Au frigo

So I thought I would show you an interesting sight of Chad......the inside of our fridge!!  (frigo is the French word for fridge).  Just thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast to the inside of a fridge at home and give you an insight into my ‘Chad life’.

So we have a gas powered fridge, the gas bottle isn’t in the picture.  One bottle of gas last about 2 weeks.  There’s no warning as to when it’s going to run out, so you have to keep an eye on the flame at the bottom of the fridge to ensure it’s lit and the fridge is still working.  As you can imagine, if the gas runs out it’s only a matter of hours until all the food is ruined because of the heat.  Another thing you can’t really see in the picture are the two towels we have draped around the outside and which we keep wet all the time – this helps to keep the fridge cool.  We have to wet the towels with water about three times a day as they dry out really quickly.

Ok, so the main thing you’ll see in the fridge is water!  We can’t drink the water from the tap and even if we did, it’s luke-warm at best anyway.  All our water is filtered and the water that comes out of the filter is room temperature (i.e. about 35 degrees centigrade).  We therefore always ensure we have a continuous supply of water in the fridge.  I probably drink about 5-6 litres of water/squash/cold tea (bottom left of pic in jug) a day.  In the bottom right of the fridge is a bottle of d’jino, which I stumbled across in a shop the other day and was very excited about!  It’s made in Cameroon and I drank loads of it there, it’s kind of like Lilt.  I bought myself a bottle as a birthday treat!!

Next shelf up on the left is some left-over rice which we ate at luchtime, and on top of it in the bowl is some home-made crème fraiche type stuff, which my housemate made from gone-off home-made yoghurt (she’s very entrepreneurial!).  Behind that is a bottle of ‘chilly willys tomato ketchup’ – grerat name!!  Haven’t braved any of that yet...... On the plate to the right, with the pretty red doily is the remains of my birthday cake that Andrea made (it’s very yummy).   Ah, next shelf up is eggs, mayo, some salad dressing, in the bowl is a local lemon (the yellow/green thing, it’s kind of a cross between a lemon and an orange), also in the bowl are tomatoes, then some watermelon and behind that a mango.  Top shelf on the left is some cheddar cheese (yep, another treat, not always available so I buy it when I can!), in the blue food bag is lettuce, duly washed in disinfectant last night, then there’s a jar of home-made mango jam which we made a few weeks ago, then in the brown bag is my chocolate stash, given to me by the girls here for my birthday!  On top of the paper bag is half a cabbage. 

So there we have it, an insight into my Chadian fridge!!  This has got me thinking about what I miss from my UK fridge and the first few things that spring to mind are – proper milk (we only have powdered milk or UHT), sausages and bacon!!  I guess my Chadian fridge is more healthy, apart from the chocolate!