Today was the monthly class for the evangelists and church leaders. Daniel Batoln, one of the evangelists, was not able to come to class because his motorcycle broke down in Saboba and he had no way to come. There is a bus that passes through his area but you know how breakdowns are; by the time you figure out there is something wrong with your vehicle you have missed the bus! Pun intended! Steve said that 22 men attended the class. Steve was teaching about the early life of Moses; the men always enjoy the stories about people in the Bible.
I thought I was going to be able to work on my quilt top today but things did not work out the way I expected. After I washed several loads of clothes, I noticed that there was no water on the fresh cheese that we bought yesterday but there was a substantial amount of water on the refrigerator shelf and underneath the drawers in the bottom of the fridge. Cleaning the refrigerator is one of the worst jobs, especially if something had been spilled and no one noticed until it has dried to a hard mass of whatever and you almost have to use a chisel and a hammer to get it off!
I fried some of the cheese for supper. The best way to describe the cheese is to say it is sort of like fried cottage cheese. The cheese is not aged. It does not melt like some cheese does. The cheese is made by the Fulani ladies. The Fulani are a tribe of people that are semi-nomadic and they take care of the cattle. The cattle do not all belong to the Fulani. If I wanted to start raising cattle, I would engage a Fulani man and his family to look after my cattle. In turn, he would get the milk from the cattle and part of the offspring.
We met 3 Fulani ladies on our way back from Tamale yesterday. They were standing on the side of the road with buckets that had water with cheese in it. The cheese is made in paddies about the size of a large coffee can. The cheese was still steaming hot. The Fulani ladies heat and curdle the milk. They use a certain type of green leaf to curdle this milk. After the milk curdles, it is poured through cloth lined baskets. We like to buy it in the village because it is so much cheaper than what we can buy in Yendi. We bought all that the ladies had to sell! They could not speak English and they could not speak Dagbani either, so there was no one that could help us with the price. They said lots of stuff we could not understand and we said lots of stuff they could not understand. Finally, I took out my billfold and pulled out several different denominations of money and they pointed to the 10 Cedi note. Wonderful! The cheese was 10 Cedis each! The ladies were all smiles when we left them because they sold everything and they could go home early!
Paul and Red (the driver) spent all day in Tamale. He called several times to get additional information for his non-citizen’s card. One of the things that he needed was a digital address (the GPS address)! Really, what are they going to do with that information? He called at about 3:00and said that they were finished in Tamale and that they were headed back to Yendi. We told him we would have supper waiting for him when they got in.
Paul just called a few minutes ago; they are in Yendi but they have a flat tire. At least they are near the mission house; they could walk in if they wanted too. Steve said that he knows the spare tire is good because he just fixed it on Sunday!
Take care and enjoy your weekend!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie, Skeeter and Paul
The Monkeyshines
Mom and I were having a wonderful day until she decided that I smelled too bad! Well, let’s get real, she does not smell like a flower herself! It has been a while since I have had the humiliation of having a bath! Mostly, I just get my hands, feet and tail washed off but NO! today was a full-fledged bath! With SOAP! It was terrible! I sat on the edge of the big black plastic container most of the time but when I was least expecting it she would unhinge my feet from the edge (I had a death grip on that container) and she would stick them down under the water! She would pour rinse water over me and I would shake furiously! Mom ended up being as wet as I was by the time the bath was over. The best part of the bath is being dried off with one of those big towels! While Mom is trying to dry me, I am attacking the towel! I have to attack the towel to take out all of my pinned-up aggression! When Dad came home from class, Mom made him smell of me to see how lovely I smelt! I did not appreciate that either! No, one wants someone to sniff of them!
I had a wonderful snack today: Mom fried cheese and it was delicious! Mom even gave me a piece that was not fried; I like that too! Actually, I prefer the unfried cheese because it is nice and soft. When Mom gives me the fried cheese, I peel it to get to the soft inside!
Aren’t I the cleaver one?
Love, Skeeter
Leave a Reply