Elizabette's feast

[Written Thursday 30 September, posted Saturday 2 October]

When I paid my second visit to the women's group in Byumba in February, they asked if I would come back to work with them on diet and nutrition and prepare food together. Before leaving in March, I established that David Bucura's wife Rachel would work with me as linguistic and cultural translator. Without her input I would have felt presumptuous; with her the 16 of us were on a journey of mutual trust.

Yesterday, after an adequate but rather dull meal in a restaurant, we went in a gaggle to market, where we spent rather less than the restaurant bill on ingredients for the delicious food we were to create. (We couldn't go to market in the morning because entry is limited to those with certificates of national health insurance, which some of the women don't have.)

the food was locked in the church office overnight. I paid for firewood to be bought. I tried to think of everything we would need - cooking and serving pots, plates and forks, sharp knives, washing up bowls, and bottled water for rinsing the foods to be eaten raw.

I also taught some theory around diet and nutrition - thank you, Anne, for the material which helped Rachel in her preparation. The complementary proteins chart, left blank for students to right the Kinyarwandan words and their own food combinations, was a success, once I had lent out every pen and pencil in my bag and turned some chairs round to serve as writing tables.

Today could hardly have gone better, except that I left in a rush and forgot my camera. But then Babette's feast was a transient beauty, too. We were using the kitchen at the back of the church building, a sunny yard and the church room.

First I set out all the foods, grouped into carbohydrates (rice, potatoes, macaroni), protein (eggs, milk, cheese, peanuts), soya oil, lots of fruit and veg, and salt, herbs from Marcelline's garden, garlic and ginger. it was 10 o'clock. We could eat at 12.30, I thought. Oh no, they said, it would take longer than that.

Eggs were boiled, peanuts roasted, rice picked over, and the day's main excitement - grating - began. I had brought half a dozen graters and four peelers. I should have thought to add at least one decent knife. Despite yesterday's plea we had only two knives, reasonably sharp but awkward to handle.

Somehow everything got done, except my planned guacamole (not enough garlic). Apart from demonstrating the grating and peeling, and insisting the potatoes be scrubbed and not peeled, my main contribution was a cheese sauce for the macaroni. There was beetroot, tomato and onion salad,; grated cabbage, carrot and onion with lemon juice; sliced tomatoes garnished with green peppers, raw leek and avocado.

Starting just after one, we all ate our fill. A single pan of leftovers was taken to be eaten by I don't know who. Then they cleared up while I walked into tow to buy the bus tickets back to Kigali.

Evaluation 1: They liked it all, and especially the beetroot salad. They don't make salads because mayonnaise is too expensive and they didn't know you could have salad without. (The colonial power was Belgium so perhaps that explains it.) They wanted a recipe for the cheese sauce and I described other possible milk sauces. Cheese is now being made from cow's and goat's milk in Rwanda, and is starting to come down in price. They want me to visit them again, though there was no obvious subject. Apparently they are thinking of forming an association to market their new vegetables if they can deal with certification and storage. I said I was sure advice would be available but I couldn't give it.

Evaluation 2: I managed to keep the large group as occupied as they wanted to be, despite the queueing for the use of the knife. Several small children, as well as the adults, tasted new foods. I was horrified by the smoke-filled kitchen, to the extent that I asked how much it would cost to insert a chimney, thinking to pay for it myself and say it came as a present from my Friends' Meeting to theirs. However, the Church rents the property so they couldn't make any alterations. Apparently it hasn't been considered important to avoid breathing smoke, though they know that alternative ways of cooking are being developed. Last time I was proudly shown a newly installed kitchen chimney at the pastor's house, so the design is known. It would cost less than £6.

P.S. Talking with Cecile, I learned that most people are ignorant of the connection between smoke and lung disease and wonder why so many children and older people suffer. She says she will alert the pastors so they can spread the information all over the country where they have their churches.