update!

From Heidi!

Thanks to everyone who donated to this wonderful cause. We have received about 4,000 so far which is enough to start building. If you are still interested in donating, we will continue to accept donations on the paypal site. The money will go towards buying food for the orphans once the center opens.

We drew a random number for the quilt drawing and the lucky winner is Jimmy Wells. Congratulations!

We will keep everyone posted on the progress of the Karabo Asara (meaning Hope is the Answer) Orphan Center.

Isn't this the best news? We are so thankful for everyone's continued generosity to make Karabo Asara reality! Heidi and I go this weekend to Eesterust to meet with the committee to start plans for building! YAY!

Will and I have battled a mystery virus that presented very scarily like malaria. Luckily, we're both malaria free but it took a few days to beat that monster back.

Our computer has a new hard drive, iTunes is fully recovered, and the camera is still missing. BOO.

Swaziland looks just like Ireland... in Africa. What a fantastic place! I can't wait to go back with Will for a weekend. Swazi has amazing crafts, including amazing glass works from Ngwenya. I've been in love with the glass hippo for years but at R450 (about $60), I've kept passing it by. In Swazi, the glass is CHEAP so I got dear ol' hippo for R115 (about $15)! Except, I of course picked a hippo with a flaw... now I think we need the elephant or buffalo book ends. I'm in love. Now if only Swazi had a good pub with Irish music...

Cooking has been going awesome these days. Last night I made Pioneer Woman's pasta alla vodka - what an amazingly yummy (and simple!) week night dish! I made a thai peanut chicken dish for Will that was fairly good - he liked it better than me. I also made these southwestern egg rolls - Will and I thought they were yummy, but would be better fried (we just can't kick our southern roots!).

The Pioneer Woman cookbook came in the mail and I'm a wee bit obsessed. There are so many recipes I can't wait to make! Quite specifically things that require ramekins. Except I don't own ramekins (but I really want these Le Creuset ones - don't laugh).

For Halloween, Will went as a very scary demon (with black hair and a black beard!) and I was a witch. We went to a fun party we helped cater. I was in charge of helping with dips and I made some really awesome ones, if I do say so myself. Here are some ideas for you the next time you take a veggie platter to a party...

Spicy Black Bean Hummus
Ingredients: 1 can black beans, at least 3-4 cloves of garlic (I think I used 6!), 1/2 cup of tahini, 1/4 cup of plain yogurt, lemon juice, a generous squirt of Sriracha sauce

Simply mix together until smooth in a food processor. Taste as you go and add as you like. I love garlicky, spicy hummus and the sriracha just adds the right flave. Enjoy!

Creamy Avocado Dip
Ingredients: 2 avocadoes, 3/4 cup of plain yogurt, 1-2 cloves of garlic, 2 tsp. of cayenne pepper, lime juice, salt and pepper to taste

Simply whip together until smooth in a food processor and taste as you go and adjust seasonings as you need feel is best. Again, I like spicy so I probably had a teeny bit of a heavy hand on the cayenne pepper! This is so very good with carrots. YUM.

If you've bought a carton of yogurt to make dips, use the remaining to make a ranch dip or a fruit dip for a fruit platter. Yum!

Pavlov's dog.

A couple weeks ago, Bryan, Heidi, and I ordered a 12 pack of cheetos for $11 from Amazon. Really - it was a deal we couldn't resist.

The cheeto's came yesterday. I popped the top (they are in a cannister) and was shocked to find...

I salivated.

Yes, my mouth actually watered for cheetos.

I really worry what will happen when I finally return home and sit down at a Mexican restaurant. I may visibly drool for cheese dip. I ask early forgiveness if you are privy to the 1st Mexican meal upon my return to the US next year.

This weekend I went hunting with Will for his birthday. It was a last minute decision, but I'm so glad it worked out. We went with Beth and Adam. While the guys hunted during the day, Beth and I lounged around the camp, which was actually really nice. We laid in the pool, played with kittens and puppies, read our books, went for walks, watched E! tv (a true treat for those without cable TV), and made scrumptious meals. It was incredibly relaxing and very peaceful. Adam got an impala and Will shot another wildebeest so it looks like more wildebeest enchiladas and sloppy joes in the future.

I still haven't found my camera - have you?

Last night I decided to make this for dinner. I love chicken parm. Its fair to say I adore it. Yum. Its a fave. However, I've always hated making it as it takes too many steps, pans, and ingredients. Without fail, I always slop egg wash onto the floor, get flour all over the place, and make a huge icky mess of bread crumbs and chicken. Then it always tastes too bread crumb-y (or burnt) and the sauce? Forget it. Too much work, too much frustration... I'll just make spaghetti with meat sauce instead.

But this?

This recipe is the answer to all my problems. It cooks in one dish - one! No gooey egg wash, no bread crumbs, just simple boneless skinless chicken breast dredged lightly in flour and cooked in a skillet. No tasteless yucky tomato sauce - instead, a flavorful, garlic-ky tomato sauce for the little chickens to rest in. And melting cheese on the chicken in the pan using the lid and skipping the oven? Brilliant. Perhaps one of the best parts was that I didn't even heat up my kitchen with the oven - this was all cooked right on the stove!

It was such an easy weeknight dinner that earned, "Oh wow, this is really really good" comment from the hubs. It heated up awesome for lunch today too - yay!

If I haven't said it before, I'll say it again: I'm a fan of Pioneer Woman.

I head out to Swaziland early tomorrow morning and am looking forward to adding another country to my list of places I've been in 2009 (South Africa, Zambia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Ireland, Britain)! So far, 10 countries in 2009! But I'll be adding Swaziland, Lesotho, and Mozambique before the year runs out... 13 different countries in one year (not counting layovers where I spent money - that would also count Kenya and Germany) - I don't think I'll ever top that record! The only bummer is that I won't have internet or a camera the entire time I'm there. Oh well! I have a feeling Will and I will head to Swazi one weekend just for fun.

omg.

THIS is what I found on my dryer this morning!

Its official. I live in Africa.

This scary critter is what's known as a baboon spider. This was the inspiration for the spider in Lord of the Rings. Seriously. Tolkien was scared too.

I screamed so loud when I saw this spider that Will thought there was a dead body in our garage.

Happy birthday Will! Your wife is screaming bloody murder in the garage and you now have the responsibility of ridding your casa of this hairy beast. What a gift.

Dear Lord, please don't let me find one of these massive, hairy (and yet non-venomous) critters inside my house. ..

swimming.

I'm swimming again. I don't know what has brought on my sudden surge of swimming, but I am.

For those of you who don't know, I spent most of my childhood in a pool. Sometimes I was in the pool to teach swim lessons, to life guard, or to just simply have fun with friends. But a good 95% of my time in a pool has been as a competitive swimmer. I swam summers on my neighborhood team with the best coach ever. I spent a couple years swimming year-round on a competitive team when it didn't conflict with basketball. And, of course, I swam for my high school swim team, lettered, and then eventually became captain of the team my senior year.

FACT: I was CONVINCED that we kept sharks in the deep end of the pool when I was really young and starting out (5-6 years old). The lanes of our pool were half shallow and half deep end so any time I had to swim in the deep end, I sprinted for dear life as I was sure I was going to get eaten by our team's mascot that only lived in the depths of the pool. I eventually realized that sharks don't live in chlorine!

Needless to say, swimming was my life. Unfortunately, in my senior year of high school, I sustained a serious injury to both of my shoulders. Given the choice of undergoing incredibly invasive corrective surgery that may not ever solve the problem or pain or simply stopping swimming, I stopped. The pain was unbearable - it hurt to drive, it hurt to sleep, it hurt to do any physical activity period. I knew that I had to stop in order to get better. It was, to that point, the worst thing that ever happened to me. Of course, stopping swimming meant that I could sing more (swim meets always conflicted with musicals, shows, etc.) so I threw myself into singing and pursued that into college instead.

I didn't swim for exercise until about two years ago when I joined a gym in Atlanta that had a pool. It was weird, the pool was hot, and I didn't keep it up. Plain and simple.

Now I live in Africa and belong to an incredibly nice gym with a pool that uses salt water (blech) instead of chlorine. They keep the pool cool and on a 90+ degree day, I can think of no better exercise than going to swim.

The pool is large with 6 25 yd. lanes. This means I have yet to share a lane when swimming - yay! Swimmers range from every ability - a woman next to me yesterday verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry slowly treaded water from one end of the pool to the other, all the while keeping her head out of the water. Most people swim at a slow pace, don't do flip turns, and usually only do freestyle (i.e. the crawl). In contrast, I swim all the strokes, always do flip turns (its ingrained in me the same way that boxing out when someone shoots a basketball is), and move a lot faster, without really trying.

While I swim, Will is usually somewhere watching me from a treadmill or the weights and he says he laughs as he sees me plow through the water just to swim faster than the guy a couple lanes down from me.

So I'm competitive. Its never gone away.

The thing about swimming is... I've missed it. Its comfortable to me. It really doesn't feel like exercise until I hoist myself out of the pool on arms that feel like spaghetti noodles. I can swim for 30 minutes and I just get to think about things. If I do breast stroke, I even hear the music playing in the gym, which is somewhat nice. Otherwise, its just relaxing and peaceful. Because I have a short attention span, most times I wind up swimming against the clock to give me something to do.

When you train as a swimmer, you'll have a minute clock on both ends of the pool. The dials are huge so you can easily see the minute hand tick by - the arm is black one end and red on the other so you can keep track of the time. Most often I sprint against the clock. I'll swim 8-10 laps, stop, wait for the clock to reach 60, and then push off, swimming as fast as I can to see what time I make it in. I have yet to enjoy the time I see on the clock - its about 20 seconds faster than what I used to swim. So this is what I do for at least thirty minutes - swim 8-10 laps at a moderately fast pace, then swim a 2 lap sprint (50 yds) as fast as I can, rest, swim 8-10 laps, sprint, rest.

I've decided that I miss having a kick board and a pull buoy, two things I never thought I'd miss. I really really REALLY miss my awesome purple speedo goggles - the ones I have with me fog up too fast. I'm really pleased that I wear a USA swim cap when I swim - just because I love swim caps with writing on them.

As I swim, my mind wanders... if I read a magazine article on the amount of calories you burn while swimming, would I be burning what the article says... or would the slow people moving along be burning that amount? Is there a website where I can get ideas for a swim plan so I'm doing more than swimming against the clock (my old coach has one here!)? What's better post-swim: steam room or sauna? etc. etc. etc.

Anyway, I'm happy, my arms are getting toned, and Lord knows while I'm not nearly as fast as I used to be (or as small), I'm happy to be in the pool again, pain-free.

Hope is the answer.

I still haven't found my camera. sigh. And our computer mysteriously crashed and I have to buy a new hard drive. And rebuild iTunes. For me and Will. siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggggggh.

Its just not a good time to be an electronic device and living in the Nagli casa. I'm sweet talking my 5 year old iPod as I type this because I'm sure its going to die a slow death soon.

Maria's Orphanage Update!
We have a name: Karabo Asara!

This means "hope is the answer."

And answer we have! To date, we've raised over $4,000!!! Heck yes! Unfortunately, Heidi's computer also crashed so we are waiting to get it up and working again to pull the exact number and do the quilt drawing.

The blueprints are being drawn and we couldn't be more excited for Maria.

Its still not too late to donate! Supplies, your time, cash... it all works and it all helps.

Recipes
I've been working out after work this week with Rilla. She came over after one workout and together we made an "interesting" meal of falafel, tzatziki (secret recipe - sorry!), black bean hummus, greek salad, and lamp chops. A really light dinner! Next time I make falafel, I think I'll bake it (or at least fry it a bit and then bake the rest of the way). Its too complicated to fry! It took a really long time, but the end result was tasty.

I'm diggin' Pioneer Woman these days (just look at those roasted garlic potatoes!). And I'm a big fan of this too. The baby shower food entry is pretty fantabulous as well as baby brie cups.

Will's birthday is next week and we're celebrating on Sunday night since Monday is a holiday. Yippeee! More recipes after the par-tay...

September? Where'd you go?

I can't believe October begins this week. Wow. It will officially begin the countdown of one year left in Africa.

My fantastic in-laws departed for the US on Saturday night. Will and I were super sad to see them go, but understood that life was calling them home. To put it simply, we had the best time. Will and I learned that sometimes the best day can be spent reading a book in the sunshine with no plans whatsoever. They've learned that their daughter-in-law will argue for a solid 10 minutes that "FAQ" is a word (seriously. its a verb now. I don't care if its an acronym. I'm using it as a verb. there. ha.) just so she can win at scrabble. We've all learned that the best way to start your day is with a glass of bubbly South African sparkling wine and a shower overlooking a water hole filled with elephant, buffalo, hippo, and a croc.

Pictures to come soon, when I finally find my camera. sigh.

In the mean time, there's this!!! Pioneer Woman has A COOKBOOK! heck yes! On October 27, I will be pressing "order" on Amazon so I can get my hands on this bad boy as soon as can be (in fact, I'm really tempted to do my first pre-order on Amazon - its that bad!).

I'm posting because it looks like she may come to a city near you. Yes, YOU. Not me. For some reason, I'm guessing Africa is a bit too far for a book tour. She'll be in Atlanta on December 7. Go. For me. Please? Go see her.

She also posted this recently... I like. And this too (probably just because I love beef stroganoff).

In other news, Will and I have been cooking up quite a bit. A month's worth of dining out will leave you wanting to eat at home. Will did cook up some scrumptious impala tenderloin while the parents were here. Who knew that a dinner of impala, mac & cheese, southern style green beans, and rolls could be so good? Yum.

Will the hunter has stocked our freezer full of warthog, impala, and wildebeest that we must eat over the next few months. I'll post recipes soon. Impala burgers are perhaps the best burgers I've ever had.

Sunday night we had a relaxing night at home with Rilla, who has a brand new puppy (a lab/sharpei mix!). The dogs played and we enjoyed a nice dinner on the patio of grilled shrimp and salad. Rilla made a killer salad of avocado, tomato, onion, and hearts of palm. Paired with some grilled portabellos and onions, it made for a killer light meal on a hot day.

I made round two of spaghetti and meatballs to watch The Godfather Part II with (we've decided to veto watching The Godfather Part III, mainly because Part II wasn't as good as Part I and if Part III is much worse than Part II, then I'll pass) (I love italics today). I think I've decided that while I make a tasty meatball, they are too much work for a week night meal. Besides, my meat sauce rocks.

I'm eating a yummy lunch right now, which I brought from home. YAY! I've decided my new favorite thing to take for lunch is fat free refried beans and spanish rice. I make it Sunday night and divide the beans and rice into several separate containers. I then take a container with some salsa, guac, and tortilla chips and voila! A perfect lunch that's cheap, tasty, balanced, vegetarian, and doesn't leave me feeling hungry at 3:00pm. I won't even abandon it for other offers of going out to lunch because its just that good. YUM. And did I mention cheap? If you figure the beans are $1/can, the rice is about $2/packet, the chips are $3, the salsa is $3, and the guac is $3, then that's $12 total. This makes at least 4 lunches (you could make 3 man-size lunches) which winds up at $3-4 per lunch. It would probably be cheaper in the states as mexican food comes at a price here - its just not that popular yet. But again, yum. Just trying to throw out a new lunch option!

Read: send me spanish rice!

I'm trying avocado enchiladas tomorrow (but am cheating and using can sauce rather than making the recipe here).

This weekend we're headed to Taste of Joburg (hooray free tickets for diplomats!). Me = can't wait!

And by the way, Happy birthday Little Friend!

update.

I'm overwhelmed.

My mom always said that it never hurts to ask.

I asked.

I received an overload of emails, donations, and more from family, friends, and even complete strangers. I feel so blessed to know so many amazing people that are happy to help me in this cause. I am so grateful for your generosity. As soon as things are more finalized with the orphanage, we can really plan on how to get this place into shape!

So - update!

I learned Nico's name is actually spelled Nyiko. Nyiko means "gift" - awwww.

Last Friday, I gave Maria money to go to the uniform store to purchase a uniform and shoes for Nyiko (I would have gone but alas, had no car since Will was on a hunting expedition). The cost? R500, which comes out to $62.50 (pretty good deal for pants, shirt, sweater, shoes, socks, etc.).

Maria took the uniform to Nyiko. He wept. He said, "I didn't think anybody loved me."

And so I cried when she told me.

She said he loved the uniform and is so proud of it. She said all he needed was a school bag. Ironically, Will and I had just cleaned out one of our closets and found a backpack. We decided to hold on to it and give it away when needed. I filled the bag with odds and ends - bubble gum, socks, a set of dominos, etc. I also included a pen and notepad. On the first page of the note pad, I wrote:

Nyiko,

You are very loved.

Love,
Will and Valerie



Maria goes on Monday to finalize the land and hopefully learn the name of the orphanage. She had to submit 5 names to the board (just in case any where already taken) and they will let her know which one wins.

More soon!