Category: Food

I had a dream a few nights ago. I was in America at the beginning of a salad bar. I got to the bar and they were out of lettuce. The manager told me they were preparing more and would bring it out shortly. I waited and it never came. I really wanted lettuce. I waited longer. The lettuce never came.

I woke up craving fresh salad and remembered that, in fact, I really was still waiting for lettuce after 2 ½ weeks of having none. And then there’s also the carrots, potatoes, green peppers, fresh oranges, basically most of our normal produce on our grocery lists had run out and there was really no chance of getting these things any time soon. I had a lot of dried food brought out to help with the lack of fresh things, but lettuce is one of those things you just can’t substitute. Thankfully, for a few days each week we do get to enjoy apples and bananas and tomatoes.

We came here knowing there was no market in our village. There are two very close markets in nearby towns that come through once per week – Monday and Tuesday. Then, on Saturdays there is a large market in a town that takes a good hour to get to.

Don’t be fooled. This isn’t your weekly Saturday trip to the Costco in the next town over. Trip preparations actually start many days ahead of time as villagers trickle into our home asking if they can go with us on Saturday to the big town. We learned hard lessons very quickly our first week out here with no local men present (where they were is another blog post for another day):

Always, always keep a list of names (first come, first serve) or come Saturday morning, you’ll have a car full of people with no place left for your own family to sit and inevitable one or two women will absolutely refuse to get out of your vehicle.
Never, ever let young men on top of your car. Sure, we don’t like to be the bad guys and say no. But the reality is, the young men are the bad guys. So are the police. The young men will go get drunk in town, encourage a young 13 something year old kid to get so drunk he passes out on top of your car (which you don’t even realize he’s climbed up on…in fact, how did he even get up there?) and then he will proceed to puke all over your car windshield. Very likely, as you’re trying to wipe the puke away, your windshield washing fluid will run out and then, that’s just bad. To top it off, the local town police will pull you in to their office, rant and rage, calling you racist because you put black people on top of your car (seriously dude? We didn’t even want them there in the first place! And also, what other type of people could we actually put on top of our car? We are, after all, in Africa.) Then he’ll take you to the back, threaten jail time for having people on top of your car, demand $100 or so, then tell you to drive out of town, meet the guys and let them climb on the top of your car once you’re out of town. One day we’ll laugh about it, friends, but right now, well, all I can say is, you seriously can’t make this stuff up.
Back to the lettuce: if you want lettuce at the once-a-week market an hour’s drive away, you need to leave early enough to get there before the sun is too high and all the lettuce is sold. Drop all the village women where they need to be to pound their peanuts from their fields into oil, then you can go to the market yourself and get what you need.

The whole grocery shopping adventure that technically starts about the Tuesday before with people asking for a ride, will officially begin around 9:30 am and end at sunset when you finally, Lord willing make it home before you’re stuck driving in the dark on dirt paths. If you get stopped at the police station on your way out of town, though, you will very likely be driving on those dirt paths at night, hoping someone in the car can differentiate one dirt path from another and finally get you home safely.

(PS. I got fresh salad yesterday, so everything is looking bright today )

A Week in the Village

By josh

On February 10, 2020

In Chad, Culture, Family, Food

In January, we spent a week in our newly constructed huts in the village. It was a very productive trip, and we were grateful to how warmly we were welcomed into the community. The women were very hospitable, offering us food and peanuts from their fields. We in turn, shared our dates and candy from the big city – a special treat they can’t get in the village.

Josh was able to visit several markets in surrounding towns. These are “traveling” markets that only come once a week. It was helpful to see what food items and household goods are available.

Isaac, Judah, and Calla were all able to make some friends, even though the village children only speak Maba. We are hopeful that this will help them transition well when we spend longer periods of time in the village.

Soccer is something of a universal language

One highlight of the week was hosting women from our village and 3 other neighboring villages to make grass mats for a privacy fence for our home. They each donated one or two bundles of millet stalks, walking or coming on donkey, and then spent the day making the grass mats for us. We thanked them publicly and also provided a goat and a sheep as a thank you gift for the women to share a nice meal together.

We attended a village baby naming ceremony that was actually not in a village, but in the middle of a field! We used our car to carry a laboring mother to a nearby hospital and back again, only to learn that her baby suffered trauma during delivery and is paralyzed. I had two women from different villages walk by foot to come greet me and bring me food. We saw camels almost every day outside our front door. We saw amazing amounts of stars in the night sky, and walked far away to use the bathroom since the wall around our actual bathroom was not yet complete! We have so many more stories to share; we look forward to sharing more with many of you when we come to the States this Spring.

Visit from Nana

By josh

On February 6, 2020

In Chad, Family, Food

Breakfast at the Radisson Blu, a special treat!

Nana (my mom) and her friend Brooke visited us the week after Christmas and we are so thankful for their visit. The travel in country was a bit sketchy and a cause for some stress, but their laid-back attitude mitigated the stress. We had planned to fly our family (using the in-country airline, Tchadia) from Abeche to the capital, spend a few days at a nice hotel with our guests, and then fly back to Abeche. Since Tchadia now cancels more flights than they actually fly, we ended up driving to the capital (14 hours, several times push starting the car from some overheating problems). “That’s OK” we thought, “because we’ll all fly back to Abeche together.” Except that the day before the flight they couldn’t tell us if the flight would actually go or not. So we punted again and just drove back. Now Nana, we feared, might not be up for a long drive with no A/C (part of the overheating problem) and no Starbucks. But we were wrong. She did amazing, as did Brooke, and we had a great drive. We saw lots of camels, which they were thrilled about, and even saw a camel caravan loaded down and moving to their next camp.

We made it in under 12 hours this time, which was amazing. Tired, but happy, the next day we had the huge party we had planned to celebrate Nana’s visit. This is expected in Chad, especially for someone who traveled such a long way. So that morning I headed off to the animal market with Abdoulaye and Brooke to pick a couple of sheep that looked like good eatin’. Meanwhile Kimberly managed an army of ladies who had come around 7:30AM to begin the process of cutting, peeling, slicing, pounding, etc. to make the sauce and all the sides to go with the meat.

It was a great party, and we had lots of people there to celebrate with us. Nana met all of our friends and neighbors, as well as some people we had never seen before. Nana and Brooke dressed up in their finest Chadian clothes, which Kimberly had bought for the occasion. We ate around 1:30PM, which is the normal lunchtime here in Chad, especially for parties like this. The food was wonderful, and Nana didn’t have to eat anything too exotic (that was one of her conditions for coming on the trip). Great day.

Thursday was a day to rest, as well as the last day for Nana and Brooke in Abeche. Our Chadian friends couldn’t imagine coming all this way just for a few days, since their visits usually last weeks or months, but we explained that Brooke had to get back to work. We passed Thursday at the house playing games, talking, and just resting.

Friday it was back to N’Djamena with Mission Aviation Services (MAF). This is a wonderful organization that works in hard to reach places to help missionaries get around. If you’re looking for a worthwhile organzation to support financially, consider these folks. The flight was on-time and uneventful, and we were back in N’Djamena by mid-afternoon. They flew out in the middle of the night.

We are thankful for a wonderful and encouraging visit!

Month of Fasting

By kimberly

On May 30, 2017

In Chad, Culture, Food, Islam, Prayer

Our friends in Chad, as well as all Muslims around the world, are now in their most religious month of the Islamic calendar – Ramadan. This is a time for followers of Jesus – you and me – to pray fervently for God to work in the hearts and lives of many who are following a false religion and have a false sense of hope that their sins may be forgiven. This year, Ramadan will last from May 27 – June 25.

What is Ramadan?

Fasting is one of the five pillars of Islamic faith. Ramadan is the holy month where all Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset and feast in the evening and early morning hours. In addition to the other pillars, fasting is practiced in hopes that Allah will have pity on the Muslim and forgive him of his sins. Of course, as those who follow Jesus and the teaching of Scripture, we know that this is false hope. The only hope any of us has for forgiveness of sins is by faith alone in Jesus – apart from any works.

What does Ramadan look like in Chad?

I recently messaged a friend online to ask her if she was fasting. Her response to me was, “Yes, WE are fasting.” It is very much a communal practice. We have observed men and women who will not even swallow their own saliva (at least in public) in an effort to prove to others around them that they are following the rules perfectly. We hear stories of people who secretly “cheat,” but we haven’t seen this firsthand. We know pregnant women and nursing mothers who choose to fast during Ramadan, because otherwise they must make up the 30 days of fasting during the rest of the year on their own. Despite the difficulties this creates for the unborn or young child, it is easier for the mother to fast while everyone around them is doing it.

How can we pray during Ramadan?

Pray for the very few believers in our town who will not be fasting, but will experience much scrutiny, shame, and even persecution (name-calling, etc.) Ask God to strengthen their faith and unity among one another.
Pray for those who are genuinely seeking for Truth to feel the emptiness of this fast. Pray that they would long for a Savior that can take away their sins once and for all.
Pray for the health of those who are fasting – temperatures are soaring above 100 degrees F these days and many will suffer from not drinking or eating during the day.

Zucchini Harvest

By josh

On August 4, 2016

In Chad, Food

Ok, it’s just one, but it’s our first one here in Chad. Once the fruit starts to grow, it can grow several inches in a day or two. We almost left this one too long I think.

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Garden update

By josh

On July 24, 2016

In Food, Garden

With the rains in full-swing, our garden is growing nicely. Zucchini, corn, beans and melons. We’ll see what actually produces anything, but the plants sure are coming up nicely. The ground here is so sandy and rocky, but we’ve added some manure and compost and it seems to be doing well. If nothing else there’s a lot more green to look at now! We also planted two ficus and 3 moringa trees, you can see them in the picture on the right below. Both are native to the Sahel region of Africa, where we live.

: Zucchini – Kimberly will be so excited if we actually get some!

Foods in Abeche

By kimberly

On January 3, 2015

In Chad, Food

Maybe I write too many posts about food, but hopefully it is of interest to you, and it is certainly a big part of my life, since I cook everything from scratch 3 times a day. Just today I felt completely successful at creating a new recipe that Josh really enjoyed. The best part is that I made it entirely from ingredients found in the local market!
We have been thankful and surprised at the variety of food we can find here in our new town. We especially like “Hoobsa” – a Sudanese round, flat bread that we can make into pita style bread and cook grilled cheese and pizza or heat up with butter in a skillet. (The butter and cheese come from N’Djamena –Josh buys in bulk and we store it in our freezer.) There is also regular French-style baguettes and another bread that we think is similar to a heavy dinner roll in the States. We eat roasted, salted peanuts often as a snack and oatmeal and scrambled eggs almost every morning for breakfast unless I’m in the mood to whip up some pancakes or biscuits. My house helper knows how to make peanut butter and even fried okra, which made me very happy a few days ago! We can buy pineapples, apples, bananas, oranges, watermelons, guavas, and mangoes in addition to tomatoes, carrots, onions, greens, lettuce, canned green beans, canned red beans, canned corned, various types of dried beans, rice, couscous, pasta, stew beef or ground beef. You pay a little extra to get it ground right in front of you and they add some spices to it as they manually grind it. There is also a restaurant that makes tasty rotisserie style chickens, but we usually buy one per person because they are very scrawny chickens.  We have heard of another restaurant that sells French fries, occasionally pizza, and some other good things, but it takes at least an hour to get your food so we haven’t visited there yet. A couple things we have decided we are not interested in trying include fried grasshoppers and the fish that gets transported in from…who knows where?! We are in a land-locked country 12 hours’ drive from the capital, so the fish thing is just not that appealing. Can you blame us?!

Images of Our Daily Life

By kimberly

On November 8, 2014

In Chad, Family, Food

In an effort to be informative but not boring, I thought some of you might want to see a few “everyday” photos of things that are part of our daily routine. Enjoy~