Mamas Get Cookin'

It was farewell last week to Albert. Little Albert, our firstborn goat left us to go and live with the Mamas in Malya!

Albert the Goat and the Mamas

Albert ready for the long drive to Malya!

with Albert at his new home!

So now Albert's role is to start a family and thus a goat project for women in Malya!

Mama Elizabeti with Albert

I enjoyed a wonderful afternoon with the Mamas Group when I went with Julian (from Bees Abroad UK) and John (our new EI beekeeping assistant) to Malya for the Beekeeping Project. While Julian and John headed off with some beekeepers to plant miracle moringa trees, we mamas got cookin'!

The women had made honey soaps, beeswax lip and body balms and gift bags which we had sold at the recent International School Fair (more on that next blogpost!) and were thrilled to receive the proceeds from that. Half the money was shared between them and the other half they banked for group savings. They are now starting a very simple rotating saving scheme, a sort of peer-banking and lending which will help them to save for later investing.

Products at the Fair with Upendo wa Mama

Already with some of their savings, they have jointly planted a shared field with chickpeas. We had been talking last time about cooking with chickpeas and they were interested to see how I made chickpea burgers! It was Amisadai's friend, Alice, in England who gave us the recipe, and it proved very popular with the Mamas group and the beekeepers in Malya! We prepared them simply, sitting outside the church building and fried them on the fuel-efficient stove. 

Cooking the burgers

The mamas were also interested, although rather suspiciously cautious, about learning to cook rice in a haybasket. They were extremely doubtful that a basket of hay could effectively cook rice. I could hardly convince them to take the rice pot off the stove after 2 minutes to put in the basket! And then we had to wait just 30 minutes ....

While we waited, we moved on to the sweet stuff! They have been very keen to learn how to make wedding cakes for some time now. They are hoping this could make a good little business for them. So, again using the fuel-efficient stove we made a small cake.

Elizabeti and Tabitha mixing the cake

While the cake baked, Mama Elizabeti shared a great word with us from Proverbs 30:24-28 about four things on earth that are small yet extremely wise. It was so encouraging to see these mamas full of hope, striving ahead, as it says in verse 27, "advancing together in rank!"

Baking the cake

It was then time to ice the cake and then the moment of truth to see if the rice had cooked inside the basket. There were excited exclamations of surprise when the lid came off and the rice was clearly ready to eat! The mamas are keen to make similar baskets to cook their rice at home after seeing how much firewood we saved! We shared the rice with the disbelieving beekeepers who were convinced there was some trick involved in making this rice! They had by now returned from planting their moringa trees and also enjoyed sharing the burgers and cake with us. I love times like this! The following day, Julian, John and I were warmly welcomed at Mama Elizabeti's home for a meal in the evening and shared a lovely time of eating, talking and singing with all her children and mother-in-law.

Iced cake, ready to cut and eat!

Rice enjoyed from the haybasket

I love being with these women! In the midst of a challenging time in Malya, these women were such an encouragement! We also shared some good laughs together ... especially over dear little Albert! They found it so amusing that we would actually give a name to a goat, but in the end they were all fondly (with a little smile) referring to him as Albert!