Cooking
on Mischa in Cameroon (Cameroon), 09/Nov/2009 10:36, 34 days ago
This is my national volunteer, Tchipounama, (on the left) at her house where she's teaching me to make spaghetti and we're hanging it up in the sun to dry. She and her sisters have a spaghetti making machine which they use to make spaghetti which they then cook and sell in break time at the primary school. Almost all the women I've met here have similar income generating activities where they cook and sell food on the street or at the market (in my compound they make doughnuts and juice from crushed flowers). I now have enough spaghetti to last me for months, but sadly no means of cooking it as my gas cylinder has run out of gas. You can't buy gas in Maga as everyone uses wood to cook. I'm in Maroua, the province capital, at the moment, trying to get some more, but sadly they've run out here as well. There's a rumour there might be some more this evening, so I'm living in hope. This is the primary school at Maga. Twice a term the students do practical activities, and here all the girls in the top form have built little fires under the trees and are cooking. They all cooked very impressive meals of fish and vegetables and rice and pasta and my national volunteer and I went round to have a look. We saw one boy, so we went over to ask him what he'd made, and he very proudly showed us his powdered milk mixed with water! When we went to look for the rest of the boys we found them with the teacher in the classroom studying geography, and he explained that they would do their practical activities later in the week, and make bricks and build sculptures out of clay!