Djama djama Activity

Yet another Relief Society activity involving learning the ways of Cameroonian cooking! Wahoo! This week, we learned how to make djama djama (also knows as 'hokieberry') with corn fou fou and chicken (I couldn't tell you what they call the chicken...I will have to ask yet again, because it's a strange word for me).

First, you charcoal cook the chicken...then you cut it up and wash it (weird, I know!).

Then, you take all the 'hokieberry' leaves off the hard stems. (By the way, 'hokieberry' is pronounced sort of like 'Huckle berry'. As a matter of fact, that's what I thought they were talking about for about the first year we were here!)





You wash and cook the leaves.

Then you make the corn fou fou:







Boil the water, pour in the fou fou, and stir the heck out of it! :) Then you pack it into little plastic baggies to eat...

This stuff is definitely yummy! The djama djama leaves, once cooked, taste quite a bit like spinach. I think I may have to try to make this using spinach sometime and see how it turns out! My kids still won't eat it, but Devin and I eat it by the mound!! :) Bon appetite!




VOILA!!




We only have one more of these super fun cooking activities left before I leave. Unfortunately for me, it's an American food one (I'm teaching them all how to make homemade noodles for chicken noodle soup, and my rolls...) I hope I have all these recipes locked away somewhere!! I've come to really enjoy a lot of the African food! Luckily, I've gotten to choose which ones I really like....... :)

Silly I Spy

The missionaries passed their time rather productively at our house one evening:





They're looking through a Disney Princess edition of I Spy. Nice, guys.

Caught!!!

A lady who works in Devin's office ordered battery operated mouse traps. We've been having struggles with mice AGAIN, so we asked if we could borrow one since the sticky mouse traps just weren't working any more.

It worked!!




Thanks, Ursula!! :)

Bittersweet

Our house is empty. Well, not really, but close enough. A new family moved to the area, and we ended up being their sponsors. Since they have small children and needed some household help quite quickly, I offered mine. So, Pascaline and Meekness are working for someone else now! It's strange not to have them here all day. I feel sad and a bit sick. It is seriously like giving away my sisters! We still see them, but it's not the same, as they come with other children now.

Here are some funny pictures of some of our last days together:

Pascaline fell asleep on the floor, and Claire tried to make her more comfortable by putting a blanket on her and putting sunglasses on her face (to make it darker, perhaps?)--and she slept through the whole thing! Ha!!!



Andrew's favorite pastime: Reading books with Meekness! He misses her SO much! He sometimes wakes up and before even getting out of bed he yells "MEEKNESS!! COME READ ME STORIES!!!" Poor kid.



That's always the hard part about moving. Changes are difficult for everyone. Leaving people you love and care about are painful. Although, I think I would take the pain of leaving people I loved than the pain of leaving a place without having loved anyone. We are made better by those we come in contact with. Hopefully we leave them better than we found them, too!

We love you Pascaline and Meekness!

Claire's First Sleepover

Claire has made a friend. Over the past 2 weeks (since they got here to Cameroon) Kayla has pretty much become a second daughter! She slept over at our house and the girls were beyond thrilled! Claire kept asking me, "Mom, is it time to go to sleep yet?" She thought the idea of a sleepover was to go to sleep. I wasn't going to change that line of thinking! :)




They share clothes, play the same games, eat the same foods, are both ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS hungry, and even sound alike! These two are seriously inseparable! We are happy to have you here, Kayla!

A BIG play date!

Josh has been out of school all week (it's 'Fall Break' here....although why they have it is completely beyond me. I'd rather they tacked it on to the Christmas break and made it longer...) So I decided to invite his class over for a playdate. We ended up having 16 kids here...only 6 of which were Josh's classmates! :)

They played outside:






Then we made a craft:



Then ate some yummy food (fresh out of the oven homemade bread and cinnamon rolls, watermelon, and carrot sticks!):




It appeared that everyone had a nice time!

Experiment

I had a completely euphoric day yesterday. I had NO household help. It was wonderful! (Never thought I'd say that!) I knew exactly where everything was. The kids were HUGE helpers and we all had a ball going from room to room doing the little bit of cleanup that was necessary. I was able to keep my house looking nice all day long-- AND I took the kids to TWO play dates-- AND I made breakfast, lunch and dinner-- AND I gave the kids (plus another one who tagged along) all baths-- AND Peter got all of his naps... It was seriously FUN!! I didn't get to the sweeping or mopping... but I am having someone come help me do that. Four thousand square feet of tile floor is seriously beyond my capabilities. However, the kids and I DID clean 5 of our 6 bathrooms yesterday in less than 15 minutes! We had a ball! I have definitely learned a lot about cleaning and time management during our stay here! I will always be grateful for that knowledge.