A year of running: The beginning of the end...

The excitement/ planning started in the middle of last week. Over the past five months I have hung out with a core group of 5 (Janet, Sonia, Trude, Peter & Thomas) and all have hosted dinners. At one of the very first dinners Thomas volunteered to cook one evening....well that had yet to happen and we decided it was his turn. (Note: I never committed or suggested that I would host as there just isn't enough space in my apartment....I just planned to help Thomas!). On Wednesday I sent out the invitations for dinner Saturday and quickly the dinner grew from 6 people to 9. On Thursday Thomas found out he would have to travel to Zambia...leaving for the airport at 230am on Sunday morning...not ideal but he said the dinner would still happen.

Now neither of us are big into cooking so there were some arrangements to make. Thomas had decided to cook a dish he used to eat in Tanzania and we would need re-fried beans and chapatti. We spoke to our drivers and colleagues and he found a place to buy the beans and found someone to make the chapatti. I had decided to make a greek salad and gingerbread (I had been looking for an occasion to make it since US Thanksgiving!). By Friday night we were set, had bought all the ingredients and had a preparation plan - I would make the gingerbread in the morning and then head to Thomas' at 430 to cut all the required veggies for the salad and entree.

But then Saturday morning came and TIA!!

11am - My kitchen - getting ready to make Gingerbread (remember that I had wanted to make this since late November...when I bought the flour!)

330 pm - fresh start to making gingerbread. Note the black shopping bag with new, non bug-infested flour

mixing ingredients and carefully following the instructions from my Dad

mixing in the flour and water

finished pre-baked product

5pm - Thomas prepping in my Kitchen

(His flat lost power at 10am and it had not returned so we had to move the dinner!!!)

yummy salad

chapatti and beans

prepping the food

(it was chapatti baked with beans, veggies and cheese and then topped with guac)

the crew in the living room...with some extra borrowed chairs

Trude, Janet, Dada and Sonia

Thomas and Peter

So even with the TIA issues dinner was a success - that is the great thing about Africa...it seems that somehow everything works out....just not always as planned.

This week was a busy one - I booked my ticket to Ethiopia (this took half a day!) and I spent two days participating in a workshop on partnership building! There were some great ideas and I am excited to continue the discussion in Joburg next week.

In planning for the dinner and over the past week I really realized that it is the beginning of the end. While I am not sure when I will leave many of my friends will head to their respective homes over the next 5 weeks. We have already had to book a final farewell dinner for June 10 as the departures will begin. While I must admit that I am excited to go home it is a bit sad to see the time come to an end. It really hit home with the arrival of Janet's boyfriend Scott - we had a dinner last night and today they head on an African Adventure. Sonia and I will meet up with them at the Entebbe airport when we return from Ethiopia....but it really means time here as I have grown accustomed to it is coming to an end.