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April 21, 2005
Cecil Esau B Block Kitchen
A few people back in the States have expressed curiosity as to my current food/kitchen experience, and I figured it might be interesting to take a few pictures of what I cook in every day! First of all, it's important to note that there are ten students in B Block, and one (rather small) refigerator to share. The result is that I currently only have an onion, a block of cheese, three yogurts, and some mayonnaise stored in the crowded refigeration unit, and nothing in the freezer (note the missing freezer door...).
The main thing about the kitchen is that it's not really big enough for one person, let alone multiple people all trying to make their dinner after class at one time. This picture basically shows almost all of the kitchen: the door is to the immediate left of the fridge, and the sink area is right behind me.
As a side tangent here (not that there are any other sorts of tangents...right?), I got out of bed to go take these pictures around 10:00 at night, and when I got into the kitchen, one of the burners was on, the light was off, and the door was locked! So I'm very glad that I happened to wander into the kitchen that night. I'm convinced that we're going to start a fire in there before we leave. We've already blown a fuse multiple times, and I think I've encountered forgotten hot burners at least three times.
So here's the sink. I have two issues with the sink. The first is that there are separate faucets for the hot and the cold water, so you can either wash your dishes in an unsatisfactory chilly stream of water, or a scalding one. I tend to opt for the scalding one, and I've definitely burned my fingers plenty of times. The second issue I have is that the sink is about the size of an Altoids tin. Okay, well, it's a little bigger than that, but not by much! It's tricky to wash pots in a teeny, tiny sink without getting scalding water all over the place...
I have to be careful about complaining about our sink, however, because it is better than the community sink in the room right next to our kitchen. This sink is prone to clogginess and general ickiness. Yes, it's completely flooded in this picture, with lots of food particles swimming around. By the way, you can click on any of these pictures to get a larger view.
Okay, so now we're moving away from the kitchen into my room. I like that we have a gate on the outside of our suite, because the rest of my classmates only have a wooden door with a padlock for security. I feel special with a gate and everything. Except it's somewhat strange that the gate locks and the door behind it doesn't, so that when we get our weekly supply of toilet paper, the cleaning ladies open our door and push it through the bars of the gate.
Here's my half of the room that Frances and I share. We have bars on the outside and the inside of our room, which is pretty cool. I'm standing with the door right behind me, and our wall of closets is opposite the wall with all my lovely decorations.
I took a close-up of everything that's on my wall so far. Thanks to everyone who sent me something, because it's helping to make Frances and I feel more at home! Well, some of it might be making Frances feel somewhat unloved, because I've gotten all these nice things in the mail and she has yet to receive anything, but I still think she appreciates the decorations!
That't it for now! Let me know if anyone wants more pictures of anything in particular, because I tend to forget that everyone back home has very little of a sense of what daily life is like for me here! And a huge thanks goes out to the nicest girl in the world, Crystal, for letting me use her laptop to take all this time to put up all these lovely pictures!
Posted by rgutwin at April 21, 2005 04:24 AM
Comments
There are also internal tangents and external tangents.
If you get cold, you could just take that nice warm blanket off the foot of your bed and walk around cloaked in it. It probably would not attract much more attention than your bright orange shorts.
Posted by: Diana at April 21, 2005 09:18 AM
Good to know about the tangents.
The blanket at the end of my bed has actually become a rather important part of my wardrobe around the dorm, although I haven't yet ventured outside of Cecil's security gate with it. But I have walked up and down the hallways cloaked in green fleece...
Posted by: Rebecca at April 21, 2005 11:37 AM
wow! so who goes to unclogging the drain? how is it that educated individuals find it a challenge to scrape dish waste into the trash and turning off burners?? what good is all that head knowledge if the body dies from sink germ investation or smoke inhalation? we humans can be so interesting. It is my hope that you girls can learn not only about the wonderful South African culture, but also how to manage to live without a garbage disposal :)
Posted by: mom at April 21, 2005 12:57 PM
Looks pretty small :/ that really stinks. Where's the note I sent you?? Sorry I'm being a lame sister and not talking to you much :) hope everything is well
Posted by: anna at April 23, 2005 09:11 PM
Just fyi, you don't need to keep the onion in the fridge unless you've cut it already. I usually keep my onions outside the fridge and they do well, as long as they're not too close to my heater...
Posted by: Karl at April 25, 2005 07:14 AM
Yeah, I have a bag of onions in my closet (much to the disapproval of Frances), and I just keep my partially-cut onion in the fridge.
And as a clarification to Mom's comment, we girls from the United States keep our sink clean, but the community sink that we don't use is usually pretty grubby.
Posted by: Rebecca at April 25, 2005 07:26 AM
thanks for the clarification Bec - I feel much encouraged :) (by the way - I don't really believe that you can get sick from sink germs - it just makes you feel sick to your stomach to stick a hand down into a clogged sink and pull debis out of the drain - yuk!)
Posted by: mom at April 25, 2005 08:58 PM