What's Cookin' in Cooking Classes?

Memories of grade 8-10 Home Ec. cooking classes with Mrs Harris come flooding back along with memories of playing "TV chefs" with my sister! Now here I am living it out in an African village! Actually, Lucy did the hard work, I was just the assistant! It was the first time we had taken Lucy to the village and she did a super job giving lessons on making bread and chapatis. And it was wonderful having her help with all the domestic chores as well! The women really enjoyed gathering outside our house, writing notes on how to make bread and chapatis. While the bread cooked, we ate chapatis and read together. We are hoping to carry on the reading work that Mama Masawa started, and this was a small way of encouraging it. We read John 6 in the new Swahili Bibles together about Jesus, the Bread of Life. "Do not work for food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life which the Son of Man will give you." 



Mkate (Bread)

We are hoping Lucy will come and teach again ... it was funny how the women asked me to teach them how to make chapatis when I had never made them before coming to Africa! Lucy is far better qualified! But they have asked me if next time I could give lessons in making cakes for weddings and special occasions! This will be fun on the jiko (I plan to practice at bit at home first!). Also Tim had some men over today, and after trying some banana loaf, they are very keen for their wives to come for a lesson on that too. So I will work on adapting some recipes to work with what is available in the village and we'll have a go. You never know, it could be an income generating project in the village ... the first Magozi bakery or teashop!



Chapati lessons



Reading together!

This is the great thing about living here, you just never know what will happen next ... and the opportunities are endless! The one opportunity I'm not so keen on, is as the first-aider! As most of you know, I am definitely NOT a nurse, cooking is one thing, nursing quite another! But I have a good first aid kit, and this time wasn't the first time someone with an injury has come to me! Our neighbor sliced the top off her toe with a hand hoe in the fields ... eeks! But it is cleaned and treated and bandaged and I hope she will get to a clinic to check it out if it is getting infected ... keeping wounds clean is incredibly hard. It is hard not being able to do more or give more in the way of bandages and antiseptic ... one guy was badly hurt from a bike accident, and I had to say no to anything, as we knew if I tried anything to patch him up, he wouldn't go to the clinic to get the care he really needed.



 Before we went to Magozi, I enjoyed celebrating my second Tanzanian birthday! Tim and I enjoyed a meal out at Sai Villa while the girls had a blast sleeping over at Andy and Angela's! And then we had a little tea party the night before we left which was lovely!

Birthday Curry at Sai Villa

Birthday Tea

The other event of the birthday was the arrival of another Daddy Pig (the other one we borrowed had to leave after a short time as he was sold by the owner). Hopefully piglets will soon be on the way! It was all rather interesting trying to get him in the pen, while Lulu escaped and all the time trying to hold on to a chicken which arrived with the pig; this was a live New Year's present, now cooked and frozen!