Saturday Mid-March

This has been a busy day but also a fun day. Bev and I have the duty at the village this weekend, which means we stay here to watch over the children and the village so the other ROS can have some time off.

After being lazy for a while this morning I got out and walked the fence line just to check the security and get a little exercise. As I was going past the EPR church school, which backs up to our lower fence, there were many children around and I could smell something cooking at the Compassion office. I went out to say Hi and found they were serving breakfast, porridge and bread, to 230 compassion children. Most of the the adults working there are from the church so I knew most of them. I asked if there was anything I could do to help and they put me to work helping to serve the kids. They were lined up in rows, apparently by age or class, and were very well behaved and quiet. Amazing for that many children. I was handing out the pieces of bread, like a corn muffin, and others were giving them mugs of hot porridge. It did not take very long to serve all of them and they were all sitting around enjoying their breakfast before going to classes.
It was a joy to help them and meet all those children, most of who had been in the Sunday school class Bev and I taught last year. I was gettign rteady to leave when the leader asked me to stay and eat with them. I have been in Rwanda for 14 months now and had managed to avoid drinking any of their breakfast porridge, but I was caught this time. I really do not know how it is made or what is in it. I know it is boiled and is the consistancy of loose Cream of Wheat but it is brown in color. As it cools off it gets thicker so the bottom of the mug is pretty thick. But all in all it was not bad and I get to chalk up another first.

The rest of the day was busy with contractors working and having to adjust their work here and there, going to the market to pick up the kitchen ladies with the vegetables, going again to get 50Kg of potato's and 10Kg of beans, also had a couple of maintenance issues to work on.

Sam and I had some time for him to teach me to make Posho. We cooked some local beef in a tomato sauce in the pressure cooker, which he had never used before. But it is about the only way to cook this local beef so you can chew it. Then we cooked the Posho, which is not stirred, it is 'mingled', now before you laugh, like I did, you should read the instructions on the bag of maze. It states very clearly that you 'mingle' the flour in the water. Two firsts in one day.

During the afternoon I had time to go play with our Rafiki children as we took a walk down to our main gate then raced back up the hill to the cottages. That about did me in, but Epa, our oldest boy, wanted to play soccer, which is not my best game. But as long as I chase the ball and kick it back to the kids they are happy and think I am 'Pele'.

So it was a very good day and I praise God for it.