We picked up Timothy Niligrini this morning because Timothy’s house is on the way to the village of Binalodo . Almost immediately after turning off of the main road to go to the village we had to cross a large swampy area. ! I’m just glad we have a 4X4 pickup. I locked the front wheel hubs and drove through an area that was about 50 yards long. Half of that length was running water down the side of the road but the path had a gravel bottom which allowed us to drive right through it.
Upon our arrival we didn’t see anyone in or around the church building. Timothy got out of the truck and went over to the church leader’s house. Come to find out the leader who organized our visit didn’t inform the congregation and he himself had traveled and wasn’t in the village. So, we used the extra time to go to the chief’s house and greet him. He too wasn’t around but we left the kola anyway. While we were at his house we noticed the compound was swept very clean and the ladies had their vegetables drying . There were dried hot peppers, several mounds of okra, okra leaves, and corn. We saw Ayoyo seed pods for the first time also. Ayoyo leaves are used to make the stews more slippery ( a thickener used like we use cornstarch). The ladies also use these pods when dried to do the same thing only a little bit goes a long ways according to Timothy. Kandie bought two bowls of dried okra pods and a bowl of dried hot pepper from one of the ladies who is a church member. The sister also gifted us a bowl of her groundnuts (peanuts). How sweet!
When we got back at the church building I could see the crowd was going to be mostly younger children so I decided to teach the story of Noah and the flood. Young or old everyone enjoys hearing about the ark and the animals. All of the children were very attentive to the lesson for their age. There were 4 men, 5 women, and 30 children present this morning.
After worship was over I told the Church about the gifts that we had brought them. Today I added a new item to their gifts; a broom. This is a broom that you and I are accustomed to using back home. The brooms they are accustomed to using are Palm fronds tied together without a stick. I thought the sisters could use it when cleaning the floors of the building. They were pleased to have it.
On our way back to Yendi Kandie took a video of us crossing the swampy area that we encountered earlier in the morning. She thought it would make an interesting clip for the next DVD we make. When we dropped off Timothy at his house we gave him one of the bowls of okra. He knew his wife Rita would be happy about that.
In Yendi we purchased 20 bowls of corn to make weaning mix with and to experiment with the corn roaster Red is trying to perfect for us. Later in the afternoon we went to town to buy a piece of plywood for the masons to use to build the training center later on this week.
Hope you had a good day. God bless.
Stephen and Kandie Taylor
