kerosene lamp 1

Originally uploaded by Fono.

I’m really beginning to have a lot of fun with my camera here. I believe that any one of my shockingly numerous friends with digital SLRs would find that the number of photo opportunities here would strike them with an aneurysm. There’s simply so much crazy shit going on, so many activities and artifacts and combinations thereof to which there is no corollary in Canadian life, and the novelty of these items gives rise to visual compositions that are tasty, new and delicious. I know too many photofiles not to be aware of this. By the way, Father/Katie/Adam/Trevor, I’m trying pretty hard to impress you here — I hope it’s working!

Witness my latest photo shoot — “Things That Involve Fire That Go On At Night.” I’m coming to realize that while the activities of my days on a macroscopic level may not be terribly interesting (wake up, go to work, come home), the minutiae of my existence are downright captivating. There’s literally a year’s worth of writing material in detailing activities such as brushing my teeth and doing laundry — cuz it’s all CRAZY and DIFFERENT over here.

So let’s talk about fire. I do two things that involve fire. Both also involve kerosene. I’ve got a kerosene lamp that I use when the power goes out which is frequently/always. Really, even when the power is on, the amperage is low enough that an overhead lightbulb generates a level of visibility equivalent to wearing a blindfold in an underwater cave. Luckily this lamp is awesome — not in terms of the amount of light it creates, which is itself somewhat negligible, but in terms of the fact that when I carry it around I look totally hardcore. This is like a serious movie-pioneer lamp, the kind with a handle on top so that you can bring it with you outside at night when coyotes are attacking your livestock. Except there are no coyotes out here, so I guess giant spiders maybe (tangent: There are two kinds of spiders here — the normal kind, and gigantic meaty sons of bitches with visibly huge mandibles/pincers. I call these fuckers “hunter/killers.”)

Then there’s the kerosene stove, which is simply a small box upon which I do my cooking. Every time I want to do so, I have to lift off the grill, remove the cylindrical “element”, light the ring of wicks with a match, and then replace it all. On the plus side, there’s no waiting for things to heat up, because fire is hot right away. In fact it’s hot enough to consistently coat the underside of my pots and pans in delicious, delicious ash, which is I guess just the fuel residue. Anyway, I certainly now see the virtue in gas stoves.

By the way, this stove, which measures 1 foot by 1 foot in diameter and represents technology from approximately five hundred years ago, is the most technologically advanced item in my kitchen, unless you count my box of instant noodle packages, which is I guess pretty impressive in its own right. This is quite a far reach from toasters, kettles and microwaves — I’m going to be using a mortar and pestle to make my own peanut butter, folks.

Although, I need to remember to call them groundnuts, because that’s what they’re called here. Oh, and the oranges aren’t orange, which throws my entire worldview into question. (What colour ARE they, you ask? Stay tuned to find out!)

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 26th, 2006 at 11:00 am and is filed under Nigeria. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.