Ten Little Chances to be Free (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenlittlebullets) wrote2012-01-13 01:13 am
tenlittlebullets) wrote2012-01-13 01:13 am
Travel, cont'd.
Question for my flist: what can you cook using no heat sources other than an electric kettle? (I should specify: an electric kettle that belongs to the hotel and thus shouldn't be gummed up with dubious food substances.) Because while I've found a couple of decent lunch places near work, my dinner options consist entirely of restaurants for business travellers, which are expensive and also give you way too much food. Expense isn't really a problem since our meals & incidentals stipend is more than generous enough to cover it, but I do get to pocket whatever's left over afterwards, and I'd rather stick it in savings than blow it on the overpriced hotel buffet and end up feeling like an overfed leech every evening.
So! What can you make with an electric kettle, when you cannot heat anything but water in the kettle? I would be open to acquiring one or two pots/pans/bowls and some silverware for the cause, which all told would probably set me back less than one restaurant dinner. Couscous is the obvious choice: add boiling water and let sit. Hard-boiled eggs are an option. There is a French chain supermarket within walking distance, which in typically French fashion stocks a wide variety of excellent canned goods; I could experiment with reheating via chucking the can itself in boiling water, but have never done that before, so tips and tricks would be appreciated.
Aside from the food quandary, Côte d'Ivoire is going all right! It turns out that Abidjan is home to a moderately large population of migratory fruit bats--which, okay, when I say moderately large I mean there are about a million of them in the city, and when you walk down the boulevard there will be hundreds or thousands of them roosting in any one tree, sleeping or chattering or flitting about. Dusk is incredible--you see what looks like one of those flocks of tens of thousands of swallows that swoop around power lines in the US, only these are all bats, flitting around the skyscrapers and minarets. SO COOL.
Also, I am discovering that certain classically 19th-century problems (boil the water unless you want to risk cholera and/or giardia, "do I have remarkably quick-onset TB or is this sudden dry cough just air pollution?", roads and sidewalks that range from dramatically cracked pavement to cobblestones to dirt, the occasional open sewer, perfume as the art of making human B.O. smell better) are neither exaggerated myths nor hideously insurmountable torments, just slightly annoying facts of everyday life--especially if you belong to a socioeconomic stratum where you can afford enough prevention to avoid serious illness, and where even if you get sick you're unlikely to die for lack of access to medical care. Also there is some serious urban decay--which, in the US (even more than in Europe where very old buildings always have some degree of dirt and decay), is usually a symptom of neglect or abandonment. But here, with all the smog and humidity, anything that stands still long enough will develop a serious case of visible rot or soot stains or rust or peeling paint, even government offices and expensive buildings and high-traffic areas. Which is a serious attitude adjustment--things rot or fall apart quickly, it's not a sign that nobody's maintaining them. Okay, the standards of acceptable maintenance are also lower, but partly because your work gets undone so quickly.
As for the people... everyone I've met so far has been incredibly friendly and nice. (Except the sysadmin, who is a bit grumpy and set on doing everything his way even if it fucks things up for the rest of us--it is comforting to know that some things never change.) The data-entry women (and they're all women, and all the techies are men, which puts me in an odd position) seem to think I'm the adorablest thing ever, or at least the nicest quasi-authority figure in the room. Interesting power dynamics--most of them are older than I am, and thus feel entitled to dote and find me adorable, but I'm also technically one of their supervisors, a role that is often indistinguishable from tech support. At this stage, most of my time is spent answering "why the fuck is it giving me an error message?" type questions and figuring out whether the answer is "you fucked up," "the data are fucked up, here's how we resolve it," or "the program is buggy, gimme two minutes to fix it." There's also the bit where I'm white and foreign, but with much better French than my boss, who has more technical expertise--and the bit where both of us are friendlier with the data-entry women than the supervisors and techies hired through the Ivoirian statistical bureau, who tend to treat them like idiots even though most of them are blue- or pink-collar professionals who can't find better work.
In any case, people are friendly--there is much more of a culture of hospitality and face-to-face interaction than back home. Which is a blessing and a curse. The techies showed us around the neighborhood near work and gave us restaurant recommendations, the people I work with are happy to chat and share recipes and compare cultures whenever we've got a bit of downtime, and oh god I am so socially drained. Especially since I've eaten literally every meal for the past week and a half in the company of my boss, because hey we're in this together, and also (unspoken) because it wouldn't be safe for me to go out alone at night. And that's another thing--in the US, I have an instinctive feel for what is acceptable social interaction, broadly speaking; in Paris, anyone who approaches you on the street is probably a fucking creeper unless they're asking directions, and it's not particularly rude to feign deafness and walk on by; here, especially out on the street, I have no sense of what is culturally-acceptable friendliness and what is potentially threatening and what is an attempt to extract money from an easy mark. No sense of when to reply and at what point to disengage. It's a bit disorienting, and I know I can only learn by trial and error, but error involves getting scammed and having to shake off creepazoids.
Anyway. Onward, upward, etc. Have to work Saturday, but I am very much looking forward to an opportunity to sleep in, veg out, and watch moar Who on Sunday.
So! What can you make with an electric kettle, when you cannot heat anything but water in the kettle? I would be open to acquiring one or two pots/pans/bowls and some silverware for the cause, which all told would probably set me back less than one restaurant dinner. Couscous is the obvious choice: add boiling water and let sit. Hard-boiled eggs are an option. There is a French chain supermarket within walking distance, which in typically French fashion stocks a wide variety of excellent canned goods; I could experiment with reheating via chucking the can itself in boiling water, but have never done that before, so tips and tricks would be appreciated.
Aside from the food quandary, Côte d'Ivoire is going all right! It turns out that Abidjan is home to a moderately large population of migratory fruit bats--which, okay, when I say moderately large I mean there are about a million of them in the city, and when you walk down the boulevard there will be hundreds or thousands of them roosting in any one tree, sleeping or chattering or flitting about. Dusk is incredible--you see what looks like one of those flocks of tens of thousands of swallows that swoop around power lines in the US, only these are all bats, flitting around the skyscrapers and minarets. SO COOL.
Also, I am discovering that certain classically 19th-century problems (boil the water unless you want to risk cholera and/or giardia, "do I have remarkably quick-onset TB or is this sudden dry cough just air pollution?", roads and sidewalks that range from dramatically cracked pavement to cobblestones to dirt, the occasional open sewer, perfume as the art of making human B.O. smell better) are neither exaggerated myths nor hideously insurmountable torments, just slightly annoying facts of everyday life--especially if you belong to a socioeconomic stratum where you can afford enough prevention to avoid serious illness, and where even if you get sick you're unlikely to die for lack of access to medical care. Also there is some serious urban decay--which, in the US (even more than in Europe where very old buildings always have some degree of dirt and decay), is usually a symptom of neglect or abandonment. But here, with all the smog and humidity, anything that stands still long enough will develop a serious case of visible rot or soot stains or rust or peeling paint, even government offices and expensive buildings and high-traffic areas. Which is a serious attitude adjustment--things rot or fall apart quickly, it's not a sign that nobody's maintaining them. Okay, the standards of acceptable maintenance are also lower, but partly because your work gets undone so quickly.
As for the people... everyone I've met so far has been incredibly friendly and nice. (Except the sysadmin, who is a bit grumpy and set on doing everything his way even if it fucks things up for the rest of us--it is comforting to know that some things never change.) The data-entry women (and they're all women, and all the techies are men, which puts me in an odd position) seem to think I'm the adorablest thing ever, or at least the nicest quasi-authority figure in the room. Interesting power dynamics--most of them are older than I am, and thus feel entitled to dote and find me adorable, but I'm also technically one of their supervisors, a role that is often indistinguishable from tech support. At this stage, most of my time is spent answering "why the fuck is it giving me an error message?" type questions and figuring out whether the answer is "you fucked up," "the data are fucked up, here's how we resolve it," or "the program is buggy, gimme two minutes to fix it." There's also the bit where I'm white and foreign, but with much better French than my boss, who has more technical expertise--and the bit where both of us are friendlier with the data-entry women than the supervisors and techies hired through the Ivoirian statistical bureau, who tend to treat them like idiots even though most of them are blue- or pink-collar professionals who can't find better work.
In any case, people are friendly--there is much more of a culture of hospitality and face-to-face interaction than back home. Which is a blessing and a curse. The techies showed us around the neighborhood near work and gave us restaurant recommendations, the people I work with are happy to chat and share recipes and compare cultures whenever we've got a bit of downtime, and oh god I am so socially drained. Especially since I've eaten literally every meal for the past week and a half in the company of my boss, because hey we're in this together, and also (unspoken) because it wouldn't be safe for me to go out alone at night. And that's another thing--in the US, I have an instinctive feel for what is acceptable social interaction, broadly speaking; in Paris, anyone who approaches you on the street is probably a fucking creeper unless they're asking directions, and it's not particularly rude to feign deafness and walk on by; here, especially out on the street, I have no sense of what is culturally-acceptable friendliness and what is potentially threatening and what is an attempt to extract money from an easy mark. No sense of when to reply and at what point to disengage. It's a bit disorienting, and I know I can only learn by trial and error, but error involves getting scammed and having to shake off creepazoids.
Anyway. Onward, upward, etc. Have to work Saturday, but I am very much looking forward to an opportunity to sleep in, veg out, and watch moar Who on Sunday.