April 2014

Freezer Cleaning can be Shocking

The Sister’s kitchen in their house where we stay is basic to our privileged Western standards.  To the cooks and helpers however it is a high tech state of the art kitchen but not all the appliances are fully understood. Mike tried to put some water in the upright freezer but he found the door ajar as the ice had formed around the door preventing it from closing.  Mike decided to defrost the freezer so unplugged it from the mains and boiled some water to place inside to let the steam defrost it.  Sister’s kitchen staff had their own way however, throwing pots of hot water into the freezer some from a distance of several feet.  Within minutes the kitchen floor was awash with water and ice.  Then the brooms can out to sweep the ice and water outside, vigorous sweeping took place reminiscent of the Winter Olympic Curling teams.  At the end of all this, the freezer was free from ice and spotlessly clean, however with the whole kitchen, floor and walls  dripping wet  plugging the freezer back on was a ‘shocking experience’.

Bishop for dinner

With a couple of hours to go before dinner Sister Aylech is informed that the Bishop was coming to eat with us. The whole house went into organized panic.  We were excited having met the Bishop before and were keen to listen to his many amusing stories.  As we prepared the vegetables from the garden and made jelly and Angel Delight that we had brought from home, Sister Aylech informed us that the Bishop travels to Rome twice year and has regular meetings with the Pope.  This extra information then started to cause us to panic.  Needless to say the evening went off without a hitch, the Angel Delight was a huge success and his stories were as amusing as ever.