Our Adventures while Noel is hiking

Our big adventure on Tuesday was cooking a new dish with fellow team wives.  I found a Wycliffe Cookbook in the house where we are staying and we decided to try out a new recipe called Dinner in a Casserole.   We met our friend Heidi at the bus stop and then found the groceries we needed for our meal.  She came up to our place to start helping us chop and get things ready when she received a phone call from her husband.  She had locked  them in their apartment.  Apparently, you can lock  the door from the outside that can’t be unlocked from the inside or she had the only key.  It was one of the two.  David rode home with her to get her husband and little boy.  He is always up for keeping someone company.  Soon Heidi and her family are back and Chandra, the other wife, has arrived to begin our cooking adventure.  Our dinner in a casserole contained two cups of tomatoes, rice, tuna, green peppers, onions and parsley.   We liked it because you mix it all together and put in on the stove to simmer for 45 minutes.  We decided to also make some salata which is a mix of  chopped cucumbers, green peppers, tomatoes, cilantro and lemon juice mixed up.  It is delicious eaten with non, the bread they make here.  For dessert we had watermelon.   By the time, husbands and kids joined us, we had 9 people around our table.   It was a delicious dinner full of fun conversations and watching the little ones entertain us. 

On Wednesday, I was getting ready to go with Winter and David to get some more non.  I went to open my bedroom door and it would not budge.  Even with help from the kids, we could not get it open.  Luckily I was able to climb out the bedroom window.  We put in a call to our team leader to see if he could help us out and invited him and his wife for dinner.  I thought spaghetti would be an easy meal and the kids would like it.  I had a jar of tomato paste or so it said.  When I opened it up, it was more like a very salty tomato sauce.   I tried to think creatively especially since I had company coming.  I ended up adding some tomato juice, chopped tomatoes, and few other things I usually put in my sauce which helped a bunch.  It was still on the salty side but doeable.   Who knew spaghetti could be so complicated.    Our time with our team leaders was fun.   They brought Green Apple RC for the kids to try.  David gives it a thumbs up but Winter decided she would stick to orange or regular RC.   Since the weather was beautiful, we sat outside for a while just enjoying the garden area.   By the way, my door fix was simple and I can get myself out next time.   

No big adventures so far today.  A friend and I did go to the bazaar this morning.  I enjoyed trying to communicate in Tajik what I wanted and how muchthings cost.   I have a long ways to go but we did get the produce we needed for pretty good prices.  Fruit is the same price or a little higher than the states but most veggies are much cheaper.  For example, we bought a 1 kilo of carrots, 1/2 kilo potatoes and 1/2 kilo onions for 3 somoni (about 60 cents).