Food Notes

Last week Mama Fifi came to me looking rather confused and slightly distressed. She was holding the cocoa canister which I thought was little strange because I had asked her to make granola. She tried to tell me what the problem was but then just said, “Come.” As she pointed at the recipe, she kept saying that there was a very big mistake. I finally figured it out. She had read in the recipe to add 1/2 cup coconut. She had looked in the cupboard and found cocoa. She decided that it must be the same thing. After adding the cocoa and mixing it in, she began to realize that it wasn’t the right color anymore. She knew something was wrong but she wasn’t quite sure what. I looked for the coconut and couldn’t find any in the cupboard either. I tried to reassure her that it really wasn’t a problem. After it was baked, we tasted it and it was actually quite good! Peanut butter – honey – cocoa flavored granola with a hint of cinnamon… do you think we could market it? Fortunately, it wasn’t a whole cup of cocoa! It even turns the milk slightly cocoa colored. I think I convinced her that it wasn’t a big deal. Mark and I had a good laugh and we’ve been enjoying our breakfast cereal!

Mama Fifi also helped us discover something else. In our backyard there is mostly grass but up on a hill there is a low bush growing. I assumed it was just a weed or something ornamental. Every now and then at the end of the day, I would see Mama Fifi picking some of the leaves. I knew she has rabbits and goats and thought that maybe she was taking some of it to them. Last week she told me it is called “Idodo”. (ee doh doh) and that it is edible. She said it is sold in the market. I remember seeing it and asking someone (missionary) what is was and they just said it was green vegetable the Rwandans ate but she didn’t like it. Well, Mama Fifi asked if we would like her to cook some for us some day. We are game for trying new food so we said sure. A few days later, Idodo showed up on our table. It tastes like spinach. I’m sure it’s quite healthy to eat. So we have now added Idodo to our diet! I asked several people (missionary and Rwandans) if it has a French or English name but no one knows. One person did tell me that it is called “Lingalinga” in North Eastern Congo – OH!! I know Lingalinga!! I didn’t know you could eat the leaves. We used to get the seeds of the lingalinga plant at Rethy and “pop” them kind of like popcorn. Then we (silly missionaries) would eat the popped seeds with milk and sugar like a cold cereal (puffed rice or something of that nature). The popped seeds we ate are known as Goi. (some of you reading this have eaten goi) So, now I will watch for the seeds to mature and will try to pop them. Hmmm… I wonder how they would taste in peanut butter – honey – cocoa flavored granola with a hint of cinnamon….

We received an interesting invitation to dinner last week. The older brother of a boy we had in our dorm from 1984-86 is now working for the military branch of the US Embassy here in Kigali. He (Ron) and his wife are here until June of this year. They invited us to join them and others from the embassy at a restaurant in town. It sounds like once a month or so they plan a night out at a restaurant as a social event. There is really not much to do here in Kigali for entertainment – not like Nairobi. No movie theatres, no bowling, no symphony, no playhouse, well, you get the idea. So, we went out to dinner. I sat next to the administrative secretary to the ambassador. The ambassador wasn’t there because he and his wife had left the country the day before for a medical emergency – his wife unwittingly stepped off a curb, fell and broke her shoulder. There was possibly ligament damage as well. Since there are no MRIs here, and because they are the US ambassadors, they flew off to the US for treatment. Anyway, we talked with people who have worked around the world. The state department moves their people every 2 years so they have been around. The lady I sat next to had an interesting life – she had married young, had a baby and was widowed at age 20! Because it was a car accident and she received some compensation and because they had been given a wedding gift of a life insurance policy, she was able to go to college and take care of her son. When she got her degree, she went to work for the FBI! At some point she started working for the state department and eventually she and her son began living around the world. She eventually remarried someone who also worked for the state department. When he retired, he was content to stay in the US but allows her to continue work on temporary assignments. She is in Kigali filling in while someone else is on maternity leave.

Mark talked with a guy doesn’t work for the embassy – in fact, he’s Australian. He is a pilot, got tired of living in Australia, came to Kigali and is running a helicopter tour business. For only $600 an hour you can rent the helicopter (complete with him as the pilot, of course), go to a national park, land and eat lunch, fly around the park looking at animals and then fly back to Kigali. The trip is a minimum of 1 ½ hours. There are 4 seats on the helicopter – one is for the pilot. Sounds like fun but I think I would be so sick after 15 minutes, it wouldn’t be worth it! Or, I’d be so drugged from Dramamine, again, it wouldn’t be worth it. Oh, well, I’ll go look at animals from the car.

The restaurant we went to was called “Comme Chez Moi” which is French for “Like My Home”. They served French and Thai cuisine. We ordered Thai food – I had a ginger pork dish and Mark had a Curry beef dish. It was good but it took, - I’m not exaggerating – 2 hours for the food to come to the table!! Kigali restaurants are not known for speedy service! It was one of the few meals I’ve eaten where everyone except us (or most everyone) had an alcoholic beverage.

It was nice talking with Ron and catching up with what’s been happening in their family. He seems to really like his job and is looking forward to his new assignment which is an entirely new department – he’ll be based in Italy.

It was an interesting evening. Definitely a different crowd than the missionary folk we usually hang around with but they were all congenial and fairly typical Americans (except for the Australian and the Canadian…) - one guy was concerned that his pool wasn’t warm enough to swim in, had ordered a heater from the US, had some wiring done in his house but oops, it somehow was too much current or something and now the heater doesn’t work…

Well, I better post this quickly! There is a LOT of thunder right now which means we might lose our internet shortly. Nice chatting with you!