Heinrich and Doris invited us over, and—I’m telling you—they really know how to make a mud house a home. They’ve built a little sitting area out in back of their house, so we sat out there on grass mats and under the stars. Doris set out some candles, balloons and cold sodas; Heinrich lit a cozy little bonfire. These days, it’s rare that we get to share a relaxing evening with one another—let alone one full of laughter—so this was a really special night.
Would you believe we didn’t have a Lopit audience at all? It certainly was peculiar. The village was abnormally quiet, and left us all to our quietly festive selves. What a blessing.
In the course of the night, Kim and I were able to unfold some of the mysteries of our culture to our wonderful hosts. Earlier in the day, Heinrich had chanced to see a measuring cup at our house, which apparently, to them, was the key to unlocking a whole slew of culinary secrets. He said they’d always wondered, when our American recipes called for a cup of such-and-such, WHICH cup exactly we Yankees were talking about. Admittedly, there are a whole bunch of different size cups out there. Touché.
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Doris taught us how to make “stickbread” over the bonfire, which proved to be lots of fun, especially when Ruth’s stickbread kept sludging off her rather elastic skewer stick. It became a sort of game, dodging that doughy missile as she flung it about, trying to get control of her stick amid fits of laughter. (No one was injured in the making of said stickbread.)
In turn, I taught our dear German counterparts about the greatness of s’mores—ingredients compliments of a one Danzania, TIMO Tanzania extraordinaire. I’m afraid the long-awaited unveiling wasn’t all it could have been—we were, by that time, absolutely stuffed full of stickbread, and any s’more is incomplete without the original Hershey’s chocolate and graham crackers. (No graham crackers in Africa.) But I feel I’ve done a good thing, passing along such a cherished treat.
I know I’m going on, and there’s no way I can fit this seamlessly into this blog, but I have to tell this story. Heinrich and Doris brought up the fact that in nearly every movie I lend to them, there is some sort of Thanksgiving celebration. They said they’d never realized how important it was, and asked a few questions, including, “So, you get dressed up for your Thanksgiving celebration, yeah?” And, Kim and I, thinking he meant dressed up in nice clothes, answered in the affirmative. But then Heinrich asked Kim what she dressed up AS.
Wait. What?
Upon reflection, I remembered the last two movies I’d lent to them—Stepmom (there’s a big children’s thanksgiving play, with all of them dressed up as pilgrims, Indians or some kind of food for the feast) and Must Love Dogs (she’s a preschool teacher, and the kids have a pilgrims/Indians feast, I think). Hence comes the misunderstanding. Hahahaha. No wonder.
Culture is such a funny, slippery thing.
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