Through the Seasons

Special Dinner Guests

The other night we had Mama Imanueli, her husband, their 4 children, and another small child of the family they are currently caring for over for dinner.  I decided to really treat them to a nice meal.

First we had salad.  I don’t think they’re used to salad because they weren’t sure about the whole “dressing” thing using only a little then picking at the lettuce and veggies.  The custom in Tanzania is to eat all the food set before you so Mama and Mchungaji (her husband’s title, “Pastor”) ate all of their salad and then the kids one by one started giving their salad to them for them to finish theirs.  Jonathan finally told them not to worry about eating everything given and that more food was to come. 

So next was garlic bread.  Mama and her oldest girl, Upendo (also the cook of the family), went on and on about the bread.  I told them it was butter, garlic and bread.  They kept asking…  “Garlic, butter, and bread only?  Really?”  Really!  So I imagine they’ll make that at home one day.

The main course was a baked ziti with ground beef in it.  They ate and ate and ate.  No one put parmesan cheese on top.  They weren’t so sure what that was about either.

But then came the cake.  I cut big ol’ slices of chocolate pound cake with chocolate icing.  And they tried to eat it.  They really did.  Haha…  But they just couldn’t manage it.  So we sent them home with the uneaten bits of cake along with the other half of the cake which hadn’t yet been touched.

We also had a lot of drinks to choose from.  Soda, of course, which is usually a favorite of people here but Jonathan also made fresh pineapple juice, orange juice, and lemonade.  They drank ALL the pineapple and orange juice but wouldn’t touch the lemonade.  Drinking lemon juice didn’t quite make much sense to them.

After all of those festivities we had “Zawadi time” (”Gift time”).  We received a box from my parents that afternoon and in it were gifts for Mama’s family.  I presented a bit at a time and each gift I brought out (hair clips, pencils, pencil sharpeners, etc) they would all clap and cheer – even when it was for someone else in the family. 

So that was our treat to them.  Unknowingly they had a treat for us as well.  They all sang a beautiful gospel song a cappella followed by Mchungaji reading from his Bible and thanking us for our love for them.