot and broke open the rolls and had guacamole sandwiches. So good.