Just in case you forgot you live in Burundi...

Here are a few things that wouldn’t happen in too many other countries:      

• It takes 4 weeks longer than expected to get your car back from the garage because the only reputable garage in town has no electricity and doesn’t want to waste diesel to turn on generator for your piddlely, dinged-up door that doesn’t close.
• There’s an attack on a bar 5 kms outside the capital (yep, that would be Bujumbura) that is known to have many patrons from the ruling political party, and 36 persons are killed by unidentified assailants (Google: Gatumba Massacre).   However, because the ruling party doesn’t want to admit that there is an armed rebel movement developing in the countryside, the President makes it illegal to discuss the attack in any type of public forum for one month.  No radio coverage, no TV coverage, no news at all until the official report of the massacre comes out.  It made international press at the end of September 2011, and we don’t hear a peep about it anymore.
• The best place to buy strawberries in the capital is from a barefooted fruit vendor who walks between the cars coming to pick up children at the Belgian school.  Put in an order the day before to be guaranteed good Goma cheese (cheesemakers in the city of Goma in Eastern Congo are known as the best – it’s similar to Gouda, sorta) and fresh, large-ish sized strawberries.
• When you go for a pregnancy appointment with a “Belgian-trained” gynecologist (the term all expats yearn to hear around here) at the “best” hospital in town (supposedly Hopital Bumeric), you have to ask to if he would please check your blood pressure.  Not once has he measured my belly, asked me to step on a scale, told me what blood work I need to be done, na-da.  Every time, though, he does look for my “file” (i.e. a pink piece of paper in a binder with handwritten notes on it), and I explain that they never made one for me.  Every time he can’t find it.
• By mid-September every year, you’ve met more new people than you met in six months living in a non-expat environment.  Most people working as expats move during the summer, which means lots of goodbyes each June (yuck) and many hellos each August (fun).  This round has been especially fruitful for us as several English-speaking and Dutch-speaking families arrived with kids the same age as ours – hurrah!
•  It’s OK to do your 28-week glucose screening test with 2 Fantas and a pain au chocolat rather than the standard, doctor-issued glucose solution, which isn’t available.  Of course, don’t expect any accurate interpretation of results…

31 weeks pregnant in Burundi

Jan took this picture today and clearly we're well on our way!  The boys understand what's going on (there's a baby in Mommy's tummy), they know I'll leave for the USA first and that they'll come a few weeks later with Papa and that we'll all have Christmas together in WI.  Hurrah - great timing, don't you think?! (Although, landing in WI nine months pregnant with my favorite Indian buffet, Papa Johns and Prego spaghetti sauce available anytime, not to mention Thanksgiving AND Christmas, does sound a bit dangerous...)

Most Burundians who see me, those I know as well as strangers, are seriously impressed with my stomach, and often comment on it to Roger, our driver.  Or ask me when I'm due and then act shocked that I still have 2 months to go.  (Half the baby's genes are Dutch and they're the tallest people in the world - what's a mom to do?)

My theory is that all the attention is largely fashion-related.  Burundian pregnancy clothes tend to be similar to a large colorful sheet that just makes you look fat (I'm sure there are way more pregnant women than I actually notice), whereas ours are specifically designed to make you look pregnant and not fat.  Or at least that's the hope...  In Western pregnancy clothes, I look visibly (sometimes shockingly) pregnant and apparently that's hard not to notice!

Let's Talk About Food: Israel!

Ok, so maybe not everyone knows it yet, but I LOVE TO EAT.  I’m not a foodie – I don’t believe in all that super-fancy, shooshy food and expensive ingredients because it feels exclusive and I don’t like that.  I do like eating foods that are in season and haven’t traveled a million miles to reach me.  But that doesn’t mean that I won’t buy Vietnamese fish sauce in NYC’s Chinatown and carry it in a suitcase to Burundi.  

I like to cook, and I read cookbooks to relax.  Although, as my husband recently pointed out after going through the margin notes in most of our cookbooks, I seem to be allergic to following a recipe exactly.  I mean, they’re really just recommendations, right? 

In brief my brain is very tuned into food pretty much all the time and especially whenever I travel.  I’ll try my best to limit my food ramblings to 1 – 2 entries per country.  For now.

So…let’s talk about food in Israel!

I thought Americans pretty much had the corner market on breakfast in a restaurant.  Uh, NO.  We have the Hungry Man Breakfast (basically 2 of everything on the menu), eggs about 1,700 different ways, and no qualms about eating potatoes under or next to everything, but you sure can’t get feta cheese marinated in pesto with fresh rolls before noon in America. 

Besides the fact that I was eating by myself and literally chugging my breakfast because a cab was coming to take me to Ramallah, here’s a photo of what may be my favorite restaurant breakfast every, eaten at the London restaurant, 111 Herbert Samuel Avenue, Tel Aviv (it barely all fits on the table - yeah, baby!):

• Yogurt with maple syrup, toasted oatmeal, grapes, apple, pear and some other exotic fruit I didn’t recognize;
•  4 warm, sesame seed-covered rolls;
•  A selection of spreads and finger foods: tuna salad, olives, feta marinated in pesto, fromage blanc mixed with olives, and roasted red pepper;
• Balkan Eggs Benedict: 3 slices of toast covered with roasted eggplant, 2 poached eggs, and shredded feta cheese with a side of fried potatoes;
•  A generous bowl of chopped cucumber, tomato and red onion in a lemon and olive oil dressing (known as “Israeli salad” in Israel);
•  Lemonade
•  Cappuccino

A little advice for anyone traveling with a friend – split the darn breakfast and then order an ice cream sundae at 10 am, like the smarties at the table next to me! 

Food shopping in Israel must be a learned art because I would have bought everything I came across, except that I was carrying a large camera bag and about 20 lbs of baby weight, which meant I wasn’t about to buy anything.  But had I wanted to, here’s a small selection of things on my shortlist from the Mehane Yehuda market in Jerusalem:

Gobs of dried fruits 

Hummus - as far as the eye can see

Baklava & cookies

Spices - can you smell them?

Halva

Chips - in Hebrew!