Last week we had a teachers training day for all of the caretakers of the care points.
They have been asking us for new songs to teach the kids and new teaching material.
A couple of them are licensed teachers but most of them are Grandmas or older women who give their time and energy to the kids.
We divided the tasks of teacher training day among each person within our team.
My job was to teach them some new games for the kids and to cook lunch.
I figured that my job was probably the easiest.
My teammate Sarah and I are the cooks for our team and we cook mostly everyday with out any problems.
Plus games how hard can that be.
The day started out well.
We had a van pick up all the teachers and Sarah and I stayed behind to clean out the huge caldrons we were given to cook lunch.
They were enormous and so heavy that it took both of us to even barely lift them.
The food was being provided for the day but was to be dropped of by one of our contacts here named Nicolas.
We waited and waited and at 10:30 the food was brought to us and lunch was to be served at noon.
Not only have Sarah and I never cooked with such heavy and huge caldrons but also the food that was provided for us to cook was wart hog and pap.
Pap is a traditional Swazi food that looks like mashed potatoes but tastes like a tasteless carbohydrate.
Plus “WART HOG”, not only have I never seen it or eaten it but now we were to cook it for all of the teachers and have it done by noon.
So the process began.
The fire was started and we placed our huge caldron on the fire filled with water.
At this point it was 11:15 and boiling that huge amount of water seemed impossible.
The only thing that we could do was pray.
One minute after our prayers were said that huge caldron of water had a rumbling boil going.
The pap was cooked easily and actually tasted just as if one of the locals had cooked it.
As for the wart hog God blessed us with Nicolas who stayed and helped us prepare it.
He taught us how to know when it was fully cooked and how to spice it up so that it was finger licking good.
The taste of wart hog is kind of like a fatty pork chop.
I would definitely eat it again.
As for the games, teaching them was fun and easy.
The teachers loved to not only learn new games but also play them.
We played each game a couple of times to help them remember how to teach the kids.
We all felt like we were kids again.
Our day was a success.
The teachers were so appreciative at everything they learned that day.
As they sang and clapped for us at the end of teacher training their joy placed joy in our heart.
