My main stress upon arrival in Chad was wondering what I would feed my children, especially Judah, who is my picky eater. Thankfully, for now, we have found things that he likes and we are past the jet lag so he is eating more regularly. Our friends from language school in France met us at the airport and she had some staple items waiting for us, along with some tortilla soup which Josh and I ate for a couple days. They showed us a restaurant where you can get pizza to go. We have done that twice because it is easy and affordable. Since I don’t have an oven here at the guest house, I can’t make it at home yet. We will probably buy a solar oven for about $75 soon.
We had lunch with a missionary family this week, and they served a typical Chadian dish cooked by their house helper. It was rice with fish in a peanut sauce. Pretty good!
I found spaghetti and bowtie pasta to make, which Isaac was excited about. I made a curry sauce with beef, okra, and tomatoes over couscous (Isaac ate tons of that!), and I made lentils with rice on Sunday morning to have when we got home from church. The lady who sort of runs our guest house taught me to boil my water, add the rice, then let the water come to a boil again and take the pot to a nice, sunny place (lots of those around here!). Leave it for a few hours and the rice will be ready to eat, but not dried out. It was perfect for a Sunday meal – kind of like a slow cooker, but without heating up the kitchen too much and without using electricity! Christine, my house helper, makes tortillas (she learned from a missionary a long time ago) and she knows where to take my meat to get it ground, so tonight we will have tacos for dinner! I made quesadillas for lunch today and the boys loved them.
For breakfast, I found a cereal like Kix that the boys like and it is not too expensive. I can make pancakes from scratch and cook biscuits on the stove top. Peanut butter can be purchased by a few different ladies who make it to sell. I found pre-made strawberry yogurt to feed them until I can gather enough glass jars to start making my own regularly. Soy sauce, olive oil, canned goods, etc. are available and sort of expensive. I saw frozen Snickers and Mars bars for about $6 a piece – we’ll have to save that for a very special occasion! We always have tons of bananas, which Judah loves. We can find pineapple, watermelon, apples, melon, green beans, tomatoes, onions, salad, and cucumbers in the market. I found grapes on a roadside stand for about $12 for one normal bushel you purchase in the states. He let me buy just $2 worth, and I put them in a fruit salad that evening with honey.
In a place as hot and dry and poor as Chad, where I hear many Chadians only eat once a day or every other day, I feel very blessed with the variety we have found and I am beginning to feel like I can make nutritious and delicious meals for our family.
