5-Star Dinner

It's Tyson, again.  I wanted to post a special blog to celebrate a special day.  Today is the day we've been waiting for for weeks . . . our frozen food shipment arrived!!!  We don't have access to a lot of our favorites foods from the U.S. here in Abuja.  However, to help us out, we have access to a shipment of U.S. goods every six weeks or so.  This shipment is specifically for buying frozen food in bulk.  Pretty good deal, right?  Well, imagine receiving a combined inventory of Costco and Safeway on an Excel spreadsheet!  Slightly overwhelming.  Now imagine you've never to either store, so you only know the general brand, but you don't know anything about the specific product (and the description doesn't help).  The only other information you're given besides a general description of the item, is the quantity if the item per package and the total price per package.  So, I went online and started looking up as many of the products as I could find, just to get an idea of what I was buying.  So, for example, Egg Beaters.  Imagine the package at Costco - the yellow box with eight cartons inside that look like the milk cartons from elementary school lunches.  Costs around $10.00.  So the mind-bottling (yes, I know the word is boggling) Costco spreadsheet says a package of these boxes of Egg beaters costs about $100 for 10 boxes of Egg Beaters.  Imagine how much food you would have if you bought $1600 worth of bulk frozen food!  So we were pretty darn excited when we were notified yesterday that we had an appointment to pick up our order this morning!  No more having to pay $14 for three chicken breats!!

Diana came to the Embassy early this morning, pulled around to the back, and backed up to two small freezers.  I thought to myself, "Huh, I guess they only stock the goods for the people who have an appointment to pick up their goods."  I  helped Diana load up our haul.  And then off she went to stock our freezer and make us a 5-star dinner from our treasured U.S. groceries.  I went back to my office and looked at our original order again, and got pretty upset. 

When I arrived home tonight, I was treated to the most expensive meal I have had since arriving in Abuja - hot dogs and mac and cheese made with Silk almond milk.  While it was good, it wasn't quite 5-star good.  Unfortunately for us, the price was.  I'll only treat you to a couple examples of how we like to flush money down the toilet out here in Africa.  Maybe someday, when you can afford domestic help, living on an isolated compound surrounded by a 9ft high wall topped with razor wire guarded by men wielding black market AK-47's with the file numbers scratched off, you too will have enough money to pay $23.00 for one carton of Silk almond milk.  And then buy six of them without batting an eye.  And those Egg Beaters I spoke about above. Yeah, not $10 a box, $10 for one fr$#@!* milk carton worth of yellow liquid that makes a tasteless, rubbery, gelatonous mass that is supposed to resemble eggs (actually, it's for 2 cartons worth.  I know, can you believe I'm complaining!).  And we bought 10 of those!  That's right!  Read and weep!!  I know I did!.  I miss that $14 chicken right about now. 

Pictured below is what $10 will buy you in Nigeria:



At least they are "Bun Size."

The headband is to give you perspective - it's Alexis'.  Our tiny 7 year old's.  2 milk cartons worth of rehydrated yellow goo.

   So, if you come to visit us, don't plan on eating much!  Or bring your own food!!! (Mom and Dad - so excited you're coming to visit next year!)  Kyle, remember Leon, France?!  Imagine THAT feeling at every meal for one month!