Family Dinner

The other night we had Pastor Anderson Jere and his family over for dinner. This was no small undertaking for us. The Jere's have 9 children living with them including various diminutive relatives and orphans. Before dinner we were told by our language tutor that Zambian families would expect us to have soda for drinking while socializing before dinner. So I scrambled around trying to buy a case of "softies," which is tricky cause you need a case of empties to exchange when buying a case of soda. You need to have a case to buy a case, if you don't have a case already, most places can't sell you one... hmmm. I went to pick them up in Kalikiliki compound and all 12 of us piled into the car. Back at our place Tricia was trying to whip up enough food for an army. She made a beet and bean salad, a huge egg and sausage dish, two loaves of bread, nshima, and a tomato/spinach relish - a mix of Zambian food and American food. We have noticed that Zambian kids can be like American kids -they have their favorites and might not like new foods. Everything turned out great. Of course Tricia had never made such a huge batch of nshima before and the bubbling cauldron of boiling hot maize spat lava-like nuggets of fire onto her hands and she finally called the Jere's oldest daughter into the kitchen to give her a hand. It was a fine evening, all the kids played in the front of our place, kicking soccer balls around and playing games. The older folks sat on the porch sipping cold softies and swattin' at mosquitos. A nice night indeed.