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| And then there was light!! [Cue 2001: A Space Odyssey theme song] |
The Australians call it a barbie, we Americans call it grilling, and apparently the South Africans call it a braai.
Every Wednesday, the International Students Lodge gets together and has one giant cookout. Everyone brings their own meat and there’s lots of beer and wine, leading to general debauchery.
Being the new kids on the block, the Canadians boys, Gelia, Jean, and I were all super excited for the weekly “meat and greet.” I bought wine specifically for the occasion, because hey, the one ingredient to having a good time is alcohol, right? And by good, I mean, less awkward. Because you hope to get everyone liquored up enough that your awkwardness is just masked by all their drunkenness. Or at the very least, you can pass off your own awkwardness as drunkenness.
However, a couple hours before the party was supposed to start, the floodgates from heaven opened up, and it started pouring rain. Pouring by South African standards, since it was more of a drizzle than a downpour. Man, if they were to experience a Chicago thunderstorm, they might think the apocalypse was upon us.
But we had meat to grill, and the Canadians are used to even more severe weather conditions than us, so we decided that rain or not, this barbeque was going to happen, one way or another. So the boys fired up the grill, even amidst cries of “no braai today!” coming from the windows, and we cooked up our ostrich steaks and lamb chops to medium rare perfection.
And with damp charcoal at that!
