t of our new cabinet doors.)It all started several days earlier. As we walked to the market we stopped to talk with our neighbor, Mama Fumba. During the conversation she mentioned that she wanted to cook madaba for us (a signature island meal that is delicious, but work-intensive). As this can be simply a polite thing to say, we didn’t really expect it to amount to anything. But then a couple days later, I (Megan) was passing by again and this time Mama Fumba asked to set a day for our madaba meal. She was serious. It was going to happen and Monday would be the day.
So on Monday early afternoon we headed to Mama Fumba’s to see what we needed to buy at the market for the meal. But as we approached we noticed that Mama Fumba did not look happy. Apparently she had wanted us to come first thing in the morning (as the preparation takes a long time), so she said we were already too late. It would have to wait until the next morning, but we could still go to the market that afternoon and buy the necessary ingredients. Now we really would have preferred Mama Fumba to go to the market with us since she knew what to buy and where to get it, but she was more inclined to just tell us what she needed. So, not wanting to get it wrong, we asked how much madaba (the leafy green that the dish is named after) we should buy. “1 kilo?” we suggested. By the dismayed looks on their faces, we gathered that they didn’t sell madaba by the kilo but by the bunch. Then we proceeded to ask, “how much should that cost?” Seeing that we were clueless, Mama Fumba finally declared (to our delight), “We’re going to the market!” and grabbed her wrap to go with us.
With her as our guide, we zoomed through the market taking back alleys and entering areas we had never entered before. In a short time we had bought 4 bunches of madaba, 3 coconuts, 1 kilo of fresh tuna and 3 hot peppers. We got back to Mama Fumba’s and she quickly started to orchestrate the food prep that could be done in advance, pounding the madaba (along with onion, garlic and pepper) to a pulp and grating the coconuts. An hour or so later we went home with a bag of pounded madaba and a bag of grated coconut in hand and with clear instructions that we were to return with these in the morning, early morning.
So the long day began on Tuesday morning with us getting up quicker than usual and grabbing the two bags and heading to Mama Fumba’s. Now our language is still pretty basic, so misunderstandings are hard to avoid and I soon discovered that there had been a few. I asked if I should bring the fish and other ingredients to them for cooking. “Are you going to cook it here? You’re not cooking it at your house?” they asked. I thought the plan was for them to do it all and for me to observe and learn. I was mistaken. They were prepared to do the grunt work and assumed I knew enough to finish the preparations. They assumed that surely I at least knew how to cook the madaba. They were mistaken. “We’ll cook it here,” Mama Fumba finally declared.
I went back and forth from our house to Mama Fumba’s multiple times carrying Grace and trying to bring what they needed. I was trying to be helpful but couldn’t always understand all their directions. Meanwhile we received a call that our landlord was going to come a
nd visit us (for the first time) and would bring the carpenter to install kitchen “cabinets” (something we had been expecting since we moved in). So in between going to Mama Fumba’s, our landlord came with carpenter in tow. But by that time the electricity had turned off (making it impossible to use the electric drill needed to install the “cabinets”, which ended up just being doors for the space under our counter, no shelves). So as the hours ticked by the madaba simmered at Mama Fumba’s and the carpenter and helper lounged around at our house waiting for the electricity to come on. Meanwhile we got a call from a friend we had made at our first homestay. He was coming to the capital and wanted to visit us at our house but didn’t know where it was. The phones kept cutting in and out and with more misunderstandings, Tom went to the market twice looking for him before finding him and leading him back to our house. Meanwhile I made the realization that not only would we potentially have this friend for lunch, but also our language helper and the two carpenters. Thankfully it looked like the madaba might be ready in time, but the rice and a tomato-based fish sauce that is served with the madaba had to be prepared. Having failed Mama Fumba multiple times before, I couldn’t admit to her that I had never made the tomato fish sauce before, that in fact I had never cooked with fresh fish before. So I decided that I would undertake the fish sauce. But now our kitchen was full of wood pieces and half installed cabinets and I had 4 islanders who would be eating my first attempt at cooking their famous traditional meal.Thankfully, God is good. The day was full of potential stressors but though we were tired (remember just communicating in the local language takes a lot out of us at this point), we were in good spirits. The fish sauce came out well. Grace loved it and even one of the islanders praised it. We had a good visit from our friend. We gushed our thanks to Mama Fumba and she seemed happy and amused by the whole experience. Plus the electricity came on just before lunch so the carpenters could finally do their work.
We sat down, ready for a break. But then it was time for our language day to start. All this had happened in the span of the morning and now we had an hour plus of language lesson, followed by an hour or more of study and then multiple hours of language walking ahead of us. By the evening it felt like we had packed two days into one. We enjoyed some leftover madaba, fish sauce and rice for dinner and went to bed early. It had been a long day.
PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our long day was a good day. We had several rain-free days this week—this was very helpful for our language walks and for getting our laundry to dry. Tom has been able to have some good conversations with a couple English-speaking young men. Grace continues to do well.
PRAYERS REQUESTED
Our neighbor’s 6 month old baby boy and now the dad have been sick with a high fever. Pray for their healing. Grace is getting more teeth. We have both been feeling rushed—like we are constantly running around and flying by the seat of our pants. Pray that we get some time to step back and slow down.
