Okay, so you know Leopold, you’ve heard us rave about our fabulous cook. While he was cleaning this fish for us this morning I thought about what my friend Elisabeth’s mom, who was posted in Cameroon, said. “It’s not that I needed a cook, it’s that I didn’t know how to pluck a chicken.” Now I don’t have Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods to clean and cut up my fruits and vegetables–and fish–for me, I have Leo. But maybe not for long.
Normally you can get a sandwich or a plate of pasta for lunch at the embassy, they will even bring it to your desk. A month or so ago the guy who ran the “snack bar” as it’s called, saved enough money selling me fruit salad and ice tea to move to another country and open a restaurant. What country? Rumors abound. Okay, okay, Ghana. Or maybe the US. At any rate, the chef at the snack bar has a captive clientel of hungry workers who can’t run to Whole Foods (ah, Portland), or in Peter’s case, eat lunch off a patient’s unwanted tray.
When we heard they would be hiring a new chef to run the place, we encouraged Leopold to apply. Once he wrote up his CV, which he’d never done before, we discovered he is already running a small restaurant on the other side of the river, and has cooked four meals a day for 30 people at time for weeks at time when the cloud research group was here. And the missionary community orders his capitaine brochettes by the hundreds. So it’s not just us convinced of his fabulousness.
Many applicants submitted CVs and application packets. From that group, Leo and two others were chosen to each run the snack bar for a week on a trial basis. After all three have given their performances, everybody at the embassy will vote to choose which of the candidates is their favorite. And that person will be awarded a record contract, I mean, that candidate will be the proud new manager of the snack bar.
This week is a Ghanaian guy, next week a French guy, named Jul, and the last week, alas, the week we are in Rome–won’t be able to accuse us of ballot stuffing!–is Leopold.
We know Leo has the yo factor. Can he bring it to the snack bar?
twenty-something years of "what have you been up to?" 
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