The Wicker District

One of the projects I've been mulling over for awhile is turning our little patch of grass into a family play area.

My first step was to go to a nursery to buy some mosquito-repelling plants. I bought several bunches of what I thought was lemongrass, but now that it's potted and in place I'm not so sure it is. It looks like lemongrass but doesn't smell like it. I also bought what I was told was lavender, even though it doesn't look or smell anything like lavender to me. It's pretty and smells nice though, and it was cheap, so I bought it anyway. I also bought a couple hibiscus plants, just because the flowers were pretty.

Step two was to find some garden furniture. I have a little metal table and I wanted some wicker or rattan chairs to go with it. On the road where the children's hospital is there are several vendors of wicker and rattan furniture so we headed over there and shopped around. I saw the child's size chair first and requested two grown-up sized chairs to go with it. They were unvarnished, but the varnishing could be done in two hours. Muffin and I went home and the driver went back later in the afternoon to pick up our furniture.

The last step was to have the gardener come and do the actual repotting for me. I know it's easy enough to do myself, but I really didn't want to use my precious free time for that task so paying someone ten dollars to do it, plus move the heavy pots into place, was worth it.

Let me go back to the wicker district for a moment. There was some beautiful furniture. It was hard to resist buying more than I actually needed. I could decorate ten outdoor sitting areas. Between the chickens and all the wicker furniture, I'm really missing our big yard in Burundi. But I'm working hard to make sure Muffin has a nice outdoor play area so she doesn't miss out on the playing outside part of childhood.

The Urban, Wild, Farm Animals

One of my criteria for choosing a country to live in is the number of cows or other livestock that wander the streets. The more, the better! I love looking outside to see a cow walking through our upscale, suburban neighborhood. On Saturday morning I heard mooing and I grabbed Muffin to go out and look for the cow. She was hidden by some leaves at first -- our terrace is one floor up from street level -- but Mike managed to get a couple shots of her.

Roadside cows, pigs, and goats charmed me throughout our time in Burundi and I haven't tired of them here, either. I love that I can share them with Muffin now, too. I saw a gorgeous chicken the other day, the nicest I've seen here, and if we had a yard I would have scooped her up and brought her home.

Muffin needs more animal friends to play with.

Our Dinner Guest of Honor

After Thanksgiving Mike read the Facebook status of one of our friends who had enjoyed a succulent duck for dinner (We've had her duck. It's amazing.) and Mike wondered if we could get duck here. Well, with the help of our driver, Mohammed, my Christmas present to Mike was a duck for dinner.

On Tuesday Muffin and I went to the bird market in the Old City, where there are all sorts of live birds for both dinners and pets. We were surrounded by blue and green parakeets (budgies), geese, turkeys, blackbirds, guinea hens, and chickens. Ducks were scarce but Mohammed assured me we'd find some. First I was offered geese. They looked good, but they weren't what I wanted. And they looked too big to fit into our tiny oven. (I'd been instructed to buy the biggest duck I could find, but I was thinking of the biggest duck that would fit in our small oven and small selection of cooking pans.) The first ducks I found were mallards. They were cheap, but covered in flies. In an outdoor market like this, there are going to be some flies, but I wanted to shop around see what my other options were.

We walked down the street, peeking into every storefront. The parrots and parakeets where beautiful and I wanted a cage full of little blue ones to bring home for our terrace. There were also some beautiful ornamental hens and I wish I had a yard for keeping some in. I saw two of the biggest turkeys I've ever seen in my life. Mohammed said that if Americans want a big turkey they must wait for Christmas; at Thanksgiving time only small turkeys are available. There are enough Christians in the city to demand big Christmas turkeys, but not enough Americans to warrant big Thanksgiving turkeys. (Not that the big ones would fit in our oven anyway.) We passed by dozens and dozens of guinea hens, small turkeys, and geese but after several storefronts we still hadn't seen any other ducks.

Just when I was resigning myself to the possibility of guinea hens instead of duck we came to one of the last vendors on the block, the one Mohammed buys the Americans' Thanksgiving turkeys from. He happened to have two big ducks as well. They were pricier than the first ducks I'd seen, but the conditions seemed cleaner. No flies, less smelly. And the right size -- the biggest I could find and the biggest that would fit in our oven. We made a deal for the three kilo male duck, the larger of the two, for 1200 rupees (about $26). It was a little more than I wanted to spend, but honestly I have no idea how much a duck should cost. He tried to sell me the pair for a bargain price and it didn't occur to me until the ride home that I could have bought them both and put one in the freezer.

Many Americans get excited over buying fresh meat but then make a mistake, only once, about delivery of the animal. After seeing friends have live turkeys and other live animals dropped off at their houses, I knew to ask for the duck to be prepared for us. Plucked, cleaned, no neck, take out the organs, for an additional 100 rupees ($2 -- probably the best $2 I've ever spent).

On Thursday Mohammed went back to the market with a cooler full of ice, picked up our prepared duck, and brought it home. Our housekeeper cleaned it off and wrapped it up to sit in the refrigerator. Mike had his Christmas duck.

Mike did all the cooking yesterday. I'm not confident in my meat-roasting skills, but I was able to stock the kitchen with all the groceries he needed, plus keep Muffin out of the way, tidy up the presents-opening mess, and set the table while Mike went to work with his bird.

Muffin helped a little.

It was delicious. It wasn't perfect, but that's due to us still figuring out the nuances of the oven and the toughness of the bird had to do with the life it led before it met me. But it was tasty and something we'd like to do again. The potatoes and carrots roasted in duck fat were amazing and if duck fat is readily available to you I highly suggest you try it. With some seasoned rice and a cranberry log our friends brought over, dinner was complete.

Note the cranberry log standing upright on the plate...

We had a great dinner with some of our new friends and we couldn't have asked for a better day. I hope everyone else celebrating yesterday had as happy a Christmas as we did.

Chickens at the Door

Jerry the rooster is getting bold. A few days ago I heard the gentle clucking again, this time from the front door. When I looked up the whole family was standing there, including the chicks. They looked like they were waiting to be invited in.

I gave in. I didn't let them in the house this time, but I grabbed some slices of bread and gave them a treat. This was the first time the chicks had been so close to the house and I want them to be used to me.

Yesterday I heard a tapping sound coming from the back door. Jerry was actually there, knocking! And again the whole family was standing nearby behind him. I guess he's decided that we mzungus, with our breadcrumbs, aren't so scary after all.

Chicken in the Kitchen

When we got home yesterday afternoon we went straight to the kitchen to heat up leftovers for lunch. It was ridiculously hot in the kitchen so we opened the back door. Then we heard gentle clucking very close by. The rooster, Little Jerry, and one of the hens, Stella, were approaching the door. They're usually pretty shy with us, although Jerry's been getting closer to Mike. Mike gives him snacks. We wanted to see if they would actually come into the house. Mike threw some bits of tortilla out the door, and the lure of a treat overcame any shyness.

I'm going to miss our chickens when we go. I love Jerry. He's a gigantic monster of a rooster. We now also have two hens and two undetermined chicks. We're giving Jerry to a friend when we leave. But the others will undoubtedly become lovely dinners for some people. I eat chicken, but I can't fathom eating the ones that are my own pets. I'm glad I won't be here for that.

How to Pick Up Chicks

We have a new chick. The previous chick died shortly after I announced it to the world. The mother hen, in her exuberance to protect the chick, kept stepping on it. Apparently there have been several chicks that have died even before they were old enough to leave the coop.

A couple weekends ago when some friends came by the house with their kids, the kids stopped and squealed, "A chick!" This was the first I'd seen or heard of it, but there it was. A little yellow speck hopping around after the hen. It already looked larger and stronger than the previous chick, so we had hope for it.

The days have gone by with us respecting the hen and the chick and watching it grow from a distance. It's getting larger and straying further from the protection of the hen, but not too far.

Yesterday some friends came by with their young son, almost two years old. He likes to chase the rooster around the yard but this was the first time he'd seen the chick. The rooster and hen were not happy with him trying to get so close and for a few seconds it looked like they were going to attack him. The rooster actually flapped and squawked and flew right over the kid's head. (Luckily he just laughed, rather than being terrified.) But the hen and rooster, in their attempts to protect the chick, ended up abandoning it. There's a short retaining wall in our yard and while it's a cinch for roosters, hens, and two year olds to scramble over, it's insurmountable for a chick.

Our plan was to catch the chick or at least herd it to another part of the yard where the hen could reunite with it. The chick wanted nothing to do with us, but luckily ran in the direction we wanted him to, toward one of the hen's favorite corners. And under a large bush where no one could see him.

We decided to leave the yard to the chickens so the family could get back together. We went upstairs and watched from the terrace as the hen cautiously made her way down to the bush. The chick started peeping when it realized mamma was nearby. The hen started calling to it. She went into the bush and we expected the chick to follow her out.

Apparently she couldn't convince the chick to leave. She left the bush, and spent the last hour of daylight pacing between the coop and the bush. As the sun was going down, the chick got nervous and started peeping, and even took a few steps out into the yard. But the hen seemed torn between her instincts of going to the coop at sundown and wanting to stay with her chick.

We got headlamps and flashlights in order to make another attempt at catching the chick. The hen was obviously distraught over the situation so we figured the best thing to do was to try and get the chick back to the coop. We came close. We finally saw him, all hunkered down, and succeeded in scaring him out of the bush. Only for him to run too fast for me to catch him without falling, stepping on him, or dropping a flashlight on him. He ran around for a bit, luring us away from the bush, then scootered right back in. By this time it was quite dark. We thought it was best for nature to take its course and wait until morning. We had two social engagements (a rarity for us!) so couldn't spend all night searching for a chick that didn't want to be found.

We were pretty distressed at the thought of losing another animal. Nature, Africa, circle of life, and all that stuff. It gets exhausting after a while. 

Our night guards were having trouble getting the hen and rooster into the coop. They are the ones who close it up for the night and open it every morning. The hen had disappeared and they thought continuing the chick search would bring her out of hiding as well. Mike said to give him 15 more minutes of searching time, then he'd quit to get dressed and go out. He went back out into the yard armed with more flashlights and headlamps for the guards.

I decided not to watch. I could here cheeps and squawks and yelps from inside while I was getting ready. I expected the chick to get stepped on and tragically end the whole ordeal. But after a few minutes Mike came back into the house, announcing victory. 

The hen had returned to the bush to hunker down for the night with the chick. And this time she wasn't letting it go. Somehow Mike and the guards were able to herd both her and the chick together back toward the coop. The rooster and the hen went in peacefully, but the chick decided to hide under it. So Mike and the guards had to scare the chick out of hiding while the hen and the rooster went berserk inside the coop. Eventually the whole family was safe and sound inside for the night.

They are unusually quiet this morning, but I saw the chick hopping around. Everyone seems to be okay, maybe just a little more wary of us.

A little side note: The bush that the chick and the hen kept returning to was full of eggs! She must be using it as a secret nest, and that's why we keep getting chicks even though the eggs are being collected from the coop regularly.

Rencontrez les poulets

Introducing Little Jerry and Snowball Two. They're both there, Snowball Two standing in front of Little Jerry. They don't like me and they won't stand still long enough for a good photo. I unfortunately haven't had any bonding time with them. Hopefully once I give them some treats they'll come around.