Chimpanzee

Yesterday morning someone brought a baby chimpanzee by the hospital. We had to all run out to see. The lady holding him is Rachel, our hospital administrator.

Cooking Congo Style

Before we moved into the blue house, it was being used as guest housing. They also had a cook fix lunch for the hospital staff and guests. For the first week we were here, they moved lunch to a different spot. The second week, we moved it back here.

Mama Siska cooks lunch Monday - Saturday. She comes at about 10:00 each morning, and we eat around 12:00. We had a total of 9 people plus our family. One of the people is on a home break right now, another one is leaving tomorrow, and then 3 more the next week. Then we will be down to a smaller group until we have more short term people (starting in January.)
Mama Siska is a very good cook. She works very hard, and it is fun to watch what she does. In the picture above she was showing me a fish that she bought and was going to prepare and freeze.
For the most part, she makes African style food. We have some sort of sauce with either rice, pasta, or couscous the majority of the days. Other times we have fish along with the same (rice, pasta, couscous.) We usually have some sort of fresh vegetables-- smothered in mayonnaise-- sometimes just cabbage, other times tomatoes, avocados, and cucumbers with the cabbage. We have fried plantains (shaped like french fries) at least once a week. Another thing we have about once a week is an orange type of squash (not sure of the name. We always have fresh fruit to round out the meal- papaya, pineapple, and a few times oranges.
For meat in the various sauces we have had beef, antelope, chicken, and turtle. We have had quite a variety of fish, including eel. (I have a picture of the turtle I will try to post eventually. )
The picture below is from one day a few weeks ago. We were trying to ask what kind of fish we were eating, but not really understanding the type. Fortunately, she had the head still in the freezer, so she showed it to us!

We eat our big meal at lunch and just do a simple supper. Even that much has been a bit of a challenge. Things just take longer for one reason or another. We have to sift bugs out of the flour, rice, etc. And, of course, there are no convenience or ready made foods.
The oven is very small and is either on or off-- there is no adjusting the temperature. The bottom picture is my first attempt at bread. The oven stays at 450-500 degrees, so the bread was burning on the bottom. I decided to flip it over, so that it was a little burnt on the bottom and top both. For the second loaf, I propped the oven door opened. It looked better on top, but was burnt worse on the bottom.
After that, I decided to stick to rolls. I just put them at the very top of the oven, and prop the door open a little. I usually make a double batch of rolls 2x's a week, 1/2 plain and 1/2 with sugar and cinnamon. They have turned out well each time.
This post has gotten very long, so I will have to write a separate one another day with more of the foods that are available here.

Advent

This year I made an advent calendar for the kids. It is filled with slips of paper that say things like-- eat skittles after lunch, watch a Christmas movie, have pancakes for supper, or go to the basketball courts.
Each morning they take turns pulling out one of the slips of paper at random. They all look forward to eat every morning, and they have started counting the slips of paper that are left to see how many days there are until Christmas.
We are also reading Jotham's Journey in the evenings. I found it used this summer (for $.25) and we have enjoyed the story that it tells.

Unpacking

We have received all but one of our boxes from the container. That one seems to be MIA, so we may or may not get it.
Once we heard the boxes were on their way, everyone was full of anticipation. The planes come to the airport here on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. For a couple of weeks we would receive at least a couple of boxes on each plane. That allowed us to unpack a little at a time. All the important things made it here safe and sound. The one box that was missing is mostly clothes. Although I will be disappointed if it never comes, it will be easier to replace or do without than other things. (Not that we will be doing without clothes-- we just won't have as much variety.)
The kids were so excited to find their toys again. Every time we had more boxes, it was like Christmas. The also had a few new things that the Lansdowne Alliance Women (Baltimore) sent while we were packing up the container. Some of those new things I saved for Christmas, but they each got a few as we unpacked the boxes. It was a fun treat for them!
Now all of the boxes are unpacked, and I am slowly rearranging things to make them fit the best they can.

Cattle Drive

Last Saturday, I saw some cattle on the road in front of the hospital. The kids and I ran out to watch them go buy. I forgot the camera that time, but later in the evening, they were coming back in the other direction, and we managed to get some shots.

Our Daily Routine- School

Every morning, we are up early- that is Stephen, Caleb, and I. We usually here people outside waking up and moving around once it begins to get light. This is around 5:30-6:00. Ian and Isabelle usually sleep a little later, and I wake them up if they are not up by 7:00. Stephen leaves for work at 7:00, while the rest of us have breakfast and do morning chores.
School starts at 8:00. (That's the goal anyway.) We start with Bible, and then do spelling, math, reading, handwriting, and history before lunch. We don't do everything in the same order every day. There tend to be a lot of interruptions, so we just go with the flow.
We have been doing a unit study on states for history. Now that we have all of our school books (yeah!), we are going to start the sonlight history (american history part 1), science and language arts, as well as continuing the other subjects.
We are doing a 4 day week for school (Mon-Thurs) so that we can have games on Friday morning, and take the afternoon off. We still do some "school" things (like math flashcards), but as long as we make it into a game, it's fun. We also do some puzzles and other games like scrabble jr, uno, Crimestoppers, and matching games.
The pictures are from last Friday. Caleb and Isabelle did pattern blocks while Ian was working on some Tanagram puzzles. I like it when they think I am just letting them play, but I know that they're learning.

More Thanksgiving Pictures

After we ate our Thanksgiving dinner, the kids all headed outside. (It's nice to be in a place where it's warm enough to play outside all of the time.) The Harvey's have a great climbing tree right outside their house. The kids all enjoyed it.
It's hard to believe that almost two weeks have passed since Thanksgiving. We have been very busy. Stephen has been working a lot, and the kids and I have been doing school. I have some pictures to share, and if the internet connection cooperates, I am going to tell all about our daily life over the next week.