Six days, zero nights

Fun fact: without sleep, a person will eventually die within the month.
This makes for one unofficial week of bad sleep in Dominica. Its probably because I'm using a makeshift pillow and its gets hot as hell in the night, and the crickets dont stop chirping and the roosters are crowing it up at 5AM, but this does not lead to a happy Arthur. I've noticed myself getting a bit crankier, but there isn't all that much I can do except turn on the A/C tonight and hope that makes a difference.

In other news, my first attempt at lentil soup wasnt half bad! I almost mixed up teaspoon and tablespoons for the umpteenth time....and i dont really have any measuring cups, so i need to eyeball 1 3/4 cups relative to...well, nothing. Because of my lack of pots, I couldnt brown the onions and garlic in a separate pot before adding it to the still-boiling lentils, which led to a much greener taste than im used to, as they werent cooked long enough. In addition, I had the bright idea of substituting carrots with green bell peppers....no arthur.

The next iteration will, in all likelyhood, be amazing. But the problem is I made the meal to last me three days, and I finished it by morning....but I blame my midnight snacking.

Fortunately, the one good aspect of waking early is that, on saturday mornings, I can hit up the local market and buy any number of local produce (where any number is less than 30). Today, I stocked up on onions, limes, passionfruit, carrots, yams, spinach, and even a few eggs. I will be heading out in an hour to buy some soy milk (they dont seem to stock regular milk?) salt and pepper, tomatoes, flour and ground beef and some cheese. I was planning on buying dasheen, but I took one look at that unholy ground staple and backed away. I also need batteries for my A/C remote controller and a lock for my locker, and maybe even a mat for my shoes, and the local IGA and James Store should be opening up soon.

See http://louisiana2dominica.wordpress.com for information on day-to-day living,  http://www.dominicaliving.com/exp_boiling_lake.htm for travelling/vacationing, and  http://spouseskitchen.blogspot.com for recipes provided by the lovely local spouses of fellow med students.

Its raining like hell outside, so I decided to try and make lentil soup again. The lack of cutting board space and sharp knives is really slowing things down, and I think the onions/garlic were somewhat burned before i could cut and toss in anything else, and the tomatoes tossed in hastily in big chunks. Next time I'm going to pre-chop a good number of the veggies and toss them all in together.