Congolese Cuisine: Salted Fish

Dried salted fish is a common way people preserve fish and it can be stored like this for a long time. Most people don't have a fridge as an option to this is a good way to keep it from spoiling.

To prepare this salted fish for a meal, cut off a few pieces from the fish and rehydrate in plain water, rinse and then either fry or boil to soften it up.

Sun-made yogurt

Pics from my Bday

Quote of the week

“Molly used to have a really cute face when she was a baby, like a tomato, but.... it’s really changed.”

Current Activities and Hope for Future Developments

We’ve had a growing number of children showing up on Saturdays and since we can’t keep up with the numbers, I have decided we will have an additional day for the children’s activities. The children between ages 3 and 7 (or 8) now come on Fridays and the children 9 and up come on Saturdays. I do let a few 2-year-olds come because they are Molly’s friends and she likes having people her own size. Unfortunately this results in more broken crayons. (Note to self: in the future, always buy twistable crayons; notice the difference).

I don’t allow children under 2 because it is just way too complicated and chaotic and it involves lots of crying and snatching things and pee on the floor. Anyone who shows up with a baby is sent away to deposit the baby elsewhere and then they are free to come back.

The age cut-off is a rough estimate because I don’t have an exact age for each child, I just keep a list of the names of all the kids who have Friday as their day, and another list of those who are supposed to come on Saturday. One reason for this new system is because some of the games we have just work better for older kids and it goes more smoothly when the groups are broken up a little more by age. Also, there are just too many children to have at one time.

I had been doing groups of 10 (or less) at a time and giving each group about an hour in the house, but I was up to 3 or 4 groups which made Saturdays long and more exhausting than fun, plus I was trying to have the kids out of the house during nap times. It’s been good practice in managing chaos. I also started to turn away sick children. This was extremely difficult, especially the first time. Eileen has been sick so frequently (about once every two weeks since we’ve arrived) that I decided I really needed to lay down the law and keep out children who were coughing or visibly running at the nose. The first two or three kids I turned away looked so forlorn and pathetic and disappointed. It was really quite sad. But I told them as soon as their symptoms resolved, they could come back, even if it was before their designated day.

So now we’ve grouped everyone into two days, with one group coming on Friday, and 2 groups coming on Saturday. I’m expecting my Friday group to increase to two groups soon. This system is working so far, although it’s fairly new.

My next plan for improvement is to start a Bible story lesson during the coloring time for the older kids. I’m not really sure where to begin with this, especially because I no longer have a Lingala Bible, which I found very useful in doing Bible lessons with my teenage girls group in Impfondo.

I started last Friday with the little kids, talking through some of the pictures in a Molly’s little kids Bible story book. It worked out well that the group that came were only Congolese children, none of the Muslim kids. I don’t feel like I can do Bible teaching with the Muslim kids there without talking to their parents first. But for the Congolese kids it’s no problem.

The kids comments and questions revealed their complete confusion relating to all things God, Jesus and church. These children occasionally attend church with their parents, but I’m not sure of the soundness of the church or the sources of where the kids got some of their ideas. I tried to just simplify things as much as possible. It made it easier having only 6 kids this time. At one point I asked each child to tell me one thing they had done wrong. At first they all said they’d never done anything wrong. Then I named a few examples like lying, hitting, etc. We went around the circle and everyone named something bad they had done, including myself. After that, I explained about how God hates these things and a solution was needed if God wanted to have people with Him again. So then we talked about Jesus and His death and resurrection. I’m not sure how much the kids took away from this first lesson but they seemed pretty interested (which actually surprised me) and I think we’ll try again next Friday.

Now that I have a good system going, the children like coming, they have fun and play games and trust me enough, it’s the perfect time to start this. I want the kids to go away with more than just a torn out page from a Dollar General coloring book.

Papaya trees and fruit

Here’s some pictures of the papaya trees we planted several years ago. The trees with tons of little flowers are the “male trees” and the trees with fruit are the “female trees.”

To harvest the papaya you typically have to use a very long stick and prod and poke at the fruit until it falls. This causes a little damage to it but if you “pick it” while it’s still slightly unripe it doesn’t bruise much.

Once the fruit is overripe it smashes when it hits the ground, so it’s important to get it at just the right time.

We harvested some papaya the other day. You have to wash it carefully because the juice from the stems causes itching kind of like poison ivy.

Molly really enjoys papaya and asks for it frequently. This is the only fruit we can get for free so it’s nice that she likes it so much.

I usually take the seeds out and put them in water. According to the Congolese, the seeds that float are the female fruit-bearing tree seeds. Since we already have a lot of non-fruit bearing papaya trees I usually just plant the seeds that float. That’s only about 10% or less of the seeds within one fruit.

I would love to have a pineapple, avocado and banana garden someday but we don’t have the space or the good soil so it’s a dream for the future. It’s also kind of a long term investment because avocados and pineapple take three years minimum.

Water Anxiety

When we were teenagers we used to joke about having “food anxiety.” I think one of my cousins came up with this term. Do not be misled to think we were in any danger of starving or even having what people call “food insecurity.” Although there never was a real food shortage problem in any of our families, being in households with lots of children often meant that food would disappear quicker than one might like. Special things had to be hidden for preservation and bread wars were not infrequent. You had to write “DO NOT EAT” on items that you wanted to last until sunrise of the next day.

In my own home today, we rarely experience food anxiety thanks to the Lord’s provision, Orcxance’s hard work and the fact that we only have two children. However, I do frequently encounter what I will (for old time’s sake) call “water anxiety.”

Unlike many third-world countries struggling with droughts and famines; we actually have an abundance of water here. But, there’s always that day, once a week or so, that all the water pumps just seem to stop working. Ours is often the last to go, which is a good thing but it means that the neighbors flock to our yard to collect water. For some reason, this causes me to “panic” and feel like I need to horde water and collect as much as possible as quickly as possible. It may be a sign that I am becoming Congolese. Not that Congolese people horde things, but there is a general attitude, especially among children, if there’s something to be had, have it! You could offer a kid something without them having the slightest idea what you are offering them, and they will take it just because they can.

So when we have a water shortage and the neighbors and buckets start piling up in our yard, I have to fight off the temptation to run outside, push everyone’s buckets out of the way, and frantically fill every bowl and bucket we own with water.

I think to myself, ‘I’m going to need water today: I need water for dishes and baths and our sink and washing clothes and cooking! I better get to it before it runs out!’ It’s kind of like grabbing for bread at the dinner table or eating faster than necessary just so you can have seconds even if you aren’t especially hungry for a second helping.

Thankfully I have a husband who helps me curb my irrational desire to horde water. He takes the slow and steady approach, and somehow there’s almost always enough for us after the neighbors have their fill.