Maryann's Musings

  Over one hundred degree temperatures, 90% humidity, and a beautiful double layer cake with fluffy white icing oozing out of the middle from the extreme temperatures. This is just one part of my experiences cooking in West Africa.    Every soup, every pancake, every biscuit, every baked good is an adventure. I have had many absolute fails that I was extremely upset about.  These fails now make a good laugh and an interesting story.    The difference between cooking in West Africa and America is this: ingredients available. Yes, there may be chocolate chips at the store every three months if  you are willing to pay $20 for the little bag.    I don't use chocolate chips. I don't use whipping cream. We don't put cheese in our Macaroni&Cheese. We don't use smooth, processed peanut butter because it is too expensive as an imported item; we use the more challenging natural peanut butter 😡 from locally grown peanut fields. ...

* Acknowledgment: Thank you, Uncle Wally, for helping me fix all of my technical errors on this blog! I told Mom, "You have a really SMART brother!" Welcome to my corner of Maryann's blog - allow me introduce myself. My name is Koko.  (This is me!)   I am on a trip with the missionary family to Kenya (trust me, they are a rowdy bunch at times!). I was referred to a specialist in Kenya and was told to see a psychiatrist. ...yippee...  The trip there was uneventful for the most part (except when Tristan thought he had left me on the plane halfway across the tarmac so that the whole family ground in reverse to fetch me!). But let me begin at the beginning.  The Crowe's, good friends of ours, drove us to the airport for our trip. They are great people! We even created a WhatsApp group so that all of us could keep in touch.   Going through security in the airport was a nightmare. Mostly for me. I had been placed in a party bag for the younges...

  Beni (Blessed): one of the children at I.B.B.T    The people that we served during our trip were tremendous. They had incredible stories, an amazing amount of generosity, and were strong in the face of whatever was to come.  When they had only a little they shared with us and when we spoke they listened with all their hearts. There is a beauty to these people that is hard to describe.  The Ife women     Note: This blog is very late due to a prolonged internet failure and life in general. Sorry, guys!  When morning worship was over the lesson began. The mother of twins was having trouble keeping her baby, Joy from crawling away so I got to hold her and play with her. It's such a hard job :-)  Joy definitely earned her name. She giggled, laughed, and cooed when you held her up in the air, talking nonsense about whoever was sitting next to you (literally nonsense, not just an African dialect). She would clap h...

   Another bright and early day, another up and at it atmosphere, all with one black cloud on the horizon. Well, I wouldn't call it a cloud; I would say more of a challenge, an adventure, and an inconvenience all tied into one. It's like the experience when you first climb to the top of a lake zip-line - it takes your breathe away as you step off the edge, but you love the thrill as you let go and crash into the water. Our challenge was something like that.     Mommy told me at 6 o'clock in the morning that she had devised a plan to fight our clogged drainage system. This plan involved trowels, digging cat holes, and chamber pots ( isn't that wonderful morning conversation? Just what you need to hear right when you get up ) . I was not  too thrilled about the cat holes. Tristan and Aidan dove head first into the necessary arrangements; Tristan in particular delighted in parading his chamber pot around the house before taking it outside (I got MAD...