I'M IN SOUTH AFRICA!

It's beautiful with Table Mountain and Lion's head always in view! I
just came back from an FDP that was amazing! The FDP is called !Xhosa
Cultural Cooking. The "!" is for a click. We went to a Township that was
about a 15 minute drive away from Cape Town. A township is a more of a
poorer place compared to the rest of South Africa. When we got there we
met Mama Noks who was going to show us how to make some African food.
She said she just bought two chickens yesterday that were "ready to go."
Ready to go as in...ready to be killed, plucked, and cooked. Yeah.
Didn't see that one coming! She actually put them in the tub of her
bathroom till today. Oh! And they had laid eggs since yesterday, so
there were a couple eggs in the tub. We got right to it and followed her
outside to kill it. She held the wings down with her feet, cut the head
off and waited till it stopped trying to flail around. I surprisingly
could watch her do it and yes I took pictures so I won't post it on
here, but if you want to see it sometime after I get back. Lmk.
Afterwards she pored boiling water on it and it was easier to pluck and
surprisingly familiar to plucking eyebrow hairs. haha we all agreed it
was kind of the same. One of Mama Noks friends took all the intestines
out and cut the feet off. Her friend was taking the intestines, feet,
and heads to cook at her house. While taking the intestines out, she
found an egg in one of the chickens! And also the starting of eggs which
looked like yolks. The chicken was cut up and was made into a stew with
potatoes. We also made pap which is a kind of like grits (so I was told)
but it was when you let grits sit out and it became really clumpy. We
made a curry cabbage mixture as well and a butternut squash with sugar
(yum!) It took a couple hours to make it and we all sat down and ate it
with our hands! Yup! No utensils or nothing! It was all super yummy and
the grits had no taste like rice so it was really good with the curry
cabbage. The chicken I didn't like too much, but the potatoes with it
had all the flavor. The butternut squash reminded us all of pumpkin pie
and sweet like that. It was all really cool and we would talk to Mama
Noks about her family and various things about the neighborhood and
schools. Schools have half days on Friday so some kids were walking
around by then. We took a walk to Mama Noks friend who was there earlier
and we were talking with her. We learned more words in !Xhosa with
various clicks. It was funny watching all of us clicking our tongues and
Mama Noks and her friend would occasionally laugh at us trying to do
different clicks and say different words while concentrating very hard.
We left the house and went back to Mama Noks' house and talked story a
little more and we were on our way! I'm back at the ship now waiting for
Ashley to get back from her FDP so we can go out exploring at the V&A
Waterfront where there is a bunch of shops and whatnot.

Miho =]