Lunch from Africa

After months of juggling our (mostly my) busy American schedules, I finally got to visit my friends from church, an immigrant family from Burundi. They treated me to a wonderful lunch of African foods. As the guest, I was served everything first, including an appetizer of chapali (I don't know how to spell any of these words), which is like fresh pita bread, and chai, which is mostly milk but wonderfully spiced.

For the meal, we had ugali, which is like bread dough made from cassava, small fish mixed with onions (like marinated sardines) and a beef dish. All of the above is eaten with fingers, even the stew-like beef, but you can use the ugali to sop up the yummy beef sauce. We broke out the forks for spaghetti, beans and something like potato salad. They told me I eat little, and heaped a little more on my plate! It was all good.

They have a TV and we watched a movie the rest of the rainy afternoon, their five children cuddled up on the couches. I wonder how TV has affected them. They have all these commercials and probably some violent shows thrown at them. But the cool thing is, the children's mouths drop open and one hides her face when the bad guys with kryptonite start kicking Superman around. And then we all cheer when he gets better. They still feel for the people on TV, whether superheroes or people on the news.

I gave the children a ride back to church for youth and they asked me all kinds of questions. I've known this family for a year, but this is the most we've talked. I'm very proud of how much English they've learned. But my Swahili needs a lot of work!

It was an awesome day.

Tweets from Louisiana trip

Signing off for mission trip to Louisiana. Will tweet by phone, but can't read nor respond. #travel #katrina #fb 10:06 PM Mar 6th via web

Driving thru New Orleans at night. #fb 8:21 PM Mar 7th via txt

45 people in 2 bunkrooms, have to sleep in dining area. #fb 10:46 PM Mar 7th via txt

Built walls, covered in sawdust and rain. Trusses on house in La. #fb 8:19 PM Mar 8th via txt

Standing under few sheets of roof, pouring rain, lightning. Good time 4 lunch. 12:01 PM Mar 9th via txt

On 2-story ladder today, hammering, arms like noodles. #fb 9:10 PM Mar 9th via txt

Hardware errands, white & blue herons in bayou. #fb 12:56 PM Mar 10th via txt

started vinyl siding. Roof sheets on. Thanks, God, 4 holding off rain! #fb 9:45 PM Mar 10th via txt

Roughing it is not just sleeping on floor, but w so many people, get woke up hourly. #fb 6:45 AM Mar 11th via txt

Cafe au lait, warm beignet, laughing at powdered sugar mess n New Orleans #fb 12:38 AM Mar 12th via txt

Installed insulation, sheetrock today. Leave La. Tomorrow. 8:29 PM Mar 12th via txt

Home, laundry, real bed, my pillow. Long ... hot ... shower.
#fb about 3 hours ago via web Sunday morning

Hittin' the road

I enjoyed reading the genealogy blogs this week, and would like to visit even more of them. However, I realized that I didn't spend any time working on my own blog. I did write a few paragraphs for my historical novel. With about 77,000 words in the file, I'm at the stage where I need to write more missing scenes to add transitions, add description for people and places, research some of those missing scenes (genealogy) - and then cut, cut, cut.

This week I also helped a cousin work on an "emergency family history" for her vacation next week. We may work on it some more later - our family history of bird dog trainers and hunting in the Piedmont, N.C.

I reluctantly lay my genealogy aside for the coming week - but only for another trip! This time I'm traveling light, going with a group of volunteers to Louisiana, where people still don't have homes in Hurricane Katrina-affected areas.

Week 9 challenge - Tuesday

Southwest Arkie wrote a list of all her ancestors that she doesn't know where they are buried.
TNHG posted a page of an Annual Register, which gave interesting statistics on deaths and births in 1820, I think for England. I asked them, "What's an Annual Register?"
Footnote Maven - no post today. I'm amazed at how many of these people blog everyday, while I do well to write once a week.
I just realized that Tonia's posts are condensed, and you have to click on them to read the whole thing. She wrote about her great^3 grandmother, with a photo, that I almost missed because I didn't know how her blog worked!
At AnceStories, I looked again to make sure there's just one author - four posts since yesterday! Even if she schedules them, prolific is an understatement. And she has a teaching dayjob.

Week 9 challenge - Monday's blog reads

Southwest Arkie has one of those brick walls that makes you keep staring at her post, hoping you can think of some great piece of advice that will help her break through. Her Peter Sumner and John Maes remind me of my own brick walls, including Thomas Maness, who might have come from Arkansas like he said, or might have come from the next county with a few too many wives. And my Wall cousins, who disappeared for about 20 years between Illinois and Missouri.

TNHG wrote about elaborate 16th-17th century gloves. They are so good about posting beautiful photographs, and this time had extra embedded links to museum pictures. Where do they get all this?! Susan kindly replied to my comment from yesterday - Dolley lived in Philadelphia at the time of the story, which was Quaker country, so very likely wore the distinctive plain clothes.

FootnoteMaven wrote about her strange comment from yesterday, that one year on the internet was like six human years - and the fact that one of her readers noticed it. Funny, I had didn't consciously notice it, but I took it with such a big grain of salt that I simply said she was having her 3rd blogversary (she wrote 18). Funny how, when I see a "fact" that I don't believe, I just go right past it.

Tonia met her goal of writing 10 posts in February - Go Tonia! Today she celebrates her ancestors that were born in March (hmm, some software search to find them?). It's an interesting summary; we both have ancestors from Chester County, Penn. and Ireland. She adds lots of tags (keywords) to the end of her posts (I put GoogleSearch on my blog and don't worry about it. I'm afraid I would forget to use the exact same terms).

The AnceStories blog is huge. It takes page-downs to find out that Miriam writes it, not some of the people mentioned in the posts. For the first day of March, Miriam posted a calendar of all kinds of dates: from holidays to themes to carnivals (blog prompts). March 1st is data backup day. The next Scanfest is March 28th, 11 AM - 2 PM, Pacific Daylight Time. This time, there was a link to tell what Scanfest is about, plus some good scanning tips.