Elisa and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good Week

This week was quite taxing.

At the expense of sounding like a whiny-butt, all of the following events took place in a measly 7-day period:

-The kitchen sink is clogged. Uber annoying.

-A tube running through the wall of my room busted, flooding my bedroom more than once.

-There was some problem with the electricity at my place, causing some voltage oscillation that caused it to go too high and blow out all my light bulbs. At the same time.

-Said electrical problems caused me to disconnect my fridge because I was afraid that it would burn out. All my food is now rotten. It was packed full too, since I had just done my grocery shopping for the month.

-Threats of an anti-government protest with potential turn for outright violence and vandalism loomed near the city center... a few blocks from where I live. This caused me to stay sequestered away at the Tadeus until things calmed down.

-I had a big event going on at work that kept me up late a couple of nights this week preparing reports. Last night (while still at the Tadeus'), Chinha's baby was crawling around nearby where I was working. He somehow got tangled up in my modem cable, causing my computer to freeze up, which in turn caused me to shut everything down, which in turn caused me to lose a couple of hours worth of work.

-This afternoon, at the end of the event, I had a conference call scheduled with some of the global head honchos. Well, the network refused to cooperate and I was never able to log in to the conference call. Had to reschedule. Very frustrating.

-Traffic was a major pain in the hiney today. More so than usual.

-I finally made it to the Tadeus' (STILL staying there, lol, ya me emocione...). I exhaustedly sauntered up the driveway and started chatting with the guard. Well the guard dog, a huge German Shepherd, decided he wanted to rip some flesh off of me or something because he charged at me and was able to snip away a nice little itty-bitty chunk off my back (I had to act fast to arch my back away from him so he couldn't get as much flesh as he was trying to...). AND he ripped my awesome green tshirt. Not cool.

Pics taken after I got back from the clinic where they disinfected me and gave me an anti-rabies shot...

But alas... the week is now over. Sunset is here (yay for Sabbath!!!) and I get to hang out with the kiddos at the Tadeus' home which never fail to bring some sunshine into my day! :D

Almost Complete

I've made a bit of progress... Here are some pictures of the transformed living room:

Before

After

Genius, That's What I Am

Cooking beans or legumes of any kind has been a pain in the hiney for the most part since I've been living on my own. Why you ask? because I have no pressure cooker. Now that may not seem like a big obstacle but what that means is that it would take me 6 to 7 hours to cook beans. No lie. And they STILL didn't come out tender like I like them. I would soak them overnight to try to decrease the time it takes to cook them, but to no avail. I had to set aside a whole Sunday afternoon to dedicate to being at home so I could watch the beans (I've come to learn that beans in Angola are different from beans in the U.S. They're extra hard or something, because beans in the U.S. don't take that long to cook even without using a pressure cooker.)

So I was desperate to find a solution to this irksome problem. I need to eat lots of beans (for protein) and I had resorted lately to buying canned or bottled pre-cooked beans here and there, but I don't want to create an unhealthy habit so I needed a more permanent solution. And that's when it hit me: If I don't have the time nor the money to hunt down a decent pressure cooker, I'll MAKE MY OWN!
And so, in an amazing feat of engineering skills and innovative brainstorming, I give you, the Elisa Pressure Cooker Extraordinaire:


It worked like a charm. I'm not even kidding. The beans were tender as can be and the infused flavors of the condiments were absorbed by every delicious grain. I had some major water spilling going on until I learned how to work with the right amount of water... so I created a big mess. But it was SOOO worth it, the beans took about an hour to cook.

Mission: Accomplished :)

Something New

There's been a few new things in my life lately:

Trying out a new fruit: Fruta Pinha (Pine Fruit), properly named since it looks like a pinecone...

My new handmade Namibian sandals, perfect for traipsing up and down the busy streets of Luanda

My place received a new coat of paint. Barbie Pink paint, that is. Believe me, I had nothing to do with the choice of color :S

Random Pictures from Here and There

Sweet smooch from le boyfriend

Glamour shot in the bathroom, lol

View of Luanda at dusk from the 12th floor. Lots of construction going on!

Kickin' it with Rafaela, a SDA semi-celebrity :)

Tightening them dreads...

My buddy Junior (Eugenia's son)

After a long day out at the boats

Backstage of Rafaela's concert... with Isa, pretty girl with a pretty voice :)

Mama hard at work with the dishes

Yummy In My Tummy

My recently domesticated self loves eating some good food made from scratch... I try to keep it as healthy as possible without sacrificing yummy-ness:

Delicious vegetables pot pie

Vegan Pizza made with whole-wheat flour crust

and pumpkin-seed cheese (invented by yours truly).

It was off the hook... (honk honk!)

Shaking My Head Real Hard

Boy oh boy how time flies when you're having fun. OR when you're super busy... either way, it's been far too long since the last time I wrote a post... I know, I know, I hang my head in shame for disappointing all of my faithful readers *cough*Adyanez*cough*... heeheehee

Where to start? Since I came back from vacation I've been hard at work putting all kinds of projects into motion on the job front.

I've also been working hard on the weekends trying to get my students ready for their first recital... but sadly this time around I wasn't able to bring back any music accessories so we're struggling to keep a lot of the instruments in shape :( We're in dire need of some pegs, bridges, and shoulder pads for the violinists and some reeds for the saxophonist, and we need music stands and... oh I could go on for a while but you get the point.

ALSO, I have decided to take songwriting more seriously... I've written 3 songs already and if I can keep it up, maybe I'll be able to record a CD soon. (No, not in a 'I wanna be famous' kind of way. I'm way too old to start a new career now hahahaha).

Let's see... what else... le boyfriend and I are doing really well despite the difficult circumstances. I'm serious about this wonderful man of mine ya'll... enough said for now :)

Anyways this year I'm pretty much being a grown-up and really careful with my money (what? no more elaborate trips to Europe? Gasp!) so I can pay off my debts and save up for grad school. If all goes according to plan, I'll be back in the academic grind in the fall of 2012. I can hardly wait *said in unenthusiastic monotone voice*.

That's pretty much all that's going on with me... I guess I will bid you adieu. But before I go, I leave you with these amusing little pictures:

Your eyes are not playing tricks on you. There IS a hole carved into the middle of my living room floor. Turns out, my apartment was built on top of the reserve water tank that feeds water to a group of apartments... so when the city water cuts off we can still have running water. Well, the owner contacted some plummers for some routine maintenance. They came, tore into my floor, cleaned and changed some parts, and then their workday finished. So they left the hole like that. Until the next time I happen to be home during working hours (they came on Friday, which was a national holiday, so I was able to spend the day at home to let them in...). I know... I'm so mad at this situation. SMHRH.

That is all for today.

P.S. I have a "My Day in Pictures" post planned. That should be fun :)