What's for Dinner?

Last week, I learned how it is to be a Mozambican woman in one way - cooking the meals. Our propane stove literally ran out of gas, and there was none to be found in town, so I was cooking on a little charcoal stove, outside, for four days.

Now, last year we lived with a lovely family in the bairro (slum area) for a week, and daily I watched the lady of the house do the cooking over a one-burner charcoal stove. It took hours, but I kind of chalked it up to the fact that she didn't have a lot to do and so could kind of dawdle over the preparations. However, I have a two-burner "grill" here at my house and I still found that cooking anything took a great deal of time. Just getting that stupid fire started was such a hassle. The you have to stand and fan it, and finally put your pot of water or whatever on top of it and wait for it to heat. It takes a long time. Thankful for my microwave, I just cooked once a day and we ate leftovers the rest of the time.

And boy was it it hot! The furnace blasting in my face was especially unpleasant in this 95 degree weather. Didn't like the smoke much either.

But back to the point. What I really found was that to cook anything takes a great deal of time. I didn't even want to fry an egg because in order to do that you have to light the fire 30 minutes ahead of time. You have to monitor the food closely because you can't regulate the temperature. For each meal of the day, you must light the fire and hover nearby. Everything is cooked from scratch, and to make the daily staple, shima, takes quite a bit of time. And that is if you are cooking that and not the cheaper option, mandioca, which must be pounded with a giant mortar and pestle, then boiled, then kneaded, then some other things I can't remember. And this is just for basic, daily living.

I was talking to some colleagues about having ladies' meetings, and they cautioned me that the women really only have two 2-hour blocks of time in a day, in the morning after breakfast and then after lunch. That is because they need to return home to cook lunch, then again to cook dinner, and they must be home after dark since it is dangerous to be out past that time in our city.

People talk about African women having it hard. I must confess that I didn't expect this level of work for city women, but for the majority of ladies in our city, this is reality. Which doesn't include of course, washing all the laundry by hand (including cloth diapers), nursing constantly, shopping daily for bits of food to put in the pot, etcetera. They do have a pretty good system with having the children and young people help with carrying water and cleaning the house, though. Absolutely necessary.

This week, I am very thankful for my propane stove. -Cami