With all due respect to the inventors of our languages, I find them lacking every evening when I come home from a day of smells, sounds, sights, and feelings. I've not only neglected this blog all week, but also my personal journal because it's so taxing to put words what Nigeria is putting into my heart every day. Take the above picture, for example. These kids are watching a Christian wrestling show by a team here for 2 weeks from Texas. Some other time I might talk about this "wrassling-gospel" ministry, but what I want you to notice is how entranced these kids are with the (not shown) very large batures in spandex pounding on the wrestling ring. If this was a video, you'd see the kids shrink back from the rope when the "bad guy" came out of the ring and ran toward the crowd. Note also the little girl with the plate on her head, selling the last few bags of groundnuts for the day. She watched entire show without taking the plate off. I wasn't all that mesmerized by the dudes jumping on each other, but my heart was enriched from observing the precious reactions of these kids.Now this guy...
tell me he doesn't give you warm fuzzies all over. Not much needs to be said here, just a cool freakin' bug in Africa. Also, I'm glad I found him outside and not in my shoe or on my toilet seat.
Something else that words just don't do justice to is my cooking. Stop that laughing! Look, cooking in Africa is TOTALLY different, so just because you've eaten my creations in the states has no bearing on your right to chuckle at the idea of my cooking here. **sigh** In all seriousness, even the simple things, like rice, take extra work here. Not to be one to shy away from a challenge, I've busted out the mixing bowl a few times. It's actually a goal of mine to learn some culinary skills over here. With no shame I admit that I've made my first carrot cake, icing, batch of coleslaw, yogurt (now a weekly afare), and a couple stellar variations of banana bread. I've also cook and cut up my first whole chicken, but have yet to kill and pluck one. AND, today I learned to make the classic Nigerian dish, jollof rice, thanks to my friend, Myriam (see picture). Basically, it's minced meat (=ground beef), oil, onions, peppers, carrots, green beans, cabbage, tomato paste, curry, garlic, salt, and peppe. Myriam then got excited about my other spices and decided that they could all go in. I'm pretty pumped about having leftovers for next week. I have had a number of blunders, but I'm willing to wager that Betty Crocker didn't bake the perfect cake her first time. Maybe soon my cooking/baking will leave partakers speechless...in a good way.
And of course, the quintessential sunset that so often beckons us to silence. Selah.
Phrase of the week: Ban sani ba =
"I don't know"
Yep, you know I say this one a lot:)
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