Today we have a college ministry at the University of North Carolina @ Charlotte, and I do not have house help. Believe me, there are now times when I pine away for those days when I would come in from the African market or from teaching English at the Bible Institute, and the floors would be freshly mopped, savory food set on the stove, and the bathrooms cleaned to the max. Ministry with college students is extremely demanding and time-consuming, but the domestic conveniences in our American homes make it easier to keep up. Still after all those years in Africa with someone doing it for me, cleaning is not one of my favorite things to do. I admit it–I simply got spoiled. Again, cultural collisions pursue me!
It also dawned on me that having these African young people in our homes gave us the awesome opportunity and responsibility to teach them by our example. You know how it is: we can often live like we want to be perceived while out in public, waiting until we are in the privacy of our own homes to be who we truly are. Not so out there since our home was accessed by some of the very people to whom we came to minister. That reality brought all that to light! In many ways, it was a good exercise in living out our faith–off the cuff–not rehearsed–and in front of a perpetual audience!
Molly Maid, Jungle Style
About ten days after we arrived in Tappi and after indulging in the generous meals offered by fellow missionaries, I began cooking on a charcoal grill outside the back of our house. It was also the day that one of the Bible school guys started working with us. Paul, a well-trained Liberian, who had worked with another missionary family for several years, washed clothes in a tub outside for almost the entire day! I kept watching him through the window and thanking God that it was not me doing it, though there was also a part of me that felt guilty to realize someone else was doing the work I should be doing. I could never get over the fact that another person was waiting on me in the domestic realm that had previously been solely my responsibility. My Americanness never quite knew what to do with that reality!
Then there was the communication gap. One of the first lessons in relating verbally with someone from another culture is to never assume you are completely understood and to be very specific with instructions, using phrases from their cultural vernacular if possible. Paul, who I have already noted was helping us that first year we lived in Tappi, was a life saver. He taught me so much, he laughed with me about my ignorance of the West African ways, and was patient in showing me how to cook African chop (food) and how to use ingredients easily procured in that region. I felt like a wealthy woman who could afford to have a full-time chef in her kitchen, freeing me up to spend more time with Michelle, as she, too, adjusted to our new world.
One day it was my turn to laugh at Paul, although the laughter was initially hard to come by. If you remember, I said earlier that we always tried to buy enough food and staples to last at least six weeks. For that reason, we bought white and brown sugar and flour each in twenty-five pound bags. Before leaving the States, I had been given some extra large Tupperware containers that were perfect for storing the sugars and flour, since we had been told ahead of time that the ants and bugs would find their way into our food items that were not canned or well sealed.
Our mission plane had just arrived with a large quantity of food for all the missionaries. As became a tradition, either Jeff or I would roll our wheelbarrow to the airplane hangar where the men were divvying up the groceries for each family. It was an easy way to haul a large amount of groceries to the house, and also was not unusual to see Michelle riding on top of the mound of groceries down the hill from the hangar. Yes, it was indeed an exciting time for us when groceries arrived! Seriously, it was. Just imagine being cocooned 180 miles from civilization and then someone would bring you the food you needed. It was as good as a food drop!
As Paul and I were putting the groceries in the pantry, I was called away for some reason, so I quickly instructed him to put the large bags of white sugar, the brown sugar, and flour into the three containers that I had set on the kitchen counter. Simple instructions? I thought so, too. A couple of hours later, I came into the kitchen to begin supper preparations. Paul had already left for the day, so thankfully he was not there for my reaction to his detailed artwork with the sugars and flour.
Setting on the counter were the three plastic containers filled with the sugars and flour. Nice, right? Well, the one small detail that floored me was how he had painstakingly layered all three into each container: white flour, brown sugar, white sugar, brown sugar, white flour, and so on. All three containers were perfectly melded into that particular formula. I snapped. I cried. I called for Jeff. (What was he going to do about it, I didn’t know, but it made me feel better to know I could call him) As I recall, it had been a rather demanding day for that young missionary woman, so that incident was the point used to break me. Me, who has one of the biggest sense of humors that I know, did not laugh. Could not laugh. Not that day. Putting on hold my intention to make biscuits for supper, I went ahead with preparing a slightly altered meal for the family—sans the biscuits.
The next morning I remember trying so hard to make light of the layered containers of mixed flour and sugars when Paul came to work. I apologized for not being clearer in my instructions, and together we separated–as best we could–the flour and sugars. Weeks later, as I opened one of the containers to bake a cake, I started laughing out loud, alone in the kitchen as I pinched pieces of brown sugar from the flour I had poured into a bowl. Little by little, I was either going mad—or perhaps learning to let go of my American expectations. Either way, I conceded I would be happier.
Pillsbury Dough Boy
Those first few weeks of living in Tappi found me without a working oven. The gas stove (inherited from the last missionary that lived in our house) worked fine—the top elements anyway. The oven had some issues that could not be resolved easily, so I did without. Probably after hearing me whine enough about it and considering that I surely tempted him with chocolate cakes if I had an oven that worked, Jeff came up with a brilliant idea! He says that the inspiration came from his family camping days in the Carolina Hemlocks. His father, Hal, and his Uncle Warren, used a large metal flour container and constructed it into a makeshift “oven” that set right on the coals of the campfire. Though the concept was primitive, it did seem like a wonderful plan.
Somewhere out in our storage building, he found a very large, antiquated Pillsbury Flour can. Ingeniously, he welded, melded, and shaped a small portable, metal oven that I could set on top of the fire which was usually burning outside our back door on a brick grate. I was so excited about using that unique “oven” to bake cakes and cookies, that I failed to initially take into account that there was no way to regulate the temperature. The first several attempts, especially with the cookies, were a bust. With practice, though, I finally was able to bake a decent cake and some casseroles in that camp style oven.
Even when another missionary helped us temporarily repair our oven, using it for baking was still a rarity because we were not used to the cost of a tank of stove gas. As much as I can remember, a tank of stove gas would cost us nearly $50, and it was our desire to get at least six weeks out of one tank. A few months later, after Stefanie was born, my parents came to visit, and while there, my dad was able to properly fix the stove and oven so that it worked so much more efficiently. Way to go, daddy!
Fire and Ice
This is probably a good place to explain how we were able to have a refrigerator and freezer that worked twenty-four hours a day, even when we only had electricity for three hours in the evening and four additional hours on Saturday morning. Our fridge and freezer were both powered by kerosene. Honestly, I didn’t even know there was such a thing before we lived in Liberia, but appreciated them in spite of the atrocious smell that constantly permeated my house.
The process worked by initiating fire in the bottom of the appliance with kerosene, and then eventually, ice would form in the top compartment. By the heat going into an exchanger and cooling down rapidly, we were able to have a cool refrigerator. Never did I even somewhat understand the principle of that system but was just thankful that it worked. The five-gallon kerosene tank and burner sat on a shelf at the very bottom of the refrigerator. The room temperature and how often someone opened its door determined the efficiency of the cooling process. To secure the door, Jeff installed