Sugar, Sugar

I am showing you this picture because:

A) Kenya is out of sugar.

B) This is all the sugar I have left in my house.

C) I am a confirmed sugar lover and baker and eater. Coffee is just an excuse.

D) All of the above.

Bonus points awarded to anyone who can appropriate a 2 kilo bag of sugar.

Picture of the Day

From where does pork come?

It's grown in a garden, of course!  Bouquet of bacon, anyone?

A Special Celebration

All the families stayed in the dining hall after supper for a special celebration tonight.

Today was one of our minimissionary's 70th birthday!

All the kids came up to look at the cakes.

The birthday girl just beamed and smiled and took it all in.

The little ones craned their necks to see what all the fuss was about.

Then we passed cake and ice cream to every child, momma and minimissionary.

The kids savoured their special treat.

Every bite was appreciated,

all the way to the youngest!

Happy 70th!

World Record

Happy Easter!  I hope yours was wonderful.  Ours was very nice.

This Easter was the first time I cooked a traditional Easter meal, well for Southerners, anyway.  We baked a ham and rolled out some biscuits. Friends brought deviled eggs, broccoli casserole and fruit salad.  I originally wanted to also have twice-baked potatoes, but with the lack of rain in Kenya, the price of potatoes has greatly increased while the size of potatoes has dwindled.  Regular potatoes, that is.  I dug through the sad pebble-sized potatoes, looked in the neighbouring bin at the green grocers and instantly changed in favor of mashed sweet potatoes.  My deciding factor?  The biggest sweet potato known to man.

This sweet potato was so large, it fed the seven of us at Easter lunch with a tupperware full of leftovers.  And people really did eat them and went back for seconds.  It took almost as long to bake as the ham, over two hours in the oven, before we could mash it. That was one big, tasty potato.  Yum!

Going Bananas

We have a row of very mature banana trees behind our house.  It has been very eye-opening the last few months to watch bananas do their thing.  It's quite different than what I imagined standing in the grocery store picking through the small bunches of greenish bananas on display while growing up in the States.

The bananas start with this huge red flower thing.  As the stem grows downward, the bananas "bloom" above it where the petals have peeled off.  These are baby bananas.

Eventually, the stem is very long, several feet, lots of the red petals have fallen off, and the bananas have matured.  Someone comes along and chops off the whole bunch.  Many people in Kenya grow bananas in their shamba (garden) which they harvest and sell.  It's not unusual to see a bus's roof rack stacked with banana bunches.  Our bananas are grown to serve with meals in the dining hall.  Every lunch and dinner, the kids get a piece of fresh fruit with their meal.  The sad thing is, raw bananas make me sick, and these are the sweetest, most delicious bananas ever!



Lunch

I think I've mentioned before that every Tuesday I have lunch duty during the Class 1-3 lunch shift.  I always walk away smiling.  Here's how it goes:

Soap is dispensed and hands are washed.  I mean really.  How many little boys do you know that consistently wash their hands before they eat (or any time) without having to be reminded?

Next comes the best part: FOOD!  The kitchen staff serve the plates and then one of us puts a piece of fruit on it and hands it to the child.  Big smiles from Clinton on getting his plate of ugali and sukumawiki!

Once the food is in hand, the student grabs a mug with a fork and a serviette (napkin).

The teachers on duty help the students fill up the tables and know where to sit.  This is Mr. Onditi, Class 2 teacher extraordinaire.

The minimissionaries and other visitors usually eat lunch with the kids.  They pick a different table to sit at every day.  The students are so sweet about wanting guests to sit with them.  They will do just about anything to secure you at their table!

Once the table of students has said grace together, the kids dig in.

This is Christine, hamming for my camera.  One day, I will do a video post of her so you can meet her.  She's the student who named my elephant key chain "Susan Wanjiru."

Students are encouraged to drink water with their meal, even though this isn't always a cultural thing.  When you have PE in the afternoon in 90 degree weather, drinking water becomes important.

For our resident kids, eating in the dining hall is a way of life.  For our community kids (above), having toast and tea in the morning and lunch everyday might really be the only true nutritious meals they get.  I am so glad that these meals are provided free of charge to all of our students.  I'm also glad I get to share it with them every Tuesday!

Why Reading Is Bad For You

One thing about living overseas in a quiet, out-of-the-way village about 45 minutes from Town on the equator is that the sun always rises at 6:30ish and sets at 6:30ish.  You might have a few minutes on either side depending on the time of year, but really, by 7:00 every night, it's completely dark.  The overseas, out-of-the-way part comes in because driving at night is overrated and somewhat nerveracking.  So what's a missionary to do when the school day is done, the papers are graded, the lesson plans completed and the last piano lesson taught, and it's REALLY dark outside?  Among other things (like blogging), you read.

Let me refer back to the title of the post: Why Reading Is Bad For You.  I'll give you a helpful hint with the picture below:

So the deal is, Richard grew up as a missionary kid in Zambia, and his family experienced the same thing.  His mom chose to read Louis L'Amour books, and she passed the love of the Wild West down to Richard. I have been sucked in to the L'Amour vortex as of late. 

In the latest cowboy epic, one of the characters made "Bearsigns" throughout the book (until he was murdered!) and our curiosity was piqued.  How does one make cowboy donughts?  Never fear.

We found out. Then we coated them with cinnamon-sugar, melted chocolate and powdered sugar.  Delicious. 



Power of Suggestion

I have lunch duty every Tuesday with classes 1-3.  After making sure everyone is taken care of, the other lunch duty teacher and I pick different tables at which to sit.  It's always a really big deal for the kids if you choose to sit with them, and they treat you like royalty.

Anyway, this Tuesday I sat at a table with four Class 2 boys.  They all tried their best to hold their forks correctly and be little gentlemen.  Towards the end, one boy confessed, "Mrs. Brueck, I'm full."  He still had half a plate of food, so I replied, "I bet your stomach is full, but do you think your leg has any room in it?  Why don't you eat a bite and see."  Lunch was almost over, so I walked around directing traffic.

A few minutes later I came back to see if he had finished.  His plate was clean. "Your leg must have had lots of room in it!" I remarked.

"Yes," he replied very seriously, "lots."



Yum

Welcome to Kenyan Culture 101.  For class today, we have samosas.  These triangular, fried pockets of bliss originated in India, but came to Kenya with the construction of the railroad.  Our samples have beef, onions and spices wrapped in a handmade dough.  They are a labour of love as they take a while to make from scratch, but just a few minutes to devour.  Enjoy!

Hot Breakfast

Imagine having 97 kids and their moms over for breakfast on a Saturday morning.  What do you cook?

Our kids usually eat things like bread and jelly, mandazies or boiled, cold sweet potatoes.  Apparently the sweet potato thing for breakfast is normal.  Anyway, the higher-ups have been wanting to spice things up on the weekends and have introduced hot breakfast items like egg casserole and baked oatmeal.  I submitted my faithful pancake recipe and the kitchen staff have put them in the rotation.

Next question: Who in their right mind doles out enough pancake batter by hand to feed 97 kids and their moms?

Answer: No one.  Enter the dispenser.

It releases batter at the touch of a spring loaded button and dries up instantly when released.  This way you can actually fill up the griddle before you need to start flipping.  Just so:

Aaaahhh....the conveniences of modern life.  I think I want a Kate-sized one.



How I Grade Papers Most Effectively

Many people have asked what we do for fun over here.  And then they ask, do you have much time for fun?  I think they feel a little guilty asking about hobbies and the like knowing we are here to work.  Of course, if they've seen anything on the Tea Farm, the guilt goes out the window.  I would like to explain how I mix fun and work together to have time for both.

First off, you cannot teach 11-13 year olds Reading and Writing and retain whatever sanity you have if you don't make it fun for yourself and for your kiddos. For instance, we read King of the Wind as a class this past term.  It's a great book about the Goldophin Arabian and his rough start.  In the novel, a kind English woman bakes scones and other goodies for the main character, a kid from Morocco.  I happened to have scones at home and shared with the class.  They really liked the sweet, except most of the class called them "stones." You win some, you lose some.

That brings me to how I most effectively grade papers.  Like last weekend.  I graded and recorded nine sets of grades for my 18 students in class 6, including an essay on their favourite colour.  Yes, I do procrastinate sometimes. Why do you ask?  To break up the tedium and to have a reward at the end, I made cinnamon rolls from scratch.  Baking has become my hobby, especially yeasty, yummy-goodness.

Baking gives me a deadline.  You start the rolls or bread or whatever and you have a solid hour to do something productive like grade papers or come up with a study guide for the next novel.  Right about the time you're getting stir-crazy, it's time to shape your treat for a few minutes.  Then you have another hour while it rises a second time to finish your task.  A little bit in the oven and voila! You have a reward for all of your hard work over the last two hours.  And there's more for breakfast.  And your husband is happy.  Life is good.

Ugali

No, I'm not calling you names.  Ugali (oo-GAH-lee) is the traditional dish of Western Kenya, and I've been told by someone from Western Kenya that if you don't eat Ugali at least every few days, you shrivel up from want. Many people hate Ugali.  We love it.

We asked Jane, who helps at our house, to make us this staple meal.  Even by Kenyan standards she makes great Ugali.

The side dishes and sauces that go with Ugali are what make it good.  A main one is skumawiki - cooked Kale and spinach.

Many people in the upcountry can't afford side dishes and so they eat Ugali plain.  This would be equivalent to eating grits or polenta without seasoning or sauce or anything for three meals a day, seven days a week.  Ugghhh!

But all together, combined with the fun of eating with your hands, Ugali is a yummy meal.

Roasted Goat

We had some things to celebrate this past Friday:

• We were at the end of a three-week break from school. 
• It was the last night in Kenya for a sweet couple who fixed our Internet issues among other things. 
• One of our missionary couples is moving to Rwanda next week to carry on work there. 
• We received our 91st child the next day. 

So of course, the only proper thing to do was buy one and a half goats, roasted, and the other stuff that goes so nicely with roasted goat, the most important being chapattis.

Yum!!!

Roasted goat.

Irio - the local dish of mashed potatoes, peas and maize.

Beef stew.

Chapattis.  Extra yum.  They are like chewy tortillas.

Geoffrey, seen above munching on goat bone, said that one had to "clean the meat on the bone when eating it."  He meant "don't waste the bone meat because it's the best" but it came across as "you had better sanitize the meat before you eat it."  I've never seen so many people look so sick all at once and put their goat bones down so quickly.  Actually, come to think of it, I don't think I'd ever before seen anyone with goat bones.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is a world-wide phenomenon.  Everything here has Coca-Cola's logo and many things are red and white, including a stadium downtown Nairobi that the soft drink company payed to renovate with the understanding that it would be named the Coca-Cola Stadium.  Unfortunately, it was originally named after some famous Kenyan, and which stadium official wants to dis somebody famous?  So now there is a legal battle. 

Anywho, Richard loves Coca-cola and so we have usually have some around.  There is one main way everyone buys coke. 

1. Find a local coke stand.

2. Purchase a crate of bottles.  This is your down payment.

3.  Pay for the liquid in the bottles.  Know that Coke Light costs more than Coke Regular.

4.  Enjoy!

5.  When empty, bring back the crate of empty bottles and switch them out for full ones.  You only pay for the liquid inside since you already paid for the crate and bottles up front.

So now we know why, when we purchased a Coke from a local convenience stand and started to walk away, we were flagged down and harangued into returning the empty bottle by a pleading merchant.  Who wants to pay twice for a bottle?

Also worth noting are the Coke brands that you can't get in the US, namely Crest.  Yum!!!