From time to time I get requests to see more of our family’s everyday life in Tanzania. But, not unlike all of you, I don’t carry a camera during everyday life. Visitors do, however, carry cameras. And I’m taking advantage of that camera’s presence. [This post isn't really everyday life -- it's more a family visit.] This is what we’ve been up to this week:
we went out for breakfast one morning. this is "the grand slam breakfast" from our local denny's. except that it's not called "the grand slam." and it's not denny's. rather, the restaurant is the mary cafe. our breakfast consisted of sambusas (ground beef with onions and other veggies wrapped and fried in flour), maandazi (kind of a fried doughnut), and one egg chop (a really big sambusa with a boiled egg in the middle). we drank chai maziwa (hot tea with milk).
we went out for lunch one afternoon. this is wali samaki (rice and fish) from OPS restaurant (i have no idea what OPS means or stands for). the fried fish here is probably some of the best you can get anywhere in the world. and the avocado juice isn't bad either. the rice is kind of plain; i mean it is just rice. (the fish was good enough that brittney and mitchell asked to eat it again today.)
we killed a pig. (i realize i've documented a pig slaughter* in the past, but this is what my guests have spent much of their time doing this week.)
we quartered the pig. at this point (insides removed) our pig was still over 175 pounds -- the biggest pig we've slaughtered in tanzania to this point.
...but with great pig poundage comes great responsibility. this is mitchell getting started on the processing bit. i'm not curing hams yet, so we took the tenderloins and ribs and set the rest aside for...
sausage.** here we are cutting and grinding. we spent a lot of hours doing just this yesterday.
much of the rest of the day was spent mixing ground meat and fat, and adding spices. we made over 90 pounds of sausage yesterday -- all of it breakfast, italian, and mexican chorizo. i doubt we'll have to slaughter another pig before we come back from furlough later this year.
brittney and mitchell brought us some much needed freezer paper in their luggage; we've been without it up until this point (using ziploc bags sent in the mail). we used at least a roll and a half.
today i made ribs (while our guests played cards and took care of baylor).
then we ate ribs. these were the best i've made so far. the ribs from this week's pig were meaty and really good. the ribs that were from the pig before last, though, didn't have enough meat for the amount of dry rub i used. they were really salty and didn't become nearly as tender as the other.
christie taught her regular english class this week, but with special english-speaking guest, brittney harrison (not pictured, she was the photographer).
and, of course, baylor cried some this week -- here because her aunt brittney is going to see the eiffel tower next week without her (she made this model in protest).
but she smiled some, too.
* slaughter of a pig
** how to make link sausage
