Dog food for a Watchman in Swahili

Tunajifunza kiswahili! (We are learning Swahili!) Tim started on Monday, and  I started this afternoon at the Language School in town - just a 25 minute walk away. It is going to be hard work - lots to learn and homework to do. And with the homeschooling now started and trying to figure out when and how to shop and cook, I am a bit tired, but it is so great to be learning! The girls have now had three days of school, which is going well! We have already had a very interesting Art field trip to a crafts workshop just near our house where the ladies make batiks. It is an Italian Catholic mission and the other very good thing about it is the amazing pasta and tomato sauce and other Italian goodies they make in the kitchen there!

We are learning things all the time! And having the odd mishaps in communication! We have a day watchman, Spedito who also works in the garden and with the animals (very useful indeed!). He cooks beans and ugali for himself outside but I knew we were to supply the food. I thought I had communicated there was food for him in our kitchen, but somehow, that didn't get across, and Lucy, our househelp communicated somehow to me that he had no beans and was eating the dog food! I felt very awful! We gave him a sausage roll we had treated ourselves to from the Italian sisters, concerned that he was going hungry at our house! But it seems he was fine - the fish that the dogs eat is quite edible, but he does now have beans! He is a very kind and understanding man! But it makes me wonder how many other errors we are competely oblivious to!

Cooking beans outside our kitchen

We have enjoyed eating our papaya with homemade yogurt! My first attempt at njegele na nazi (peas in coconut sauce) was a complete disaster. But now I have bought a mbuzi ya kukunia nazi (a folding stool with a razor-like knife on the end with which to get the fruit from the coconut) and will try again tomorrow with hopefully better success!

The "mbuzi ya kukunia"

The girls with Mama Lucy grating coconut
(Now posting this photo a day later, I can say the coconut peas were delicious!)