¡¡¡Yo soy materialista!!! (#2)

One of my favourite purchases in South America. It makes me feel like a boy scout, is compact, manual, austere and does what it says on the packet. The lack of sophistication in the design means that there is almost nothing that can go wrong with it. Or perhaps that is a sign of sophistication?

Sarah and I used one of these first in Jujuy, Argentina. We had to ask for it at the front counter of the hostel we were staying at. It didn’t live in the kitchen with the rest of the obligatory kitchen utensils. A sign of its pilfer-ibility. Subsequently, we walked around for two days looking and eventually found one in a shop front cluttered with a thousand other items. The surly shop lady stopped us from purchasing it then and there*. Later that day we picked one up from a supermarket.

If you cannot reliably open a can when you are on the road your dinner eating experience is greatly diminished. Enough people have asked to borrow this little baby, with comforting monotony, to remind us of this fact.

Last week, on 13th May 2010, Sarah and I celebrated six months of being out of New Zealand. To salute this milestone Hester, Sarah and I went out for sushi at Zhou with our friends Stephanie and Allan. When I got home I wondered what I would write about this development. Outlining another dinner with friends felt fallow or at least unsuitable. Instead I thought of el abrelatas. What a good role model for the next six months. Or a representation of how I would like to preceding months to be: functional, reliable, common place and exceptional in its simplicity.

* a sympathetic reminder that - today - our Spanish has actually improved.