Rice and lentils

Posted by Ali

Rain misted down, settling on my hair and shoulders as I trudged to worship. Once again I thought, "How in the world am I so cold? I'm in Africa..." But as soon as I reached the conference centre all thoughts of the dreary day vanished as a joyful duet of workers belted out "A Mighty Fortress" in Swahili. I quickly took my seat, flipped to the hymn and joined in as well as I could. Max walked in halfway through the song and, since no other employees arrived (including the man scheduled to be in charge of worships this week, interesting that he's on the schedule during his vacation week), Max read a passage and we prayed to start our day.

Max and I worked on the ADRA Canada proposal all day, sometimes together and sometimes in our own offices. The rainy weather made for an interesting office experience since we had power outages off and on throughout the day. Finally, just before quitting time, I sent in five documents with all the changes we'd made and headed to my cottage. On the way I met Davona and the girls and after asking them about their weekend in Kenya and how Staci's first official day of grade 1 went I kept going. Staci and Mariah abandoned their mother to trail after me and we spent some time in my room looking through my scrapbook of pictures of my family and friends. The girls jabbed small dark fingers at each page, thrilled at their newfound skill of identifying me in all the pictures. Halfway through the scrapbook Staci glanced at the window and noticed her daddy approaching. She ran to the door to tell him that she was going to make me supper tonight then paused to turn and ask what I wanted to eat. "Mashed potatoes," I quickly responded, remembering the mashed potato-and-scallops lunch at Southern's cafeteria. Max congratulated her on her willingness to cook meals and then turned to me. "What did you end up sending in?" I ran through the list and reminded him that we still had to insert our project targets and finish the Gantt Chart. "I know it's after-hours, but I feel like we should get a bit more accomplished tonight," he started. "Would you mind coming back to the office for a while longer and working with me to get more done? We could even wait until after you finish supper." I told him that it was fine and I wasn't hungry yet so I'd rather just get back to work right away and not have to go in later this evening. We worked for another hour and felt more accomplished and ready for the work we'd tackle tomorrow, so in the end I was glad we'd gone back to the office.

But, of course, by this time I was starved. I entered the kitchen with a purpose in mind: master the gas stove by attempting to cook rice and lentils. With some instructions from my mum on proper gas stove and legume-cooking techniques, I managed to make a fine looking and quite tasty meal, with leftovers for at least one (if not two) more meals!! I was thrilled. With that success I now feel much more confident to cook on the gas stove.

Apparently I like my food segregated

Later I came back to my room and had an amazing chat with one of my friends from Southern's SJ&C (School of Journalism and Communication) who was a student missionary at an orphanage in Honduras last year. She was really interested in what I was doing and it was great to talk to a fellow classmate and writer who was so encouraging about my work here. It was just what I needed after the grey, power-outage-filled day. I'm so glad God created us as creatures who thrive on fellowship and communication!

Note: I feel like too often I'm just throwing a bunch of names into my posts. I realize that might be quite confusing for all of you who aren't here and haven't met the people I work and interact with on a daily basis. So, to make up for that, I've created a cast of characters for the campus. Now, whenever you read a name you don't recognize, you can click the handy link on the left-hand sidebar (just under Tanzania Links) and figure out who exactly I'm talking about.