Hot little peppers

The photo shows some of the local produce. These are strange looking little peppers. They are strange and hot. They are the long slow burn type of pepper. I know. I used two of the little critters in a chicken and plantain dish that I made. At first it did not seem to hot but as we continued to eat the temperature continued to go up and up. Not the instant fire effect, slow burn that lasts. Not exactly what I expected from the little peppers. It did spice up the bland French recipe that called for green peppers.

Life here is often not what you expect. There is a bridge building project just down the hill from where we live. Currently there is a one lane bridge over the stream. They are building a new two lane bridge. In the process they have broken our water main twice and we spent nine days without water. (We have a cistern so we were not without but we did get very low). When we got water back the first time I noticed that the float valve was broken and as I watch a piece fell to the bottom of the cistern. I recovered the piece by taking a swim only to find out that two more pieces needed to be fixed. One needs to be remade totally. (You can’t buy replacement parts here, only the whole assembly). I am trying to close the hole in the float with epoxy glue. Until the project comes together I need to regulate the level of water in the cistern with a shutoff valve. You may ask “Why not buy a new valve?” Good question. The answer I have is that it is $80 US. I can buy one in the US for $20. So I will fix this one for now.

The good news is that we have water and we can try to flush the long slow burn chili pepper out of our systems. Next time I will use only one hot pepper. Well that is all for today from Pointe Noire, where things are often not what they seem to be.