Canada Day and a Slight Delay



HAPPY CANADA DAY!

Yesterday, July 1st, the girls celebrated their first Canada Day as Canadian citizens! We decorated with streamers and flags and invited a houseful of friends in red and white over to celebrate with us. We had two Canadians, Laura and her visiting friend, Katlyn, who was actually our only pure Canadian! We finished up with a bonfire with s'mores in the evening!



The Five Canadians



Katlyn's amazing cake!

The other news is that we are still here! There has been a delay on the work being done on our house in Magozi. We are just waiting for a concrete floor to be laid and the outbuilding to be finished. We will be going for the church service there tomorrow, but not to stay. But we do hope that things will be ready for us to move in on Monday (or maybe Tuesday...). So we are making the most of another hot shower and a chance to blog! I also had another practice at baking bread on the jiko - it was a little burnt where it rose to the top of the cooking pot and touched the lid with the hot coals on the top, but otherwise pretty good!

Bread cooking on the jiko

And I had a practice with the haybox cooker. This was a lesson in fire skills and extreme patience! I battled this time to get the fire going and to keep it going, but eventually managed to boil some water! Then I put the rice in the boiling water and put the whole pot in a basket of packed hay which is covered with a cushion of hay wrapped in a khanga (traditional cloth). The rice can sit insulated like this, cooking away and keeping warm, for up to six hours, a great initiative for local villagers. It saves a lot of firewood, and the rice can also be cooking on someone's head as they go out to their crops for a days' work, or journey to a hospital with food for a sick relative.



Rice ready to eat after cooking in the basket.

 So we are pretty much ready to go, all packed up, and this time we can say we have everything including the kitchen sink!