conversations in the OR

One of my favorite things about my day is the sometimes random conversations that happen in the operating rooms.  When you put a female American surgeon in the middle of  an operating room full of Hausa men, interesting conversations are inevitable. As my Hausa has progressed, the conversations have become less frustrating and more enjoyable because with my Hausenglish and their Frenchausaenglish we can usually figure out what is being said.

The following conversation transpired while I was tediously cleaning spinach, pus, and inflammatory tissue out of the abdomen of  a patient who waited 5 days after his stomach ulcer perforated before coming to the hospital.

Me: "Why do Hausa people wait so long with severe pain before coming into the hospital??? It would be so much easier to fix if they came right away. And fewer people would die."

A (Anesthesia): "Hausa people consider it a weakness to complain about pain. So they don't, even if it is really painful."

Me: "But we have pain for a reason. It tells us when something is wrong. Pain from a perforated ulcer is SEVERE, I don't understand how you could ignore it.  People view pain differently in America. Americans think they should almost never have to feel pain."

A (as if revealing some very interesting news):  "I read the other day that in Europe they give women pain medicine and even anesthesia for childbirth!! Do you know about that?!"

Me: "Yep, epidurals are a wonderful thing."

A: "But, that's crazy, women are supposed to have pain during childbirth. It is part of the curse of childbirth. You shouldn't take the pain away. And who gives the anesthesia? The obstetrician?"

Me: "The anesthesiologist does."

A: "Oh."

The conversation went on about whether Eve caused Adam to sin because he loved her and if women should have pain during childbirth. The conversation quickly became way too complicated for my Hausa.  I wanted to tell him how many of my patients had epidurals during and after their operations when I was a resident...and that more than half of women who give birth in hospitals in America have an epidural.  Even if I knew how to say that in Hausa, I'm not sure he would have believed me!

Panke! (pan-kay)

Cooking class!

As many of you know, Luke's two favorite foods are donuts and pizza.  So, it will come as no surprise that we were both excited to learn how to make the local variety of donuts. They are called panke- pronounced very similar to the English word "pancake."

When we asked to make panke, our teacher asked us if we wanted to make them with our without sauce.

We didn't understand the implications of sauce, so we picked with sauce (hoping that they would be sweet donuts with a sweet sauce). Turns out that with sauce = savory donuts with a meat sauce and without sauce = sweet donuts covered in sugar.  So, we learned to make savory donuts. :)

Ingredients:
Flour- 4 cups
Yeast- 4 tsp
Salt- 1 tsp and a little
Na daka (mixture of freshly pounded hot pepper, garlic, and onion)- one spoonful
Warm water- 2 1/2 cups

1. Combine dry ingredients. Gradually add warm water and mix into a paste.

Tana kwaba fluwa (she mixes a paste)

2. Cover and let rise until it bubbles (maybe 30 minutes)

Sai ta taso (let it rise)

3. Drop by spoonfuls into hot peanut oil, fry 1-2 minutes, turn, fry another 1 minute or so until golden brown.

Panke dafa cikin man gajiya (Panke cooking in peanut oil)

Ski ke nan (finished)

panke de dadi (delicious!!)

They were delicious!  We ate them with meat sauce the first day...then the next day we made bacon gravy (thank-you bacon bits!!!) and enjoyed biscuits and gravy. So yummy!

biscuits and gravy

Then, last weekend, we made them on our own and used sugar instead of the onion mixture and coated them with cinnamon sugar. So delicious!!!

wake up and watch out for splashing oil, luke!

Yum!  (not sure why they are green in the picture!)

the donkey and the corn

In our morning language sessions, we have been reading through a Hausa book called Littafin Koyon Karatun (Learning to Read).  It has been a lot of fun, especially because it started at our level (i.e. "look at mom,"  "look at dad," "look at mom in front of dad"). We have been recording and digitizing the readings, so we can listen to the book over and over.  Now, we are starting to read stories. One of my favorites is the story of the donkey who eats the dad's corn and grows fat, then the dad beats the donkey "bab! bab! bab!" (illustration below). Our language helper laughed when he read it to us. Have I mentioned that I think donkeys are awesome? :)  Today our language helper said that within 6 months, we will be speaking Hausa perfectly!  We think that is quite optimistic...but are encouraged that he thinks we are progressing. :)

"here is the corn on the ground, the donkey saw the corn on the ground, he felt good/happy"

cooking class!

To add variety and fun to our hours of language helper sessions, we have started Wednesday morning Hausa cooking classes with our house helper! She doesn't speak English, so we are forced to converse completely in Hausa. Not only do we spend 4 hours learning Hausa...afterward we are rewarded with delicious, West African food (and we have learned some interesting Hausa food culture in the process).

The first week, we made "miya" which is a soup or sauce. It fed us for almost a whole week.

Last week, we made beans and rice. When T first suggested that we make beans and rice, I thought "how will that take 3 hours to make?" Well, I found out.

1. First, we sorted the beans, one by one, to remove the ones with bug damage. That step took about an hour...meanwhile I learned how to say many words "small bean, big bean, red bean, brown bean, we are sorting beans, etc."

sorted beans

2. Then, she simmered the beans in a pot on the stove until they had softened. She added a chunk of what looked like clay and we spent several minutes, in broken Hausa, trying to figure out what it was. Not salt. "Kanwa"- a word that is not in any dictionary we have. We had to ask our English-speaking language helper later that afternoon and found out....it's potash! I have never used potash before- so I turned to the internet to learn more.

Potash

Fun facts about Potash (from Wikipedia):
--The name derives from "pot ash", which refers to plant ashes soaked in water in a pot, the primary means of manufacturing the product before the industrial era.
--Potash is produced worldwide at amounts exceeding 30 million tons per year, mostly for use in  fertilizers.
--Potassium derives its name from potash, and was first derived by electrolysis of caustic potash, in 1808.
--In addition to fertilizer, potash is used to produce animal feed supplements, cement, fire extinguishers, food products, photographic chemicals,and textiles. It is also used in brewing beer, pharmaceutical preparations, and as a catalyst for synthetic rubber manufacturing.


3. We added rice to the beans and they finished cooking, perfectly. No burnt rice stuck to the bottom of the pan. No extra water or dried out rice. Moist, wonderful rice and beans...complete with a bit of a purplish coloring from the potash.

4. To top it off, we fried onions in peanut oil to put over the rice and beans. I think this was my favorite part. The onions were so tasty!

This is one of our favorite African dishes so far! So simple...but so delicious!

Stay tuned for our next cooking adventure: Yams and Sauce