Fahim’s still not feeling well, and honestly, neither am I, but for very different reasons. Fahim has a sort throat, fevers, and headache, whereas me, I’m just sick in the head. 🙂 My headache, though, goes away enough that I still get ready and go to church.
We have leftover green gram for breakfast – we have no microwave oven yet, so I take it out of the fridge to get the worst of the chill off it so it’s not like congealed iced something or other. Ew. When it’s warm enough, I add sugar and eat it. Pretty good. A bit unusual for what I’m used to eating for breakfast, but still, pretty good.
I walk to Marlene’s to catch a trishaw with her. We’re taking a different trishaw driver today. The one she’s been using to go to church and to work and everywhere else is suspected of being involved in the break in to her house last week. She’s not happy about it, and she’s also scared. We take the trishaw to church and gab the whole way there, par for the course. She tells me that, because of the break in, she may be moving to a different house, but probably closer to the school she works at, which is currently only a ten minute walk away. The street she’s living on, which is the one just off the main road, is known as break in alley. I didn’t know this. She tells me that single female foreigners are targeted. I didn’t know there were enough single female foreigners living in the area. Foreigners, yes, but single female foreigners?
While I’m at church, Fahim goes out and buys what I’m calling his witches brew. I don’t know what’s in it – it’s in Sinhalese and Tamil, no English. And he bought four bags of the stuff. It’s a bag with nothing but leaves, twigs, and bark. I use herbal stuff, it’s true, and I’ve been mocked over my twigs and bark, but this – this is the real thing. In this plastic baggy is about a cup or a cup and a half of leaves, twigs, and bark, and you’re supposed to add something like 8 cups of water and boil until it’s reduced to 1 cup, then drink. Fahim didn’t do it like that.
Fahim had to buy a new pot to boil this stuff in – another aluminum pot even though he knows I hate aluminum. He tried finding a stainless steel pot the right size, but no luck. Aluminum it is, and he pronounces it "aluminium". That’s how it’s pronounced here, he insists. That’s an incorrect pronounciation, I insist. He just smiles and insists, "That’s how it’s pronounced here."
His witches brew is good for all sorts of things, including, but not limited to, headaches, fevers, sore throat, periods, and . . . I don’t remember what else, but it was quite a laundry list. I’ve had a nasty headache all day, so I try a little.
It’s horrible. It has an aftertaste that lasts for like an hour. It’s bitter, it’s terrible, it’s disgusting. Fahim laughs at me.
For lunch and dinner, we have Beef with Tomatoes and Onions, Vegetable Curry, and Pink Rice, recipes previously given.
Finished reading The World Wreckers and started reading The Winds of Darkover.
