Bread Day

Its been a good Thursdsay...hard to even believe really that its Thursday and that tomorrow will be another market day already. It seems like just yesterday was the last market day. I suppose that's a good thing. Today I got up early, around 6:30 and decided to have breakfast in the market. I put my bed away, washed my face, filled my nalgene and put on some sunscreen before heading out into the day. I went towards the market, looking for some farimassa or some koko...and finding none, I detoured to the right to see what I could see. I found houses....tons and tons of houses. This morning made me believe that 30,000 people really could inhabit this place. I wandered and wandered and got myself lost. Finally when I was tired of being lost and really ready for some breakfast I asked the next person I saw, "Ou est le marche?" Well, he wasn't a French speaker, so I busted out my baby Hausa and just said, "kasuwa?" He knew what I meant and pointed me in the right direction....even walked with me until I knew where I was. We came out on the the main road just next to the Laban guy....Yay! So I stopped and chatted with some fellows who learned English in Nigeria and enjoyed my little bag of yoghurt before continuing on towards the main strip of shops...still Really really hoping to find some koko...its my favorite. I passed a couple of ladies with buckets along the road, and they might have had koko, but at the moment when I passed I didn't feel like trying to communicate how much I wanted so I passed them by and decided to have an egg sandwich and a cafe au lait. This was preferable because I met this particular egg sandwich guy at "live-in", and I knew I could communicate what I wanted. It was Very tasty...a nice Thursday treat.
After breakfast I decided it was time to try out my oven. So I looked through my cook book and found that I had all the ingredients to make some bread. So first thing first I went next door to ask Chima for her sifter...I was pretty sure my flour had bugs in it...and ugh was I right. It was gross. But Chima helped me take care of it and I told her in what I can only assume is my broken French that if it turned out well I would bring some over. It took several hours of kneading and rising and then separating and rising and then forming and rising before baking. And I have to say, it turned out really well for my first try. It didn't stick too badly and with a little peanut butter, it was pretty satisfying. Chima seemed to like it too, which was nice.
Tomorrow is market day. I'm going to hopefully try to buy some food and a basin for my sink table. Also, I want to find some millet stalks for hanging the lines for the mosquito nets. While I was waiting for my bread to rise I spent some time envisioning what I would like my home to look like little by little. I imagined filling in the nail holes with cement and painting the whole front room yellow. (right now 2 walls are yellow and 2 are blue) And then I want to paint a little mural on the main wall of a tree with the Hausa proverb "Babu bak'o cikin dunya, sai wanda ba ka sani ba" There are no strangers in the world, just people you haven't yet met. :-) After my first month is up I'll buy some paints and cement in Maradi and get to it.
Finally, I finished "In Defense of Food," by Micheal Pollan, today. I highly recommend it. It was a delightful and somewhat objective look into the food aspect of Western culture.