COOKING & MISCELLANEOUS

October 16, 2012  

Adama

Last night I had a cooking lesson from Adama, the manager of the guest house/apartment complex.  We cooked Fou Fou, Okra Stew (she called it soup), and Rice.

Fou Fou

Fou Fou is Casava that is cleaned, pounded, water added and fermented. It is used as the starch for the meal.  Poi is the equivalent in America.  Except Fou Fou is pleasant to eat plain.  It has a vinigary taste caused by the fermentation process.

Bowl Full of Thinly Sliced Okra

To eat it you put the Fou Fou or rice in a bowl and add some stew on the side.  Take a bite of Fou Fou and then a bite of stew.  It tastes fabulous.

The Okra here in Africa is so much better than America.  It is smaller and is always fresh.  It is cooked only slightly which minimizes the sliminess that is  characteristic of okra. The stew contains, smoked fish, small bits of beef, onions, palm oil (it’s RED!!!), spice cube (looks like bouillion cube), hot peppers, and okra.

Smoked Fish & Hot Peppers

Meat, hot pepper, onion, palm oil

All ingredients together 

At home I have been contemplating how to get around using plastic wrap or aluminum foil.  Easy.  Put another plate on top and pop it in the frig.

A Bowl Topped with a Plate topped With A Plate!
Environmentally friendly "plastic wrap"!

As I walked home from the office yesterday I came upon a road repair crew.  The repair zones were marked out in chalk. No jack hammers here.  Men with pick axes were digging up the part of the road areas to be fixed.  Another man handled a wheel barrow while a second one filled it with asphalt bits from a pile on the street and a third man shoveled it into the holes.

The only heavy equipment was a small roller machine to roll the fixed areas flat.  I have no idea where the big pile of asphalt in the street came from.

Sundays are very lively by my apartment.  On my street are at least three schools and as many or more churches or church groups using the schools as a meeting center.  On the surrounding streets there are more of the same.

The music from the Elohim Church starts at about 7:30AM and comes from two blocks down and two blocks over. The music is reminiscent of reggae, but what mostly carries is the beat of the bass. We are on a hill.  Sound travels well from down below.

What makes it such a cacophony is that each building has a loud speaker system outside!!!  All the music, all the preaching (think passionate evangelical) and sound is broadcast outside. The various services last from 1 1/2 to 2 hours and some churches have more than one service.  This means constant noise from 7:30 AM to about 2:00 PM!!!!!

Maybe next Sunday I’ll take a trip to the beach

 :-).

Last year the road we travelled was so congested with people walking and cars driving it took a police escort to get us through.  I remarked that I haven't seen congestion like that this year and was told it is only in the eastern part of Freetown.  Evidently that is the section to travel through when coming from the port.  Many people from Up Country never returned to the villages after the war choosing to stay in Freetown.  For some mysterious reason they chose to settle in the eastern section.

Before I left the US, I constantly checked the weather forecast for Freetown.  According to AccuWeather (I usually find they are very accurate) it was raining everyday.  AccuWeather still is reporting rain everyday, but that is not the case.  

I stopped carrying my umbrella last week.  It spitted rain on me on one afternoon.  There have been some torrential (think buckets) downpours but always at night and for short periods.

The sun comes out everyday for some period of time and there has been a breeze most days for some or the whole day.  Here I was psyching myself up for at least a month of constant rain and it is not that way at all, 

thankfully!

Changing Evening Sky:

Much Love To You All,

Mom/Grandma/Sara