Here we go round the mulberry bush!!
Dear Friends
Having gone round the mulberry bushes lots of times, I’m now gathering nuts … in January! The ground is so wet that once the pods have exploded off the trees and burst open on the ground, the nuts quickly start to sprout. So collecting them is a matter of speed! Lunchtime today I had a couple of narrow escapes as the afternoon sun got to work on the remaining pods and cascaded them round my head. We’re all agreed they’re very good roasted and salted, though peeling them is quite a job. I’ve also experimented with roasting them with herbs and spices – they’re good too! I’ll take some Sunday night to a fellowship meeting, having been asked to provide some ‘finger food’ for afters.
Yesterday was the last in the series of 4 ladies’ meetings at Kawama church at which I had been asked to speak. We had a fun meeting, which also included learning about some herbs and their uses, both culinary and medicinal. Everyone went home with some new herbs to try and I think our herb garden is soon going to be providing plants for half the back yards of Ruashi! I was hugely embarrassed at the end when I was presented with a gift which when I arrived home and opened it, turned out to be a beautiful length of material (6 yards) – you never open gifts while the giver is still around here, since the giver and the relationship with that person is more important than any gift.
After the meeting, I’d stayed and talked with Tete, a young mother with one child. She explained that to make a living she takes orders from people for clothes, shoes and so on. She then goes to town on their behalf and chooses something for them, taking a small commission for her ‘buying’ services. That allows the person to repay the full amount for the article over a period of several weeks, where they could never have managed to buy the same article outright. A ‘mail order’ service without the mail (the postal system still doesn’t work properly…)!
Sunday 1 February
Fresh pumpkin leaves from my garden today for lunch. Actually they’re from my flower garden not the vegetable garden. They self-seeded themselves and it seemed a shame to uproot them. However, they’ve now wandered all over the garden, up the fence, through the fence and are meandering in the general direction of the main road! It appears if you pick the leaves to eat, you don’t then get pumpkins and a friend who had no vegetables one day, had already asked if she could gather pumpkin leaves, so I thought I might as well do likewise!. We have some more pumpkins growing up in the field which, hopefully, will bear fruit. Someone gave me half a huge pumpkin the other day so I’ll enjoy that in the meanwhile. We’re also starting to harvest beans. The rains have been so heavy that some of the beans are already sprouting before we’ve picked them. We’ll put them back in the ground and hope for a second crop.
Sunday 15 February
Esther called in on her way to youth group this afternoon. 2 pieces of good news! The family were facing eviction but against all the odds have managed to find somewhere to live and moved in a couple of days ago. I say ‘against all the odds’ because there is huge pressure on housing here with large numbers of people migrating from other provinces in search of work. The house is near the centre of town, which should help all the family as they scatter to different areas of the city for school and work. The second piece of news was that a high court decision has ruled in favour of the family who have been fighting to get back their property which was illegally occupied before the death of Esther’s father. Her widowed mother has persisted in her quest for justice, going back and back to the courts in spite of the large bribes changing hands (her adversary is a wealthy business man, with several wives and several properties). We hold our breath as to what happens next because the long haul won’t be over until it’s over!
A young married man, Matthieu Mwamba, who recently started working at the Living Waters Centre brought his wife to meet me on Friday. Attractive, self-assured and painfully thin, Therese is determined to make a better life for her family. They are among the economic migrants from neighbouring Kasai province. They had come with enough money to settle their two older children in school (around $5.5 per month and per child) and to begin doing some trading. Then first Therese then two of the children fell ill and all their savings went on medical bills. It’s those unplanned ‘events’ which send people here tumbling down into abject poverty. Much of the time, they can just about scrape through and put at least one meal a day in front of their family but the unexpected drains their meagre reserves. There are no safety nets, no state benefits, and no health insurance.
My neighbour’s daughter, Nicole, is getting married next Saturday. The wedding was deferred because of 2 family funerals. Nicole’s fiancé is among those affected by redundancies as a big eye clinic in town has just laid off several of its staff. Not an easy start to married life. Nicole herself recently completed a university diploma in business administration but doesn’t have a job either. The wedding and the reception will both be here at the centre – her brothers have been busy cutting the grass and making everything look spick and span for her big day! I hope to go to the church service and the reception but will pass on the civil ceremony in the morning as the registry office is not known for its time-keeping and an 8 o’clock wedding is just as likely to happen at 2pm as at 8am.
It’s good to be kept in the loop of things that are happening at church and in your lives, so thank you everyone who has me on their mailing list. Keep them coming!
With love
Bridget