o Cooking/Tasting: Laura in the Far East taught me some African cooking skills and introduced me to all the African “girl food.” She taught me how to doctor up their typical red sauce with peanut butter and pumpkin. We ate don waki which looks like slimy gray meatballs. Therefore is does not look appealing and some classify it as “snot balls.” It tastes pretty good mixed with mayonnaise and a mixture of pepper spices called yaji. I also tried their wakin awora which I have decided is African tofu. I watched the women make this and it only took 4 hours! The process involves grinding up soaked beans into a paste then cooking the paste with tsami (soured bean juice) and cutting into slices to eat. I will not wait 4 hours again to try some.
o Crochet: African crochet is more like American embroidery than anything else. A few of Laura’s neighbors took me to the main road to buy fabric, thread and lace to make a table cloth and baby wrap called a goye. My West African country is special in that the color choices here are hideous. My bright yellow fabric doesn’t go at all with the dark red, blue and green yarn with the pastel lace. Oh well! If I want to fit in here I guess I just don’t need to worry about matching. The girls let me borrow one of their template designs to stitch. They don’t use a hoop here for tension purposes so now I think I have carpal tunnel.
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| See how everything matches! |
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| Yarn (Zare) |
o Dr. Liner: For those of you who know my family, you have heard that my sister just got accepted into Brody School of Medicine. Yayyyyyy! However after this past weekend I feel as if I am now qualified for medical school as well. On Tuesdays tons of women come to Laura’s house for milk and nutrients for their babies. I got to be an active part of this and my eyes were opened to the lack of health education in this area. Of the most interesting sites were the two women with breast infections. Once the women develop breast infections they stop feeding because it hurts. However the milk backs up and creates an inflamed breast which is not a pretty site. So Laura tells me, “Cameron, we are going to have to milk these women.” Yeah, definitely not what I expected to be doing when I signed up for this African term!
o Washing Machine Queen: I had to spend last night at my language learning house due to some security concerns. So today I decided to wash my clothes with the field personal here and to use their awesome agitator and ringer contraption. This thing is so much fun! After the clothes are good and agitated, you run the clothes through these two squeegee rolls that push the water out on one side and the clothes on the other. It really is fun and now I don’t have to wash my clothes by hand this weekend! Praise!
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| Ringer Time! |
So that sums up the adventures in my life for the past couple of days. Eventually I will be back in my own house setting up a Christmas tree and listening to my Ella Fitzgerald Christmas songs! Hope you all are enjoying the holiday season!
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| Line Dry Time... |
