April 25th 2016

Tonight Brother and Sister Doe invited the 6 senior missionary couples to dinner. Three couples were called to come to Sierra Leone for 4 months to help kick start the mission. They had all served here for almost two years before the Ebola came and the mission was closed. Two of the couple's are going home on Thursday this week. In honor of them, the Doe's had a farewell dinner party. Oh my goodness! We had the most wonderful food. Most of it was "what is this?". We had "starters" which was enough to be an entire meal. Then came the main course of chicken cooked two ways with different spices, fish balls with just a hint of fire, fried rice flavored with Pepe (a very hot pepper), some kind of a little meat tart which was medium hot and spicy but oh so good, two different kinds of muffins and then out came a two foot fish on a platter. It was headless but the tail was still on it. Sister Doe called it a Cuda/Cuta (her accent is very heavy and hard for me to understand her so I am not sure what kind of fish it was). It was very meaty and covered with some kind of a spicy sauce. I was so full I could not enjoy one bite of it. After this course, out came the salads: lettuce, coleslaw and macaroni salad. Then for dessert, Sister Clawson brought ice cream and Spiced apples and offered root beer floats. We are in a community where people go to bed hungry every night. When we drive thru our community, we have to drive very slow because the "road" is a dirt path full of large rocks and we bounce all over. Because we are driving slow, people bang on our window asking for food or money. And here we are inside our compound eating like Kings and Queens. But, this is an exception, not the rule.