December 17th and 18th

I don’t think I did enough (or don’t remember enough) make this
two separate blog entries. I know that I spent a lot of time with
Solomon, which is always entertaining. Yesterday I spent a lot of
the morning at the house doing a variety of things, reading,
cleaning, etc… time goes by so fast when you are busy. Then I
spent the afternoon hanging out with Solomon and Samuel in
Samuel’s office. Then I went with Solomon and watched him do his
laundry. Not the most thrilling experience ever but it was
interesting to see how they do their laundry, and makes me so
thankful for our washing machine at home (and the lady who does
our laundry here). After that I went with them to Katherie church
for a planning meeting for the church service tomorrow. I’m glad I
went, I got to see them coming up with a song to sing for the
service tomorrow. The church is having a special African Sunday
tomorrow and it should be interesting I hope. Then Solomon and I
went down town to try and find him some soup (African type). His
cousin Fatu usually cooks for him but because she is gone right
now for a wedding some young girls at her house made the soup,
Solomon told me it would be better to just put butter on the rice
and eat it than to use the soup that they made. Anyway, they
didn’t have any so he just bought a can of sardines. I had him and
Samuel come up to the house so I didn’t have to sit and eat dinner
alone, but they didn’t stay long since Samuel had to pack to leave
in the morning to go to a village and Solomon was dead set on
getting a bunch of sleep since he had Saturday off. Today
(Saturday) I didn’t do much different than yesterday, some
reading, cleaning and other stuff. Tom and Karen were coming
back tonight so I wanted to prepare food for them and I decided to
follow Karen’s meal plan, dinner and a dessert. I tried to make a
cake from scratch (I wanted to prove I could cook since Karen
doesn’t believe I can) which was an adventure. I went through
over 40 eggs because they were all bad. Karen had 15 here, bad, I
went and bought 12 at pa Kanu’s, bad, I had Solomon help me find
somewhere to buy eggs, bought 12 more, bad. I finally borrowed
some from the Mahr’s. They were ok but I ended up with a fail for
a cake. I couldn’t figure out what went wrong. The cake had
frothed up and went all over the place. Solomon came by and I
was showing him the recipe I used and I discovered I had
accidently used baking soda instead of baking powder. That
figured out Solomon found me some more eggs and we redid the
cake. However I managed to tell him to put in three tablespoons
of baking powder instead of three teaspoons… That ally didn’t
seem to affect too much, the cake took an hour and 20 minutes
to make rather than 45 but it actually turned out ok. It’s not
great by any means, but hey, I baked cake in Africa, not many
people can say that. Dinner went better. I made chicken chili and
it was really good. After having spent over two and a half hours to
make a cake (not including the baking time on the second cake)
I’m really glad I decided to make a simple meal, I literally put it
all together in 15 min and just had to let it heat. Anyway, Tom and
Karen came back with all the stuff for the plumbing overhaul, this
could be fun. Night all!

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks