Friday night is becoming a special night at the Amstutz home. The girls know that there will be pizza and a movie or games. We have been buying a pizza recommended by our friends, the Blosser Yoder family, who were the CR’s whom we replaced (actually we have been following a lot of their recommendations). Metro Pizza is about 10 minutes away if traffic is flowing well. The girls have enjoyed their cheese pizza and the adults have been experimenting with their other pizza options. So for about 90 Birr (about $9) we can get two medium pizzas in about 15 minutes of waiting. We order ‘take away’ and bring out the pop for the special occasion. Lately we’ve been buying chocolate bars, one per person, as a dessert.
Last night I made my pizza for the first time since we arrived. Friends and family know I enjoy making homemade pizza and some even claim that it tastes pretty good (ask my girls). But how would it taste here? How does one make yeast dough at 8,000 ft. above sea level? So I went online for some hints. Beware of the dough rising too fast and too much. Add a bit more water, subtract a bit of yeast. But it didn’t really matter much in the end. I think I killed the yeast, I put it in too hot water. So the dough didn’t rise, *sigh*. Oh well, I rolled it out and the dough was still edible.
We bought some Ragu pizza sauce (made in New Jersey), cheese, and veggies like green peppers and onions. We found canned mushrooms from China. It costs us a bit more, perhaps, to make rather than buy a pizza (cheese is the expensive ingredient). But there’s nothing like making something from scratch. So Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young music blared from the computer and portable speakers (our stereo) while I worked in the kitchen. Wanda and the girls played round after round of Dutch Blitz, staying busy so they wouldn’t think about their hunger.
So how was it? Good enough for the first time. I’ll learn from my mistakes and keep trying. The girls said they liked it as well. We put more cheese on our pizza than most fine establishments. After supper the candy bars were distributed and we went over to our living room where TV and DVD player were waiting for us.
Thanks to our friends, the Knudsens from Denmark, we have a nice collection of movies to watch. They have found a small time dealer who specializes in the DVD market for pirated films. Ethiopia has no laws against pirated films (except for Ethiopian produced ones) so sometimes the new movies are here even quicker than at home. But the quality is very uneven. Then there is the language thing. The films often come from Europe or Asia so even though the English language is not messed with, there are some interesting subtitles or dubbed language options (Thai, Chinese, Hindi among others).
Last night we watched the animated feature called Happy Feet. I admit that I wasn’t enthused to watch it but my girls were so insistent (adamant, actually), that I gave in to watching it. It is a story about a penguin that doesn’t fit in. From birth he dances rather than sings, like everyone else. He is an outcast in his community because he doesn’t fit in but in the end he becomes a hero in the penguin community. The part of the story that intrigued me was the strong environment theme. A moral in the story. I used to dismiss my Dad when he would ask, Does the movie/ music/ TV show have any redemptive value? Now as a dad myself, I ask the same question (funny what goes around comes around). So in the end I was won over by the warning of humanity’s destructive habits to the environment.
Our girls love Friday nights and already are looking forward to them. But the point is that we are doing more as a family already. Somehow we didn’t have the strength to turn off the TV in the evening back home. But now we are playing more games like Dutch Blitz, Pit, Rook, Uno, Scrabble, Mastermind and the occasional Monopoly. Now the only time we watch TV is when we have a DVD. We control the DVD’s coming in. There are two TV stations we can get by antenna, both government controlled stations so there isn’t much on even if we were fluent in Amharic. There is no incentive to watch TV (unless it is to learn the language). So for now we all look forward to Friday nights for good food and good fellowship. If you are in town, stop in and we’ll include you in our TGIF fun.
Last night I made my pizza for the first time since we arrived. Friends and family know I enjoy making homemade pizza and some even claim that it tastes pretty good (ask my girls). But how would it taste here? How does one make yeast dough at 8,000 ft. above sea level? So I went online for some hints. Beware of the dough rising too fast and too much. Add a bit more water, subtract a bit of yeast. But it didn’t really matter much in the end. I think I killed the yeast, I put it in too hot water. So the dough didn’t rise, *sigh*. Oh well, I rolled it out and the dough was still edible.
We bought some Ragu pizza sauce (made in New Jersey), cheese, and veggies like green peppers and onions. We found canned mushrooms from China. It costs us a bit more, perhaps, to make rather than buy a pizza (cheese is the expensive ingredient). But there’s nothing like making something from scratch. So Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young music blared from the computer and portable speakers (our stereo) while I worked in the kitchen. Wanda and the girls played round after round of Dutch Blitz, staying busy so they wouldn’t think about their hunger.
So how was it? Good enough for the first time. I’ll learn from my mistakes and keep trying. The girls said they liked it as well. We put more cheese on our pizza than most fine establishments. After supper the candy bars were distributed and we went over to our living room where TV and DVD player were waiting for us.
Thanks to our friends, the Knudsens from Denmark, we have a nice collection of movies to watch. They have found a small time dealer who specializes in the DVD market for pirated films. Ethiopia has no laws against pirated films (except for Ethiopian produced ones) so sometimes the new movies are here even quicker than at home. But the quality is very uneven. Then there is the language thing. The films often come from Europe or Asia so even though the English language is not messed with, there are some interesting subtitles or dubbed language options (Thai, Chinese, Hindi among others).
Last night we watched the animated feature called Happy Feet. I admit that I wasn’t enthused to watch it but my girls were so insistent (adamant, actually), that I gave in to watching it. It is a story about a penguin that doesn’t fit in. From birth he dances rather than sings, like everyone else. He is an outcast in his community because he doesn’t fit in but in the end he becomes a hero in the penguin community. The part of the story that intrigued me was the strong environment theme. A moral in the story. I used to dismiss my Dad when he would ask, Does the movie/ music/ TV show have any redemptive value? Now as a dad myself, I ask the same question (funny what goes around comes around). So in the end I was won over by the warning of humanity’s destructive habits to the environment.
Our girls love Friday nights and already are looking forward to them. But the point is that we are doing more as a family already. Somehow we didn’t have the strength to turn off the TV in the evening back home. But now we are playing more games like Dutch Blitz, Pit, Rook, Uno, Scrabble, Mastermind and the occasional Monopoly. Now the only time we watch TV is when we have a DVD. We control the DVD’s coming in. There are two TV stations we can get by antenna, both government controlled stations so there isn’t much on even if we were fluent in Amharic. There is no incentive to watch TV (unless it is to learn the language). So for now we all look forward to Friday nights for good food and good fellowship. If you are in town, stop in and we’ll include you in our TGIF fun.
1 comment:
Hi Doug, Wanda and girls! It's so good to read your entries and try to imagine what your lives are like. Getting ready for school here- Ally in preschool, Jon in last year of PH.D classes and I in my thirteenth year of teaching. Blessings!
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