Chewing Bel

One of the most popular activities around here during the past weeks has been chewing chunks of sorghum stalks, which are called "bel" in Dinka. This probably doesn't sound too appetizing, so let me explain.

People cut down a length of sorghum stalk, tear off the outer husk with their teeth and then bite off chunks of the tender inner cane, which is somewhat sweet and juicy. After chewing it until all the sweetness is gone, they spit out and throw away the fibers that are left. The boy on the left in the video below will show you how it's done.

 

Chewing bel is a way to calm hunger pangs during the weeks before the sorghum is ripe, and even once people have enough to eat, bel makes a nice snack.

Lunch Out at Deng's

There are quite a few restaurants in nearby Wanyjok market. I don't go out to eat very often, but we had visitors recently and I went out for lunch with them and my teammate Vince. We ate at Deng's, one of the best places in the market. It's quite spacious and clean. The blue buckets on the tables are like water pitchers, with a common cup that everyone at the table drinks from.

Guest Boni, teammate Vince and me

On the menu, two things: split pea sauce and chunks of beef, served with pieces of fresh bread. There are no utensils, you break off pieces of the bread and use them to scoop up the sauce and meat. A bowl of the split pea sauce with a few pieces of bread costs $1; the meat costs a little more.

Cattle Compound

The Dinka people love cattle and they roam around freely in our village during the day. However, at night they return to their "base." One family has a small herd that spend the night in an enclosure they've built next to their huts. 

Smoke repels flies that bother the cattle, so fires are kept burning all night.

In the Dinka language there are very precise names for all the various combinations of colours of cattle. (By the way, in the top centre of the photo below you can see a girl at the pump handle of the village well.)

Sorghum seeds for next year hanging from a post.

This is one of the women from the house with the cows. What do you think she's working with? Mud? No, actually it's cow dung. Yes. She's breaking it up into small chunks to use as fertilizer for the fields. The family will use some of it and also sell some. It's quite a valuable resource.

Health Teaching in Action

Well, I just accidentally deleted a post I published a few weeks ago about health teaching done at church by women from the health group I teach. But that's okay, I'm reposting a new and improved version with not only pictures but also a short video. :-)

The pix and video show part of a demonstration of how to apply a hot compress to help treat a wound or boil. The health group teaches after the worship service is over. A few dozen women and lots of kids usually stay for the teaching.

If the video is taking too long to load, you can also see it on You Tube.

Drying Okra

People in our village are busy harvesting and processing various crops, including okra. This is one of the most often-used ingredients in the "kadang" (sauce) eaten with the main food staple. Okra is highly valued for its slimy-ness, and it also serves to thicken the sauce.

This photo shows how okra is grown. Each piece of the vegetable forms upright on the end of a stalk.

Much okra is consumed fresh, but if the harvest is good (as it is this year), women also dry it to be used in future months. The okra is cut up and put out to dry on pieces of plastic or tarp; or if these are not available, they put it directly on the ground, on a hard surface that they make by putting water on the sand, smoothing it out and leaving it to dry--this helps reduce the amount of sand in the final product.

Freshly cut pieces of okra.




Once the okra is dry, it is pounded into a powder, which mixes well into sauces.

Photo below: Okra in various stages of dehydration; the driest pieces are on the top left.

Sorghum Splendour

Walking among the sorghum fields here reminds me of the song "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" from the musical Oklahoma!, where it says "the corn is as high as an elephant's eye, and it looks like it's growing way up to the sky!"

We don't have leaves changing colour this time of year but we do have some fall colours--the ripening heads of sorghum:

People cut some of the best of the first ripe heads of sorghum and tie them up to dry in their compound, high in a tree or on a post. They will be used for seeds next year.

Green Galore

I got back to Parot last week after a month of R&R. What a delight to see how green and lush everything had become during my absence. Rains have been plentiful, crops are flourishing and we're rejoicing in this answer to prayer.

Here are some pictures of the contrast between the dry season and now:

Dry season view (taken late March) from front of my house towards the Wards' house

Current view towards Wards' house

Dry season view back of house

Current view back of house