May 9,2016

We went to Makeni today to visit with the Lebanese owner of the the material store which is the African equivalent of an old hardward store in the US with a little bit of this and little bit of that. Brother Doe's men need to be able to get supplies to finish their duplex they are building and are almost done with. When the owner heard of Brother Doe's accident, he cut off selling to them for fear of not getting paid. Don and Mr. Davis assured the owner he would get paid so he agreed to sell what he has on hand but will not special order anything. Which is OK. The project is very close to being done. They are doing mostly finishing work. We had a treat tonight. Elder Samchee, a young Elder who lives next door to us, made the Miles and us a Ghanian meal (Elder Samchee is from Ghana). It was a lot of rice with a sauce. Here a sauce is a stew. This is eaten most every night. They make sauces in many different flavors. The one we had tonight was quite good. It was made with black-eyed peas (beans), fish, spices and Pepe (which is an extremely hot pepper that looks like a small red bell pepper but it isn't a bell pepper). He did not use too much, it had a nice bite. We got home from Makeni around 4:00 and Elder Samchee was home. Last week was his birthday and I made him a chocolate cake. He loved it and asked me to teach him how to make a chocolate cake from scratch. So I went over to see how his dinner was progressing - he had it all ready. So I asked him if he wanted to make a cake for dessert. He practically ran over me trying to get out the door to come over here. He wasn't familiar with measuring cups or measuring spoons so that was the first lesson. We then made the cake. OH Good Grief! We put it in the oven and my stove is not level and the cake ran out of the pan, all over the oven and even ran out under the oven door and down the front of the stove. The back half of the cake was burned batter and the front half of the cake cooked beautifully but was very thick. It tasted wonderful. Oh I just had a good laugh! I just re-read the above and immediately thought of Duane Jones. He hates stew so he would be cringing at that and then to have it made from black-eyed peas and fish! His face is scrunched and (if he sitting down) his hands are between his knees and he is quivering all over. What a fun memory of a good friend!