Madison spent most of her morning with the women of the village helping to cook; when I joined as her photographer, I was put to work as well! We both attempted to grind sorghum by hand (and weren’t nearly as good at it as the women who do it every day). Maddie helped make relish, mamare (a cucumber dish made with crushed peanuts), and roasted peanuts, and we both helped to make nshima, which is a staple of most meals and is made by boiling mielie meal (from ground sorghum or maize) with water and mixing it as it thickens. Nshima takes an incredible amount of strength to make because it becomes very thick, but must still be continually stirred; though we tried our very best, Maddie and I were definitely not strong enough to be able to make it without some help.
After lunch, Jenna and I hung out with the women, who were busy preparing for the community event the following day. We brought a tablet with us-prior to the trip, we all uploaded photos of Seattle, photos of Washington, and pictures of our families, friends, and pets to be able to share our culture with the community that shared so much of themselves with us. You can tell by the crowds that anytime the photos came out, they were a total hit! Even though not everyone spoke English, you could tell that people really enjoyed looking at photos of where we are from, as well as to see how far we had come to spend the week with their community.
Nancy continued training with Christopher on the tablets and the laptop. Isaac and Adam also had time with the tablets today and used them to take photos of the community, as well as videos of their traditional song and dance, which was wonderful to see. Mak and Dave continued with the installation of the Data Acquisition System (DAS) and with Kirk’s help they were able to add energy meters to the AC panel in the kiosk. Finally, Emily analyzed the land survey data and used it to create basic topographical maps of the two garden areas, which Alexander can use to get quotes on a solar pump.
