The Crock-Pot Culture

The 'crock-pot' has been a bit of a revelation to me! Back in the UK I would associate slow cookers with the older generation and stinky stews ... but here in small-town America where we're living they are an every day occurrence, can be bought very cheaply in a variety of sizes and colours along with various different travel/carry bag accessories and at a pot-luck event you see them lined up along the table as it seems everyone is using them!

We moved to America as another family had graduated from the MMS programme and we were able to buy the majority of their furniture and kitchen appliances to use while we live here ... including a crock-pot. For the first year it remained in a cupboard untouched but the longer we lived here the more I saw my friends using them I thought I would actually dust it off and give it a go! Needless to say I am a convert and slowly building up my crock-pot recipe collection (avoiding the stinky stews!) ... and last weekend I even bit-the-bullet and bought myself a brand new one because the one we had was missing the on/off dial making it difficult to turn when hot!! I find the convenience of being able to prepare everything earlier on in the day when the girls are less cranky, brilliant and when it was too hot and humid in the summer to use the stove, this was a great alternative to the BBQ when we'd had one too many burgers or steaks!

The stuffed peppers above were our dinner last night and one of our new favourite recipes ... yummy when served with sour cream and nachos. It's SO easy and my 3 year old daughter loves helping both mix up the ingredients and stuff the peppers ... so it's a win win meal ... fun to make and delicious to eat. (The recipe is below). Another new thing for us is growing some of our own veggies while we're been here, again fun but also great to save some pennies ... just waiting for some more of these peppers to ripen so we can stuff these too!

• 4 bell peppers (preferably flat bottomed ones if you can!)
• 1 can (15oz) black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup (4oz) shredded cheese (you can use pepper-jack for a kick!)
• 3/4 cup salsa (however hot you can handle!)
• 1/2 cup frozen corn
• 1/2 cup chopped spring onions
• 1/3 cup uncooked rice
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

1. Cut off the top of the peppers and remove core and seeds (chop up the tops to include in the mix)
2. Combine all the other ingredients in a bowl
3. Fill each pepper and place in the Crock-pot
4. Cover and cook on low 4-6 hours

Life is Precious

The photo below shows a class of girls with all their hopes and dreams in front of them ... they all celebrated their 16th birthday in that academic year. Scary to think that it was taken almost 20 years ago ... and some of those aspirations have become a reality! (Even more scary to admit I was in that class and it's been that long since the photo was taken!)

Yes ... I'm there ... middle row, second from the right!!

I am only really in touch with one of my ex-classmates properly now but follow the news of others on Facebook and from mutual friends. Some of them have gone on to achieve the goals they set for themselves, others have had a complete change of heart, many like me no longer live in the UK and many have families of their own as well. It's strange to think of a class that were together for 5 years and in many cases formed the people who we have become 20 years later ... are now so scattered throughout the world.

One of these girls died tragically not long after we left school, just a couple of years after this photo was taken. She was hit by a police car on an emergency call. Last week I learnt that another one of my ex-classmates died after an 18 month battle with untreatable bowel cancer, still so young. Even when we're in touch with people sporadically ... how much do we really know what's going on in their lives? Who knows what the latest news is for the rest of them.

Hearing sad news of friends who were part of my childhood makes me reflect and appreciate just how blessed I am with our adventure into worldwide mission as a healthy family and all the opportunities that have and will come our way. Some days aren't great ... but life is precious and I hope to make the most of every one while I can.

Getting Prepared - Part 1

Our commitment to MAF UK is for an initial 11 years ... yes, really ... 11 years (it was a BIG decision)! The first 3 years are here in the States and then a further 8 years in an MAF programme, usually 2 4-year terms. As I wrote in the last post, MAF are in over 30 countries worldwide so our adventure with MAF could take us anywhere, but most likely our next placement will be in East Africa, possibly Uganda or even back in Tanzania where I taught before! We have one year left here in America and while I can understand the bigger picture I've got the responsibility of preparing the girls for this next move which will be a bigger cultural and language jump than when we moved here to America and possibly quite difficult for them to assimilate.

While we were away on holiday the other week, we found the cutest little bookshop 'The Fine Print' which had a wide range of children's books ... some really unique ones. Abigail loves books as much as us, so I picked out a couple that would help her prepare and understand some of the upcoming changes in our family life. Needless to say she has already really enjoyed both of these lots ... but I thought I'd share them with you as useful resources.

The DK one 'A Life Like Mine' is full of photos and examples of what different areas of life is like for a child all over the world ... from the meanings of names, availability of clean water ... to living with disabilities, exposure to war and many many more subjects ... a great conversation starter when talking about living in another culture and showing that just because someone does something differently doesn't make it wrong.

The other book, 'We All Went on Safari', is a great counting book and introduction to Tanzania ... Masai, African animals and 1-10 in Swahili! Having lived in Tanzania before, I still have quite a good understanding of Swahili but it will be all new to both my girls and my husband, so I thought this would be a good, fun starting point to introduce a little Swahili into the house (as it will most likely be spoken in all of the East African countries we will be in next).

Every page shows the number and the Swahili word ... and at the back of the book there is some more information about Tanzania, the Swahili names for all the animals they use and the meanings of the different character names too, as well as a summary of the numbers (all with pronunciation spellings to help if these new words aren't familiar!)

So ... for those of you who might be interested in the basic numbers ...

1. moja - mo-jah
2. mbili - m-bee-lee
3. tatu - ta-too
4. nne - n-nay
5. tano - tah-no
6. sita - see-tah
7. saba - sah-bah
8. nane - nah-nay
9. tisa - tee-sah
10. kumi - koo-mee