Developing country ups and downs, and down my throat

This morning I went to the kitchen for breakfast and found the top of the fridge covered in ants. Fortunately, there didn't appear to be any ants in the fridge. I grabbed the broom and dustpan and swept them away, a process I had to repeat two more times to get rid of them all.

Then I went to work, where a storm knocked out the power to the school for two hours. The upside to this was that one of my classes got canceled.

At her school, Rowan has a leak in the ceiling that drips just behind her desk. She has to avoid the bucket when she moves her desk chair. And one of her classrooms started to flood, causing one student to slip and fall on his ass during an activity.

At home our garage is leaking. And the drainage channel behind the house seems to be getting dangerously high. And we kept blowing a circuit the other day and it made terrifying noises when I reset it.

At least we have a lot of beer in the fridge. But it isn't so cold because the power was out for awhile and the fridge doesn't work so well even when it is fully electrified.

***

After class today, Rowan and I went to get some terang bulan, or folded-and-filled Indonesian pancakes. (These are, the Internet tells me, the sweet version of martabak, which I've seen elsewhere as a sort of omelet wrapped in a crepe.) My co-worker had said they could be savory, so while Rowan ordered the chocolate, I ordered the mixed cheese.

We took our boxes of food back to the house and found that the mixed cheese meant cheese mixed with peanuts, chocolate, and some other things.It was sweet and delicious. But not really dinner fare.

So I cooked up some grilled cheese, or roti bakar dengan keju (grilled bread with cheese) as they say in these parts.I had the ingredients because I felt like a little taste of home yesterday. And I did get quite nostalgic while I ate it.

Following the sandwich and pancake, I settled into a sort of carbohydrate stupor, which is still affecting me as I write this. And will affect me for a long time, since there are enough leftovers to feed me breakfast for two more days.

***

I apologize if the blog sometimes seems like a food blog, but eating--or more specifically the quest for food--is a big part of our lives here. Often, it is cheaper to buy food from local people than to cook it ourselves. I've mentioned the guys who go past our house, but sometimes the guy I want doesn't come, or I don't want what does come.

Getting food often requires going out and searching for stuff. Our pancakes, for example, required a ten-minute walk to the restaurant, though I thought it was well worth the trip. Also, such questing takes us out of our little bubble. We get to see our neighborhood and meet its people.

So when I talk about food, I'm really talking about the results of living, a return to a sort of hunter/gatherer mentality of life.

Or so I tell myself.