Baking in Botswana (!!???) in which I attempt the impossible without a safety net... or measuring cups...

The title of this blog seems a bit ridiculous as most people could probably bake anywhere, anytime or anything. Not me. I have no interest in cooking. The timing overwhelms me, the ingredients are non-negotiable, and take away is always just down the street. It should tell you something that I put cooking and baking right there in the same category.
I am anything but a domestic goddess, and prior to leaving the states Jack and I had down to a science what I have tried to explain to folks here is a completely lovely method of feeding ourselves and entertaining for others. Basically we go to the grocery store, he decides what he feels like cooking, I agree to it, we choose a bottle of wine, and a few hours later we’re eating. I clean up afterwards and provide the sparkling conversation, and maybe cut up some fruit.
Under the impending pressure of the many houseguests I was about to have, and knowing the limited food supply in Seronga, I had a touch of impending panic to get creative in attempting to feed these people. Which lead me to scour the piles of papers and random objects that have come to fill my house (it seems some things never change) for the Peace Corps issued cookbook, of which I somehow managed to acquire two, on the off chance by having more than one I would learn something perhaps?
I looked at the meager beginnings I had in my “kitchen” (to a cook or baker it would have occurred to stock up on these basic items, spices, staples in a town that actually has access to some forms of western food, but not me!!) and decided to attempt a coffee cake, mostly because I knew what it was supposed to taste like, and happened to have cinnamon. Growing up I was often entrusted with the task of adding the three ingredients that weren’t included in the box mix to make the Sunday morning coffee cake and felt this couldn’t be too hard. Although this was going after the gold without a box mix to fall back on. This was the real deal, baking for guests, why I don’t think or get inspired to do trial runs of this type of thing I’ll never know. Perhaps I like to live on the edge. More likely I’m lazy. I calmed myself with the thought that I could just throw it away and no one would know any better if the whole thing fell apart.
Using the empty plastic pineapple containers from the fruit my mom had sent me (three points for improvisation!) I eyeballed out the ingredients, nearly forgetting to add the water (I know, it all seems SO obvious). I sent up a little prayer that brown granulated sugar was close enough to the hard brick moist shit I’m certain this recipe was calling for. I found a round pot which I decided would be acceptable for the round baking pan the recipe called for (who WROTE this thing!!??? Clearly not someone stationed in Seronga! four points for creativity). I lit the oven (no standard 350 degrees here. I’m sure they don’t even operate in degrees Fahrenheit or whatever we use on ovens in the states-have I mentioned that math is not my strong point?) I light the pilot by sticking a match over a little hole in the front and eventually a fire appears in the back. The settings on the knob are numbers 1-9 and a little part with a picture of some flames. I stick it in the middle and hope for the best (sticking the landing- two points). I also have a little problem with timing, and the fact that there’s no microwave timer (much less a microwave, or really electricity, oh really this could go on for hours, or at least pages….) here isn’t a help.
I take it out of the oven when the match stick (now why would someone have a toothpick here!!? that would be too easy! I guess they’re both wood at the end of the day..) is clean. I fed the concoction to my guests, and to my knowledge no one has yet died (and neither have I, despite licking the batter bowl and spoon- yet another bonus to living alone!!! With no fear of the raw eggs inside) . It was actually halfway decent. I’m impressed. I give myself the gold, nevermind that there was no competition!