Gardening in Soil and Soul- Mali style

July 2 2011 The rains have continued to come, often with fierce sweeping winds, but they have also come gently a few times. Today we got a gentle rain, and not a great amount. Two nights ago we had deluge! It rained long and hard for several hours and in the morning there were 5 inches in the bucket that I had left sitting on the porch. That is a LOT of RAIN!!--and no one seemed to think it at all remarkable. Does that tell you anything about what we are in for in the coming months??!?!? --they do call it the rainy season. Gardeners are at work all around us. I can look to the west in the early morning and see a neighbor tending a large garden plot on that side, or lean over the wall at the other side of our base and see the soil outside our wall being tilled and planted. Up the hill we are beginning to see neat rows emerging from the ground as the maize comes up in those gardens. Seven year old Bakary had shown me several days ago where the “kaba”(ears of maize) was hanging in the protection of our truck shelter's roof peak. (We think that he is about seven-- they often do not know their age or birth date, so Claudia has assigned a birthday based on when they came into the family here.) It was still a surprise to see him out with Daouda planting a little patch of maize. They had carefully weeded and tilled the soil by hand, then planted their little handful of seed and placed a protective ring of stones and concrete pieces around it. Joseph, one of our “not-yet-a-man-18-year-olds”(that's another story, lol), had planted a stretch of maize about 2 weeks ago, and I wondered about it, but didn't give it too much thought. He had not removed any of the stones or trash that littered the ground, merely planting seed between them But here are 7 and 9 year old street boys who know how to save and plant life-giving seed, and they go DO it, all on their own initiative!. I was awed again by this demonstration of the sharp reality for these children. Theirs has been a subsistence existence. I am even more anxious to be blessing them and to be able to share with them what I have learned about gardening and growing things over the years, as well as the soul lessons gleaned from that gardening knowledge. Doris Foust, Connie McCarty, Gerry Matre & I did a series several years ago that we called “Lessons in Soil & Soul”- (do you remember them, ladies?) They will be applied here for sure, better as I learn the language. I have gotten my fingers dirty, too. With the help of one and another of the older boys, we have prepared 2 plots and planted corn, green beans, cucumbers, squash and eggplant. We planted. God has watered abundantly!! Now we need to prepare a place that will not get too wet, and I will hope to soon get some tomatoes in the ground. My attempts to start tomatoes in tin cans on our concrete roof deck were not successful, although we have gotten a sprouting mango seed to push upright and grow!! I also took the initial plot that I was planning for a garden and have converted it into a compost bed for this year. The soil there was the equivalent of hard, red Georgia clay over bedrock lol, and needs some improving, so we are teaching about compost—(NO plastic, aii yi-yiii!.) :)) We saw what looked like mint tea being sold at the market, so I bought a bundle and have tried to start a patch. It is slow going and only 1 piece has grown--(if you know mint, that is hard to believe, isn't it?) I will get some more, and maybe another kind, and make several patches. When the boys start using it for tea, I want to make sure it does not all get ripped out. The boys are growing wonderfully. We have had some confrontations, to be sure-- but that is not unusual or unexpected for a house full of boys. We are encouraged by the response to firm but loving discipline. Just like in your home, set boundaries will be tested...and tested...and tested. When the fence does not move they can lean against it with confidence that it will hold them securely. So it is everywhere. Some of the “fences” that Claudia had built here had fallen into disrepair in the last little while and are being re-established and strengthened. And it is good. Wherever you are, in your family, in your soul garden! Be blessed and be a consistent blessing. Mim in Mali

Bambara Braids, Babies and (green)Beans

July 1 2011 Yesterday Ray had his “7/20 Prayer for our Valley” tee shirt on, and one of the boys wanted to know about it. We were able to read it in English, “7pm ('that's tan ni kononton,) Ju-ly--don't have that one down yet --twenty('mugan') to 7am-('wolonfila'). A b-i-g gathering('bon', 'many people'--with arms spread wide). All churches, prayer for our valley, (our 'Yirimadio',) in America” and make enough of an interpretation that they understood what it was about—I think :)) Then I reminded them that it was much like the prayer and worship event that most of them had attended about 3 weeks ago here in Bamako, on the International Day of Prayer. And since Paul walked in at that point he was able to translate for me, so I'm pretty sure they got that part. We are beginning to be able to really communicate. We get our little notebooks out and try to say it in Bambara; they smile and nod, and rattle off a response that we try to decipher. We have learned that just because someone smiles and says 'yes', there is absolutely no assurance that they really have understood you at all! They are being polite according to their cultural guidelines, to make you happy, and however frustrating that may be to us, we have to understand and try to honor that cultural difference. We feel we are really lucky if someone will be bold enough to make the correction to our halting question or statement, and say it back to us in a full sentence so that we can learn more about the Bambara grammar pieces that don't match up to our American English. Any of you who have tried to learn another language will understand that part, I am sure. Several of our close circle have learned to do that service for us. Ray told us where Eva Durst, the young Austrian who is here with us for the summer, had gone to have her hair done, so Julie and I went with our cameras to chronicle the event. There Eva was in the courtyard, sitting on a rug on the hard packed ground, while our neighbor was tightly braiding each section into neat 'corn-rows'. They asked Julie when she is going to get her hair done, and she is considering it, tho' Eva says (in English, to us) that it HURTS!! A LOT!!. But she does look adorable, and she won't have to mess with her hair for a couple of weeks if she chooses to let the braids in that long. Makes for a simple shampooing job! When we were leaving our base to go find Eva, another neighbor called hello, so I thought that I would walk back that way and greet them. I was immediately handed the roly-poly little baby, Adama, who delighted us all by laughing and cooing as I held him. What a great ice breaker God has provided us when He made babies and mothers. Everybody can speak that language! I must go and talk to them again-- and soon.

A new Month- A new start?

Monday June 27th PIZZA!! and more

We are having a bit of a crises with one of the boys who “wanted to be king”, so I needed to be more accessible to enforce discipline, and knew I would not get to doing a blog today. Enter Julie ,who I recruited to write my blog post for me, since we did have a rather unusual day yesterday. She did a great job—I hope that you enjoy her ghostwriting:)) Yesterday we had the grand idea of making a special lunch for the boys, pizza and salad. Well, it was a good idea, we just weren't as prepared for it as we should have been. Making a meal for three is a whole different job than making french bread pizza for a dozen hungry men and boys, plus a few children (who almost ate as much as the big boys), and the cooks, of course. So, we planned to go down and get the pizza ready to bake in Hawa's (Claudia's) oven at 12:00. Around 11:30 or so I went down to the outside kitchen with all of the salad makings to cut up the veggies and get it ready. We'd already washed all of our veggies (fresh from the two hour trip to the market Ray and I took this morning) in bleach water to purify it and had let the lettuce soak in vinegar water for several minutes as a double check. This was my 4th or 5th trip to the market, but Ray's first. He found it fascinating as I do. Ask the price, translate the Bambara in your head, multiply by 5 to arrive at the REAL price, then convert to US$$ so that you have some idea what you are being asked to pay. (Don't forget that they are taking kilo, not pounds so multiply the quantity by 2 also.) WHEW! It makes my head hurt just writing it. Fanta, our main weekend cook, was a great help, and it was nice to be in a community market, where we are known, not really the big city. We purchased jaba and tamati, salati, and concon for the salad. Then there was the misisogo and some jege, tulu and frononton (I think I spelled them right. If you want to read along in Bambara, you can go to the SIL website and get a downloadable Bambara Lexicon. :-) Back to the Pizza saga. Meanwhile, Julie stayed upstairs in our kitchen and chopped up and sauteed the onions and peppers, and kept an eye on the lentils I'd also put on to cook (when you don't get meat everyday, you have to get protein somehow!) Before we knew it, it was 12:30 and we hadn't even gotten the bread ready!!! How in the world did the time fly?! I came up from salad preparations just as Julie was getting things ready to go down with the pizza makings and start on that. When we had everything (or so we thought) downstairs in Hawa's kitchen. Julie started cutting the baguettes while Eva put the three big salad bowls together. For regular rice meals, we use large serving (community) bowls (or tasa in Bambara)to feed 6 people at the table. Those bowls were what Eva used for salad, and it was a LOT of salad. While they did those jobs, I prepared the tomato sauce with garlic, oregano, and mixed herbs, and then also got the salad dressing made. (no bottled dressings to grab. Vinigrette made with soup cubes is the order of the day.) About the time we realized the cheese was still upstairs and needed to be grated still, Fanta came and helped us. Ah, it was very good indeed to have another helper. Julie ran up and got the cheese, grater, and a bowl; Fanta began the time consuming job of putting tomato paste on the bread. When we had the cheese down, and all grated, we could finally put the lentils/onion/pepper topping mix on the tomato pasted bread along with the cheese and get the first round going in the oven. Oh my, and I didn't tell you about the pans yet. We had only two actual pizza pans, and that just wasn't going to work. So we also used a broiler pan, the lid of the broiler pan, and two small cake pans. We may not have had a Pampered Chef kitchen, but we used what we could find. When the first batch of bread pizza's were ready to serve, Eva took over the sauce spreading for Fanta, and Fanta delvered pizza out to our waiting customers. My, oh my! They were like hungry wolves!!! Granted, it was 15 minutes past lunch time, but still! We kept the pizza coming as quickly as it would bake, and they kept asking for more until it was all finished (We kept our servings back for us and took it up to our apartment when lunch was all done to eat in a little peace & quiet:) They finished up ALL of the salad, and ALL of the pizza we served them. Though, at the end they were somewhat picky and scraped some of the sauce off. Ah well, as American's we like our pizza sauce more than the rest of the world. When we went up to eat, Fanta was wonderful and cleaned up all of the dishes and dirty utensils we'd used in making the pizza. That was quite refreshing to not have all of that to clean up after you'd been stressed making lunch. (Honestly, I don't know how Virginia Hockenberry, and Linda Winger, and many other ladies do it all, preparing for, cooking for, and cleaning up after huge amounts of people) So, it was a learning experience! We'll change several things the next time we do it, but... now we know. Thanks Julie! Great writing! A quick report for you all on what is really important: the lives of our boys! This evening, at the end of a long day of face-offs, I got a BIG hug from a disciplined, and calm young “king-in-the-making”. God is good and His grace is never ending. Aren't we all glad of that? Thank you all for your continued prayers. We are seeing the results of them in daily life, and are often reminded of the way God works thru His people. We are so glad that you are all apart of this with us. As always, Be Blessed and be a Blessing to those whom your mighty God brings across your way.