If You Were Here With Me...

If you were here with me

There are so many things I would show you
For the beauties of this country are many

I would lead you to the market

Where sights and smells would assault you
Grains piled high in their beds of tin
Making a mosaic in the sunlight
A million weaver birds over your head
Chirping their song and spinning their nests
African house music blaring from cars
Lined up around the corner to be fixed

Down the street you would walk by the sellers
With their wares set out for all to see
There you could buy shoes and belts
Jewelry and cast-off clothing
Everything you would ever need
If you don’t mind it used
If you don’t mind it cheap

And everywhere you go there are phone cards
And small bowls of candy
Begging to take your small change out of your pocket
To make the day a little sweeter
But what you might not realize is the sad girl
From whom you buy is really
Destitute and scraping things together
And looking forward to the few cents you give her

If you continue walking down the street very long
You’ll feel pulled along by the rush
For this is the big city and everyone here
Has a purpose and a plan
To be home before it gets dark
And big cities everywhere are the same in that
No one wants to meet your gaze
And everyone shuffles and pushes along together

But should you take the time to sit and rest a moment
Just there on that sloping wall
Where the older ladies sit
You will find yourself before long
With a conversation partner
And a different one each time
For this big city is different from others
In that people really want to talk
And really want to know about you
Even though sometimes they act like other city dwellers

If you were here with me
I can’t even think of all the places I’d want to take you
Up the hill to overlook the houses
To see the division line of town and nothing
To gaze over the border into the neighboring country
And wonder what the future holds for them

I’d take you to my fruit lady
The one who from birth has been smaller than most
But who works harder than most I know
And brings fruit from her own yard
To sell on the street
(And don’t give away the secret
But her mangoes are sweeter than anyone else’s in town)

But most of all
If you were here with me
I’d want you to see the children
With their soulful eyes staring
Knowing no shame in being curious
And in return showing all of their heart

I’d want you to meet my friends
The ones who sing with me and
Who laugh when I try to pronounce their words
Who pray with me and for me
Humble me with their childlike faith
And sincere love for our Lord

If only you were here with me
There are so many things I would show you
For the beauties, and perplexities, of this country are many

It's Monday

The guys arrived one or two at a time throughout the weekend, slowly expanding our house until we more than doubled. The dog, who isn't too keen on strangers, has had a bit of adjustment with strange men walking around the house all day and night, but seems to doing better each day. Just when she gets used to everyone, someone new shows up. :)

In their suitcases, specifically of the two guys that came directly from our home church, were packed precious goodies. Starbucks coffee and other treats were the most savored, but the many notes from friends and family and special little thinking-of-you gifts were the most appreciated. So often I've been the one on the delivering side of such an event - packing the corners of my suitcase with little American things and notes and mail and things they can't get in the country they live. This time I was on the receiving end, and it made me just sit back in thankfulness for my wonderful church family. The entire surface of our large dining room table was covered with things unpacked from their suitcases - things we had to leave behind, mail and paperwork, gifts and notes.

We received news that the container with the rest of our things is to arrive this week in South Africa. That is the good news, but the bad news is that without our residence visa issue resolved, we cannot bring that much stuff into Botswana, so we will have to arrange for storage in SA until everything is worked out. If you've been reading my dad's blog, you have been kept abreast of the visa situation, but don't worry if you don't understand it all. We don't even understand it all. :) We do know that our 90-day tourist visa expires next week, so we will be making another trip to Gabs, where we have been assured we can get a sort of extension until our other paperwork is decided on. Everything, and I mean everything, is up in the air at this point, although we are trusting that the Lord will work it all out. He brought us this far. It's all in the Lord's timing, obviously, because our timing would have been to have this settled seven months ago when we applied. ;o) I was reading in Nehemiah this morning, and I was just struck by the perfect timing of Nehemiah's ministry. The Lord had everything worked out just perfectly, from his job as cupbearer, to his brother's tidings from Jerusalem, to the willingness of the king to send him. Everything was lined up just right for Nehemiah doing the will of God - he just had to be willing, ready, and fervent in prayer.

But now it is even more exciting for us to get the situation resolved and be on a proper visa - just think of all our things, just waiting for us to come pick them up! I scanned through our packing list and my eyes greedily read things like "Pyrex baking dishes" and "metal mixing bowls" - things that we've been holding off on purchasing because we knew they were 'coming in the container', things that we could really use now that there are 10 of us living here.

So please, don't stop praying now. With everything else going on while the guys are here (my dad has a very packed schedule for them), we will be making trips to immigration, and possibly even to help unload the container and move it to storage. But again, everything is up in the air... it's just one day at a time. And for today, I know that we are having beef enchiladas for lunch (assembled last night and already simmering in the crockpot), I need to print some more Bible studies and work on formatting a new tract, and we need to go grocery shopping (again). I think I'll kick things off by a second cup of coffee.

Happy Monday! ;o)

Making Kumquat Marmalade

First off, I'm not a big fan of jellies and jams that you buy in the store. Perhaps I was spoiled as a child to have my mother's fresh strawberry and peach jams all the time. I find the store bought stuff much too sweet and not really tasting like the fruit it is supposed to represent. So I hardly touch the stuff. Homeade, however, has my full attention. There is nothing better than sweet strawberry jam made from berries you helped pick, with no added sweetener and frozen to keep as fresh as possible. It's like opening a jar of summer. (My family loves Mom's strawberry freezer jam, although I'm the only one who likes it with no sugar added. :)

If there is one kind of store bought jam that I will eat, it is marmalade. I think it is because of the slight bitterness in the rinds and the deepness of flavors that I like it so much. I've long wanted to try making orange marmalade, and just lacked the opportunity.

Now, kumquats. Have you ever seen them? They are a small, grape-sized citrus fruit. You eat kumquats whole, peel and all, removing the seeds of course. The inside is sour and the peel is actually sweet. The best ones I've ever had were at my friend's house in Louisiana, where we picked them right off the trees in her yard, still warm from the sun, and ate them on her back porch. Yesterday I found a bag of kumquats for P10 - which is about $1.75. Thrilled I was, until I got them home, and realized they were more sour than any I've ever had before. They were almost too sour... I could only eat two or three at a time before my tongue felt numb.

Which is when the thought of making marmalade out of them occurred to me. A quick search and I found a doable recipe - calling for nothing but kumquats, a couple oranges, sugar, and lemon juice. No added pectin, no strange ingredients, just time. I'll do it, I thought!

But of course I couldn't follow the recipe exactly. First, because I'm me, and I never do. Second, because I'm in Africa and chances are when you want to make something, you will be unable to find a needed ingredient. And when you can't find something at one store, you usually can't find it at any store. It happens - far too often. So it didn't surprise me that I couldn't find any oranges. How about grapefruit, I thought? The recipe called for two oranges, but since I had one large grapefruit languishing in the drawer of my fridge, I decided to use it instead. I love grapefruit - its slight bitterness, its complex flavors.

I cleaned, destemmed and deseeded everything, thinly slicing and then chopping the rinds into small chunks. I put it all in a big pot and added a lot of water and let it sit overnight. The next morning I slowly simmered it until most of the water had evaporated, leaving the rinds very soft. I braved a taste. Ick! It was so bitter! So sour! So... grapefruity!

Pressing on, I added the called-for amount of sugar. At first, I thought about cutting back, since I don't like things too sweet. But since grapefruit isn't as sweet as the oranges that were called for, I put in the full amount of sugar. I tasted again. It was better, but there was still that definite bitter grapefruit taste. Oh dear. I put in a bit more sugar, but it didn't help.

So back to the search engines, where I found posts from other people who have done the same thing. Apparently, oranges, lemons, kumquats, and other various citrus fruits can be chopped up whole and added to marmalade. However, grapefruits are the exception. The peel must be carefully separated, then the juice extracted, throwing everything else away. Evidently, the white pithy part is what makes it bitter. Hhhmm... oops.

The art of substitution! Rather than scrap the whole batch, I decided to keep going and add some more stuff, thinking that if the grapefruit wasn't as prominent in the marmalade, it wouldn't be as bitter. I chopped up the rest of the kumquats I had on hand, simmered them down and added them in. I added three cans of pineapple. I added some fresh-grated vanilla bean (probably the best addition, in my mind). And I added lots more sugar. Once the sugar was doubled, I stopped keeping track of how much I was dumping in.

The final result... is edible. I even think it is good. It does have a strong grapefruit-bitterness to it, but that's not all uncommon in marmalade, and probably why a lot of people don't prefer it. Whether others in my family will eat it remains to be seen. One thing's for sure, we have a lot of it. What was originally supposed to be 4 pints turned into two quart jars and five small jam jars (375 ml each... just shy of a pint, I think, which means I at least doubled my efforts).

All in all, it was a fun adventure. I enjoyed the process of making a set-up jam without any pectin or gelatin - that was a first for me. I also enjoyed the canning process. Though I've helped my mom can in the past, I've never done the process start to finish by myself, and it's been so long since we've done canning that I was glad to have her coaching at each step. The jars all seem to have set up well, so that part at least looks like it was a success!

Turning Gray

I love quiet and I love gray. My room is my retreat where I can go to get quiet, and this weekend my room turned gray.

Gray is the color of understated beauty. Gray days bring a respite from the sun and signal the coming of precipitation. Snowy gray is my favorite, of course, but I love a good gray rainstorm. Blue grays and green grays are all natural colors found around us. Gray can be such a complex color… it changes hues depending on the light and what is near it.

We all love sunshine, but here in this land of heat and blinding days, bright colors and vibrant life, I crave the respite of gray. I look forward to the gray overcast days and the coolness they often bring. Since that doesn’t happen very often, I decided to bring the gray inside.

To say I love my new color would be an understatement. I received a beautiful white duvet set for Christmas, shown in the picture here. I don’t keep it on my bed all the time. With African dirt, tile floors, a black-haired dog, and an air mattress on the floor, it wouldn’t be white for long! I look forward to using it once I have a real bed, which will hopefully be sometime in March (long story – still waiting for our container). Until then, I don’t really need the extra layers for warmth. ;)

We are enjoying the lull before the storm, so to speak, as our house will be packed to the gills by the end of the week. We have six guys coming from various parts of the world to be part in a six week Missions Mentoring Module. Basically, that means they will be living with us, working on some special missions projects, and receiving training – both classroom teaching and practical field work. It’s going to be a lot of fun, but will be a bit exhausting for all of us. We’ve prepared everything that we can, and save for the final house cleaning and grocery shopping, we’re ready for them to get here. The first couple arrive on Friday and the rest will be arriving through the weekend by various means of transportation.

Here’s to a crazy six weeks, where I look forward to having my nice gray room to retreat to when I need the quiet. :)

Food snob?

One thing I've learned this last year is just how intimidating recipes can be until you actually try them. We get used to buying things in nice little packages from our grocery store, and never realize that 100 years ago, those things were all made completely by scratch. It may take more time, but the end result of making all your food by scratch can be so rewarding - you usually end up with something that tastes far better, you know it is better for you, and I find the whole process quite relaxing and therapeutic.

(I'm still all for convenience on occasion, but yes, I fear I'm becoming a food-snob.)

So one of my goals this year is to grow more in this area of making foods by scratch. I've always enjoyed cooking and baking, but this past year, I've pushed the envelope by trying some things that I would have never dreamed of two years ago. Also, I must give an honorable mention to my brother. We all like to experiment and create things, and let's face it - it's more fun to try something when there's two of you to do the work and clean up the mess. Many of these things I wouldn't have tried without his convincing force. :) Here's some things I made this past year that challenged and surprised me:

Beverages. I'll list this first because I don't have pictures of everything that comes to mind in this category. I've made lots of syrups for coffee, Starbucks replicas, spiced cider, lemonade, and most recently (and most surprisingly easy) eggnog. 

Good cookies. Seriously... I used to stink at making cookies. I would mix up the dough and press it into a 9x13 pan to make cookie bars before I would take the time to form and ruin a batch of cookies. This year I forced myself to make batches of different kinds of cookies until I got good at it. Practice makes perfect. ;) (Though I still enjoy the convenience of one-pan cookie bars!)

Key Lime Pie. Considering I had never had a really good piece of key lime pie, I was in for a little challenge. Everything from scratch - I enjoyed the challenge and added a new favorite to my list.

Chocolate Doughnut Holes. No offense DD, but your doughnut holes will never quite be up to par with what we fried up late one night.

Cinnamon Raisin Bagels. Honestly, this was mostly my younger brother's doing. Bagels are amazing when they are fresh... that is all.

Marshmallows. Amazing things - perfect by themselves and divine when half-melted in hot cocoa.

Did you notice a theme? Sugar. Hhmm.... I promise you, not everything I made involved sugar. :) There were other things that we didn't get pictures of - like tzatziki sauce (cucumber sauce), homeade pasta, fresh thyme bread, and one particular meal of spicy slow-cooked ribs that stands out in my memory.

In the spirit of growing in this area, I started the new year by making tahini paste. I never knew it could be so easy! Our blender isn't the greatest, so it wasn't quite as pasty and smooth as I would have liked it to be, but it will do. Bring on the new recipes. :)