Reid and I have been taking language lessons as of late. We contacted one of the Oshikwanyama language teachers who contracts with Peace Corps to provide language training to the volunteers. Oshikwanyama is spoken in the North of Namibia by one of the country's many tribes of indigenous peoples. We've been going about twice a week to her house for the past month or so and we've gotten most of the greetings down. Whether or not we master the rest of the language remains to be seen, however. The grammar is quite complex and most all of the vocabulary begins with an oshi- or om- or an e- making it difficult to distinguish one noun from another. Plurals are made by changing the word's begining. So, for example, oshapi (the word for key) becomes eeshapi in the plural. That's actually an easy one and it of course can get vastly more complex yet.
Our teacher, Rachel Hatutale, tries to incorporate as much of the culture as possible, so yesterday afternoon and evening she invited us over to help cook a traditional style meal. On the menu, mopani worms (caterpillar type creatures that are dried and then "reconstitued" when cooked before being eaten), omohangu, a grits-like dish made from millet flour, evanda, a spinach type dish, and two types of bean dishes (one that closely ressembled black-eye peas). The pièce de résistance, however, was the chicken that we killed, plucked, cleaned and cooked on the open-fire ourselves.
We brought the kids along for the affair and they were about as adventurous as they could be. The girls wouldn't touch anything green, but they did like the chicken. Augustus got the mopani worm into his mouth, but couldn't quite get the nerve up to chew it even with heavy encouragement. I must confess that I probably won't be including mopani worms in my repertoire of recipes, but they were spicy and would no doubt be good in an étoufée had we been able to acquire them fresh instead of dried.
Rachel dressed up for the occasion (see her photo above) and was the consummate hostess. Many thanks to her for working so hard for a bunch of oshilumbos (I probably got the plural wrong on that--no --s plurals in this language). The dishes were all laid out as if it were Christmas or New Year's. In fact the black eye peas and the spinach combination reminded me greatly of our Louisiana tradition of eating black eyes and cabbage on New Year's. Perhaps there is a connection, who knows. Maybe good luck is in store for us yet, despite the fact that we missed out on those items on the first of January as we had just gotten in country. Let's hope so anyway!
Our teacher, Rachel Hatutale, tries to incorporate as much of the culture as possible, so yesterday afternoon and evening she invited us over to help cook a traditional style meal. On the menu, mopani worms (caterpillar type creatures that are dried and then "reconstitued" when cooked before being eaten), omohangu, a grits-like dish made from millet flour, evanda, a spinach type dish, and two types of bean dishes (one that closely ressembled black-eye peas). The pièce de résistance, however, was the chicken that we killed, plucked, cleaned and cooked on the open-fire ourselves.
We brought the kids along for the affair and they were about as adventurous as they could be. The girls wouldn't touch anything green, but they did like the chicken. Augustus got the mopani worm into his mouth, but couldn't quite get the nerve up to chew it even with heavy encouragement. I must confess that I probably won't be including mopani worms in my repertoire of recipes, but they were spicy and would no doubt be good in an étoufée had we been able to acquire them fresh instead of dried.
Rachel dressed up for the occasion (see her photo above) and was the consummate hostess. Many thanks to her for working so hard for a bunch of oshilumbos (I probably got the plural wrong on that--no --s plurals in this language). The dishes were all laid out as if it were Christmas or New Year's. In fact the black eye peas and the spinach combination reminded me greatly of our Louisiana tradition of eating black eyes and cabbage on New Year's. Perhaps there is a connection, who knows. Maybe good luck is in store for us yet, despite the fact that we missed out on those items on the first of January as we had just gotten in country. Let's hope so anyway!
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