Mama and Harieth

Mama Mmanga

On Monday I spent the day in Mama Mmanga's kitchen. 

It was such a fun day.  Mama doesn't speak any more English than I do Swahili.  So sweet 10 year old Harieth stood by us all day long translating cooking instructions and conversation between teacher and student.  Pastor bopped in and out telling us how easy this all was, then he tried to roll out a skin for a samosa and his completely fell apart so he left again.

Everything was from scratch.  We took fresh coconuts, chopped them in half and ground out the white stuff.  We took a big hunk of beef, cut it up into smaller chunks and then ran it through a meet grinder.  We peeled garlic, chopped onions, and sliced green peppers.  We mixed flour and water with our bare hands and used an old Heineken bottle for a rolling pin.

We made samosas, chipati, and coconut beans and rice.  Tonight and dinner I declared this to be the best meal of my trip and I really really mean that.  Seriously, I really hope I can recreate the coconut beans and rice when I return home or else its going to be a very long wait until I can come back here again.


Harieth

This is 10 Year old Harieth.  She is really an amazing kid.  She goes to an English medium school and her English is impeccable.  She told me today that her favorite subject is English.

Here are three of my favorite parts of the day with Harieth.  While we were peeling garlic, she kept sneaking cloves and sucking on them.  All day she had a clove under her tongue and she would say to me "this garlic is so nice."

We were sitting together at the table reading a book when the rooster wandered into the living room.  When she saw it, she got down on the tile floor on her hands and knees and crept over to the couch and then jumped up on it to scare the bird.  It worked.  The bird lost its footing, stumbled about three times and the high tailed it out the door.  I really wish I had caught that on video!

Finally, she really wanted to use my computer all day.  So I set her up with Microsoft Word and let her go.  She wrote me the following story. 

Once there was an old woman. And there was a girl known as Ruth with her brother called Michal. So one day they went to the forest to take the fruit. Then Ruth saw the snake. then Ruth start to say Ma…Mai….Michal. He looked down and said then let us go in. Michal said what are you say? And if you see a snake agen who is going to help you agen? But Ruth didn’t care what Michal was talking. Then she went in the house .Oh she saw an old woman.The old woman uasked what is your name young girl? Then Ruth said my name is…..is…is Ruth.Then Michal was asked the same question but he was so afraid and he said that his name was Michal. Then the old woman gave them a ring.Then she said any thing you want ask the ring.The old woman disappeared.And Ruth and her brother were happy.FINISH.

By HARIETH ROBSON MMANGA.

She even changed the font color herself to red.  I love this girl.

I loved this day.