Pancake dance

I’m not fully convinced that I’m living in Africa right now. A music video from Titanic is on the tv (I think whoever airbrushes Celine Dion is one of the most underrated artistic talents of our generation) and I will do my best to describe the view I had yesterday, but it was a little (understatement) mind blowing so I’m sorry if I stutter. Or wax poetic…but I kind of have to in order to give you a semi-accurate mental picture.
I was riding back from Assomada in the karru and had the good fortune to be seated at the end of the bench, so I had a good view of our surroundings. As we reached the top of my mountain (it’s my mountain mostly because I live on it but also because I’m fairly certain it doesn’t have a name so it is now Monti di Rakel) I looked around behind me and almost fell out of the car because of how gorgeous this place has become. It was very pretty when we got here, but now that the rains have come, the green is springing out of the earth at a speed I never imagined was possible. But it was the mountains in the distance that surprised me. They looked like a scene from a Japanese watercolor scroll. The fog swirled around the mountaintops and between the crevices. Clear, brilliant white the color of untouched sketch paper. This view alone was enough for me to insist that all of my friends in the car crane their necks and bodies in impossible angles to catch a glimpse. So when I reached home, I was feeling inspired.
I grabbed my notebook and went to the top of the roof to write a little. When I reached the top and stepped out of the door, I saw more of the same Hiroshige-esque mountains, but there was also a rainbow shooting out of the clouds in a direct beam in a pristine blue sky that was streaked with pink. When I went back downstairs to finish writing (the only stairs up to the roof are precarious cement blocks of different sizes that twist around the back kitchen, and there is no light back there) I happened to look up. There was a half moon, clear in the sky that was streaked with pink, blue, purple and white. It was still very light out so I turned again to see where the sun had reached in the sky. The sunset looked like something you would see in the Caribbean, with yellows and oranges the colors of leaves in the fall and white shimmering on the surface of the ocean beyond Monti Brianda. I looked back to the mountains to see if the rainbow was there, and it had faded in front of cotton candy pink clouds that reminded me of spongecake, which had become a backdrop to a purple hazy mountainscape. At this point I was fairly certain that I had ingested acid at some point throughout the day. I felt like Lisa Frank had tried her hand at English landscape painting and I had somehow fallen directly in the center of the finished product. Seriously, if there were any time in my life when I would not be surprised to see a unicorn or Rainbow Brite, it would have been yesterday.
So that was the most sensory overload I’ve had at one time in a thirty minute span. Ever. In other news, we had a lesson on food items the other day in Kriolu and I was in desperate need of eating something other than rice and fish soup. We had made chocolate chip pancakes (or the closest equivalent we could manage) in the afternoon for a snack, but it didn’t hit the spot. Although my mood was improved drastically due to the contagious enjoyment of our Cape Verdean language instructor, who had never so much as heard of a pancake, and who became so excited with flipping them that he would let out an occasional, very African high-pitched “aaaaye!” and a giggle, and do a little pancake dance when it landed to his liking. Then he would stop to eat one of his masterpieces and forget that he was still cooking the next. I’ve never been so excited to see someone else so excited, and because it was all because of pancakes, it was also pretty funny.
Anyway, I had a craving and pancakes didn’t cut it. So after class I went to the Supermarket and we bought slices of goat cheese and crackers, which may be the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I read an article last year that people who spend even just five minutes a day focusing on the simple details of one thing, like eating a single grape, are much healthier and happier than those who don’t. People aren’t wired to focus on things like that, but next time you pop a grape into your mouth, close your eyes and really think about it. Break the skin open against the roof of your mouth and let the juice coat your tongue. Eat it slow, and think about the texture of the skin compared to the flesh of the fruit. I promise that if you lose yourself in it, for two or three minutes, you’ll be much happier when you open your eyes. In my case, I’m not convinced that I so much as chewed the crackers and cheese. That shit was good. But next time I’m going to close my eyes.
Some homework for those of you inclined to allow me to eat vicariously through you (send detailed emails and/or pictures):
1. Eat some mac and cheese.
2. Drink a glass of dry red wine.
3. Go out to a nice restaurant and order dessert after dinner.
4. Cook with pesto.
5. Eat a cheeseburger with seasoned waffle fries.
6. Sip on a margarita on the rocks (outside on a hot afternoon)
7. Most importantly: make an egg and cheese bagel with bacon. But don’t tell me about that one, I don’t know if I can handle it.