Crazy But Good Day

Tuesday was nuts for me! It was a good day, but just busy. After George left for Tanga at 6:30, I got up and did some work around the house before getting ready to go to the White Parrot. With George and Alan gone, it was up to me to help the team get situated for the day. They don’t have phones so I needed to be there to contact Herbert and set up the schedule for the day. Since I had to leave on Wednesday, I had a ton to do at home. Plus we were having the team over for dinner in the evening as well as a few of the friends we made here. We expected about 20 people.

We asked Lulu to help us prepare the meal. She is an amazing cook and was more than willing to help. As I was on my way to the White Parrot, she called and said she was at my house with supplies for tonight. She brought over extra pots, utensils, charcoal stoves and many more things we didn’t have at our house. When I got to the White Parrot, we called Herbert and confirmed that today would be the day for widow visitations. We still needed to buy the items being given to the widows. We would buy the items and meet up with Herbert later.

I ran home to give Lulu the keys and money for the groceries for our dinner and then ran back to the White Parrot. Shannon and I went to the market to buy the stuff for the widows while the other team members walked around. Fortunately, Lulu was at the market and came with us to buy the items. Without her, it would have taken a long time and we would have paid a lot more. She is such a blessing. It was fun buying all the supplies with Shannon. It was like Christmas!

We headed back to the White Parrot to set out our goodies and load up the bags. Packing the bags was fun too. There were all kinds of items in there: soap, toothbrushes, sugar, flour, rice, beans, oil, matches, tea, fruit, vegetables, bread, sweets, margarine, and lots more.

Once they had finished and the plan was for Herbert to pick them up, I headed home to help Lulu cook. She had made a lot of progress before I arrived around 1:30. She had the beans and meat boiling and was plucking the chicken. I asked what I could do and was assigned chopping vegetables. I was a chopping machine! I enjoy doing that job.

Later, Lulu’s niece, Fatuma came over to help. She came at the perfect time. I was starting to stress. It seemed like there was so much to do and so little time. She mopped the floors for me and Lulu sent me to start my packing. I felt bad not helping them cook, but they had it under control and wanted me to get my packing done. Winnie, one of our friends came a short time later and began to help too. Helping cooking is something that comes naturally to women here. They just chip in and do it. I was touched by their assistance.

Around 7:00, the team arrived and we finished dinner preparations. By 7:45 we were ready to go. On the menu was: roasted goat, goat stew, chicken stew and chicken soup, beans, chapatti, pilau and fresh fruit. Lulu had prepared a feast for us and it was incredible.

George and I were honored to have everyone over to our house. It was a nice way to wrap up our time in Korogwe, for now. After the team left, we finished the cleaning (again Lulu, Winnie and Fatuma did the bulk of the work). Once they headed home (around 10:00), I began to sort through stuff to pack. George and I wanted to pack everything we needed into two bags – one for the baby and one for us. I did the baby’s a couple days ago and just needed to do ours. Around 1:00, I called it quits and headed to bed.

It was a busy day, but a nice one. The team was able to visit four widows in two different villages and left bags for three more. They were able to pray and encourage the women who were very grateful for their visit and blessed by the goodie bags. George had a long, tiring day dealing with the container and although it was frustrating, they did make progress and it was worth it to go.