Ngayi ngayi

This is what I call “bitter herbs” but in Lingala they call it “ngayi ngayi.” You cut what you want from a mature plant and then strip the leaves off the stem, wash and cook. Once you’ve cooked it down so all the leaves are soggy and wilted, you rinse it again thoroughly to remove the excessive bitter taste. After that you add it to whatever meat dish you are cooking. It’s actually really good! Today I made one of Orcxance’s favorite meals which is the bitter herbs with chicken. Bone-in chicken that I have to chop up (yes, I have to cut through the bones with my dull kitchen knife). I take all the chicken outside to my metal topped dish washing table and whack at it till I crack the bones and then cut it up into small pieces. This is the way my sister-in-law taught me to make this meal so I do it just the same way. Back to the ngayi ngayi; I planted some!

After stripping the leaves off the stems, you can just stick the stems directly into the dirt and they keep growing and produce more leaves. That's a picture of what I planted in our yard after harvesting the leaves from what we bought.

I’ll try to remember to post a picture once the plants have sprouted leaves again. It’s pretty cool that all you have to do is stick it in the ground and it sprouts roots.