The Christmas Egg Hunt

Oftentimes while speaking with people they want to know all of the glamourous and interesting details of overseas living. Here is another glorious episode of the 'glamour' I experience in daily life.

As you may have read in another blog entry, I am hosting a cookie exchange at my home. Being the hostess, I had planned a menu of cookies, breads, and fruit spreads. What is one main ingredient to at least 2 of those menu items? Eggs. Our eggs are imported from a nearby country and recently there was a bird flu scare. Consequently, all shipment of eggs was terminated until further notice. For two days I, along with other cookie exchangers, searched in numerous grocery stores, supermarkets, and neighborhood markets for eggs. No luck. By Thursday morning my patience was running thin and I was having serious doubts if there would be any cookies at all for the exchange. Then the call came. C knew I was in a pinch and heard that ONE supermarket in the town of 300,000+ had eggs. Half a dozen eggs was going to cost a whopping $3 USD.

Before I could make it to that side of town, I had to pay the electric/water bill. After standing in line for 45 minutes, I was sure I had missed my opportunity to purchase the few eggs remaining at that supermarket. I paid our bill and decided to stop at every little store on the way in hopes of finding eggs. Keep in mind I had already been to numerous stores the few days before. By the 3rd store I was verbalizing my request to the Father for eggs. A simple request in my mind. BINGO! The 3rd store had received only one crate with 12 flats of eggs one hour before I arrived. Half of the crate had already been sold. I bought a whole flat of 30 eggs for $10 USD. I sent a text message to other invitees to let them know I had found eggs. Now we can make cookies and bread for the party!

This Egg Hunt frustration was compounded by the fact I was also looking for the ingredients to make a simple spice tea. You know the one where you mix Lipton Instant Tea, Orange Tang, Instant Lemonade, cinnamon, cloves, and sugar together. This was going to be one of the gifts to be given to the party guests. Would you believe that this country does not sell instant lemonade? I found instant drink with mango, orange, pineapple, and mixed berry flavors, but no lemonade. After much inner debate, I grabbed the pineapple and added it to my shopping cart. After sampling the mix at home, the pineapple adds a nice touch. So if you are in a jam and need a quick substitute for instant lemonade, try instant pineapple.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about life's little setbacks here. There is a very true statement about living in this part of the world, "Life takes all day." Every little task that has been simplified in many regions of the world has not been simplified here. So although we enjoy and soak up all of the wonderful aspects of living where we do, there are some things that make us dream of the way things used to be.