They soak the fish for I don't know how long, and then use the broth as the base for the stew. She added dakwad(orange pasty stuff) mixed with what I understood to be oil made from kudra(their green leaves) and ground okra to make the soup.
the almost finished fish soup (Left). I moved back because the smell was quite strong and was able to take this picture of her and her aunt finishing the cooking (Right)
Me, Helima and two young girls went inside the house and shared this. The brown lumps are the asida, the far bowl is the fish soup and the green stuff is the giil which is actually really good. (see pictures below for the eating process :D)
Once we finished
eating, her and I headed out to the field.
A few women overheard us conversing
in Mabaan and I understood enough with the words I heard and their tone of voice to know they were
shocked to hear me speaking their language. As we walked she told me what we
were going to do, what we were seeing along the way, and I attempted to tell
her a few stories myself. She is getting so good at filling in
the blanks. When I need a word(usually an action verb) I stop my sentence and say a short scenerio sentence to try to figure it out. The hard part is these words don't stick because I don't get to write them down but we have a conversation and my tongue is getting practice saying funky sounds. One day I'll remember what all those words I learned today actually were!
We got to the field, dropped that water jarican she has on her head with the older ladies, took a small bucket of water and walked a ways away and found a new shade. Another young girl, Umjima, came and joined us.
The two of them had fun cracking open what tasted like a coconut inside, tho it looked much different on the outside. The water inside was so sweet and then I ate the white stuff she would peel for me.
It really shouldn’t have surprised me but it did when another young girl walked up with food in her hands. I felt like we had just eaten (and I kept going the first time way past the point of being full) and wasn’t quite sure where I was gunna put it. But it was all about the experience of eating out at the field, with the company of these three beautiful women that I just couldn’t say no to. While they chatted I got to take these pictures J
When we finished we went out
and helped the boys plant. This seems so backwards to me! In Kenya only the
women did the preparing, planting and harvesting. To see the women sitting
eating and the men out digging and planting was just so amazing to me! We
helped plant a little and then walked back home to make some coffee!
I’ll blog post again in a
few days with the coffee making process.
There really
are no words to describe the sweet time I had just sitting talking/listening
with these beautiful people over several cups of sugar with coffee (I'm not kidding, can you see the sugar still at the base of the cup... and that's just after she stirred it!). I had so many moments throughout our time together
where I though “I understood nothing of what they just said”. But it didn't take long for my mind to quickly
turn to, “I’m getting to learn this!” to “oh I heard a word I know, there’s
hope!”
I get to be here.
I get to learn this
language.
I get to spend time
with these women.
I am blessed.
Around 5 I told Helima I
should head home because I wanted to shower. She told me wait, she will go
shower and then we will go together. What I thought was her wanting to walk me
home turned into more time together sitting at my house! I walked her back to my gate around
7:30pm. This last hour and a half or so with her was so sweet. I don’t
even know all we talked about but we laughed a lot and it was never quiet. As I walked away from the gate telling her, “I’ll
see you tomorrow in church” tears welled up in my eyes.
I get to be here.
I get to learn this
language.
I get to spend time
with these women.
I am blessed.
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