I made a pumpkin pie!

Yep, that’s my big news for the week. I made a pumpkin pie. From scratch. With a Dutch oven. For those who don’t know, that’s a large pot with a tin can at the bottom of it, on which rests the item being baked. My host family has a garden complete with pumpkins, and they gave me one, so I peeled it, cut it up, cooked it until mushy and put it in a pie. I gave most of the pie to my host family, who said they liked it very much.
My m’e loves apples so I figure maybe my next venture will be an apple pie.
I’m typing right now with gloves on, which is proving a little difficult, but I’m cold so I’m not taking them off. Winter’s almost here now, and I’m really glad that I do not live in the highlands. They had snow as early as a couple weeks ago. I was going to buy a thermostat in town today, to keep track of how cold it got in my house, but I can’t find anywhere that sells them. Maybe when I go back to Maseru I’ll try.
I’m in town today to meet with the Community Council and the National AIDS Commission (NAC). The Community Council set up trash cans in town a couple months ago in an effort to beautify Mohale’s Hoek, I suppose. Most people just thrown trash wherever they feel like it, so there are empty bags floating in the breeze everywhere. Anyways, I have permission from the Community Council to paint facts about HIV and AIDS on all 80-something trash cans in the area, which is great. And I have gotten the local hardware store, Jandrell’s, to agree to donate the paint for the job. Basically, I would also love to have NAC’s endorsement, and see if they can front the cost of hiring someone to do the job well. Hopefully this will work out.
As an aside, Jandrell’s owns at least half of Mohale’s Hoek. Seriously. There’s a Jandrell’s Hardware, Jandrell’s Farming Supplies, Jandrell’s Gardening Supplies, a Jandrell’s furniture store, etc. There used to be a Jandrell’s grocery, but they sold it to Fraser’s, who now has 2 grocery stores in the town. Bear in mind that the town only has 2 roads. Another interesting fact is that these 2 stores bearing the same name, less than a quarter mile from each other, charge different prices for the same goods. I can only imagine that this is because one is in the taxi rink, so they figure they can jack up their prices and people will still buy them. And the concept of bulk buying to lower prices doesn’t exist here. 1 liter of yoghurt is roughly R5 more expensive than buying the same amount in smaller containers. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Yesterday, May 1st, was a holiday, so my support group didn’t meet. It was both Ascension Day and National Workers’ Day. I spent the day playing with my dog, baking a pumpkin pie, and finishing a good book called My Traitor’s Heart. If anyone is interested in reading a little about apartheid South Africa, mostly in the turbulent 1980’s, I would recommend it. So would Salmon Rushdie. It says so on the back of the cover. It’s nonfiction, and it’s about a white South African journalist who was born in 1954, in a family known for its racist views. In fact, a relative of his was responsible for the apartheid legislation. The author turned out to be much more moderate though. He went into exile for 8 years because he refused to join the army, and then returned to South Africa in the 1980’s when all hell was breaking loose. Most of the book is about stories he picked up from interviews, trying explain the chaos that was overtaking the country and the feel of apartheid. Apparently most people outside South Africa were comparing what was going on with the Civil Rights movement in the States. Anyways, I enjoyed the book.
Hope everyone back home is doing well. Enjoy your nice, temperature-controlled homes.