day 9

Yesterday I made jambalaya with Louis. We went to the store to buy the food. This was an experience. Everyone was excited to sell to the American. We went shopping for sausage, pork, beef and vegetables. The recipe called for bacon but instead it came to a big slab of pork. That was my first time trying to cut bacon. It was incredibly exciting. And it was terrible. No meat was thin enough and ended up as pork bits.
The recipe also called for a bunch of special peppers and spices. Well in china the soul food spices are a bit hard to come by. So we made an Asian jambalaya. I must admit it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great and wouldn’t fly in Saint Louis. But what can I say? It was enough to impress my host family. The only problem is in my guestamation game of cooking I ended up adding almost 2x as much rice as needed. So we have a HUGE amount of food left over. It didn’t help that when the family came home they had eaten before coming home.
The next day (today) was an early day. We went to the small village to visit Louis’s grandmother. She is like all grandmothers. Small, happy, and obsessed with feeding people. I was not 2 minutes in the door before I had a handful of oranges in my hands and a 15 lbs bag of peanuts in front of me. It turned out we were there so Louis and his cousins could grieve for a late grandmother. I was left alone with the family. It was quite fun to meet everyone and see the people. Everyone was very nice and excited to meet the white person.
I had an interesting time trying to talk with the family. The younger people understood to talk slowly and clearly. The older people tended to just have fun asking me something then repeating that I just don’t understand. Well I understood some. And I got better as time went on.
The day was fun. It was a bit slow and at times a bit dull. Sitting watching everyone have fun talking etc. but it was understandable. My toes got a bit cold but that is what happens in the cold.
Once Louis got back we all went to have lunch. This was quite an adventure. Louis and his three cousins and I were served 14 plates of food. I thought it was outrageous to eat so much. But this is Chinese cuisine. What made it harder was at 130 when we had lunch someone opened a bottle of Bijou. I did not partake much at all. I was glad not too. I did drink some beer. I still can’t drink on the Chinese schedule. Anything before 5 is just honestly too much.
So now I am backing home. Louis is taking a nap and I am here.