Kenzer’s Lobster Soup

On Wednesday morning we went to the other side of the island early to catch one of the games but neither of the two places that show the games had the generators working. Power on Little Corn goes out each day from 5am – 2pm. One usually wakes up at around 5.30am bathed in sweat after the fan has stopped. Some of the businesses on the other side of the island run their generators at different times, and they’ve been good about doing it for the World Cup. However this particular day they must have run out of fuel or just decided not to switch them on.

So we were just sitting at a table outside the grocery store, being lazy and figuring out what we’d do now. A local guy, Kenzer, sat down and he and I started to chat. Rich was involved in another conversation with some girls from Idaho and Holland. I was asking Kenzer if he could get us some lobster. The season starts on July 1 – that’s when the veda is lifted and they’re allowed to catch them again. But I figured we could find some lobster somehow before then. I worked out a deal with Kenzer that I give him 100 cordoba (about US$5) now (more later) and he would go buy some vegetables, then catch a lobster, go home make us a soup and bring it to us there at 2.30pm. Perfect, it was right when the lunchtime game would be finished.

At noon we headed back to Sweet Oasis for the game, had a couple of beers and by 2.30pm were quite peckish. But there was no Kenzer and there was no soup. I decided at about 3pm to go looking for him so I wandered down towards the pueblo and asked around for him, found his house - he wasn’t home. I asked plenty of people for him and told them he was meant to bring our lunch. I gave up and went back to Sweet Oasis where Rich couldn’t believe I went to his house. I think we ended up ordering a taco and another beer.

A little later some young kids were walking by and I asked them if they knew Kenzer (I was pretty much asking everyone). Yeah – he’s over there on the wharf. So I headed down there and found him and asked what happened to our soup. There was a bunch of guys there and they were all working putting out the lobster traps and I figured that if a bloke gets a days work that’s the priority. Fair enough. He promised that the next day he would meet us at the same place at 2pm with our soup. That was fine, there would be another game the next day and we will have just done the banana boating in the morning.

Thursday lunchtime comes and goes and by 2.30pm no Kenzer and no soup so we ordered some lunch and at that point abandoned hope for the soup. It wasn’t too bad as that night Carlito had some lobster in so we had huge lobster tails in garlic butter for dinner both that night and the next. I was more annoyed about missing out on the lobster soup than losing the 100 cordoba.

Given we hadn’t seen Kenzer and our lobster craving had been more than satisfied, we’d completely forgotten about it. Until Sunday. We’d just been snorkeling and weren’t quite ready for lunch at 1pm when we came back in so we had a beer and both ended up crashing out in the hammocks. I guess he didn’t know we were asleep because we both had sunglasses on so when he announced his arrival, loudly, it scared the crap out of us. There was Kenzer standing there with a hot pot of soup in his hands. He spent a long time telling us what a good guy he is and how he always does what he promises. My guess is that a few people would have been asking why I was looking for him and telling him to make us the soup. That’s more the way it seems to work around here.

The soup was great – more vegetables than lobster – but it is pretty cool how he made it in his home and then walked around the island to find us. And it was still burn-your-mouth-hot when it got here.

Since then Kenzer has been hanging around this side of the island, I guess trying to hustle other tourists. I told him yesterday though that if he promises to cook for people he needs to bring it on the same day as it’s ordered, not four days later!

Another win for optimism. Yeah!