Nshima, Beans and Other Things (Zambia Journal: Part 4, and more)

Wiphan’s feeding program provides Wiphan students with one meal on every school day. It's a huge benefit to being enrolled at the school.

The children who attend school in the morning eat after their classes; the children who attend school in the afternoon eat before their classes. I was hanging out at the Mapalo campus one morning when the afternoon bunch started showing up. Their green uniforms and black shoes distinguish them as Wiphan kids from the tens of other children who are not able to attend school but who spend their days playing around the schoolyard. Little friends engaged in conversation. Girls formed a circle to play hand games. A few boys kicked around a soccer ball made of plastic bags and twine.

When it was time for lunch, a teacher rounded up the students and they ran to the school building and formed a line in front of the big pots of nshima (pronounced shee-mah) and beans, digging their bowls or plates out of their bookbags or plastic grocery bags that many of them were using for bookbags.

Scoops of nshima and spoonfuls of beans were dished into their bowls and the children found places to sit and eat amongst their classmates. The servings looked big, much bigger than what I would put on my girls’ plates. But there were no leftovers. For many of these children, this is their ONLY meal of the day.

Before heading to their classrooms, the children walk over to the community well situated on the campus to rinse off their plates so they will be ready for the next day's meal.

The little girl pictured above is G, one of our family’s sponsored children. I watched her and the other Wiphan kids at the Sinia campus line up to eat one day. One of G’s little friends realized that she’d forgotten her bowl. I watched G ask for a little extra and explain that she was sharing with her friend. They sat down, the two bowls between them, and proceeded to bow their heads and fold their hands. G prayed. She finished her prayer with the sign of the cross. It was a such a precious moment. I was so touched by my sassy little G’s generosity in sharing with her friend. I held back tears as I observed her heartfelt thankfulness for such a simple meal. This picture reminds me of the one my parents had in our dining room of an old man praying over his bread and soup. I want to frame it as a reminder to me to give thanks for every small blessing. And to pray for G. As I sat with G and her friend, I noticed a little boy putting a handful of nshima into the hand of a non-Wiphan child who was reaching through a small hole in the wall surrounding the Sinia school buildings. Oh, if only Wiphan had funds sufficient to feed and educate every child in the compounds. There is such a need.

Since I’ve been home, I’ve been trying to be smarter about my grocery shopping and meal portioning, but it still seems every week I throw out so much spoiled fruit and uneaten leftovers. I think of the Wiphan children in their food line, the non-Wiphan kids hungrily looking on, the widow who scraped the leftovers from my dinner plate into her purse to take home to her children, and the famine happening right now in the horn of Africa. . . and I feel so guilty and wasteful and undeservingly blessed. D and I are both in that uncomfortable processing, reverse culture-shock mode. I think we’ve been putting ourselves in that mode so often over the past couple of years that it’s beginning to be our normal. It’s a frustrating place to be. I'd rather be here than oblivious or indifferent, though. Our eyes have been opened, but there’s still so many questions we have that will never be answered this side of heaven.

Our daughters are so young and innocent and live such blessed, secure and sheltered little lives. There are a lot of things that we believe they are still too tender to be exposed to unnecessarily. I am grateful that my children have thus far been untouched by the cruelty of death, disease, and starvation. I wish that all children could have childhoods as carefree and full of joy and sunshine and laughter as they do. At the same time, we want to instill in them a passion for the kingdom and for serving those less fortunate. We actively involve them in corresponding with our sponsored children and they are always interested in hearing stories and seeing pictures from our mission trips. And they are developing an awareness of poverty out of their interest in learning about the places we've been and the lives of children they feel like they "know". This picture from my Zambia trip made a big impact on both of our big girls:

They now pray regularly for “the little girl with the doll head”. With her in mind, they initiated a household donation drive and piled our pool table with some of their treasured toys they want us to send to Africa (any logistics help would be appreciated!):

Their sweet little hearts are definitely empathetic when it comes to children not having a mommy and daddy to take care of them or toys to play with.

I wanted to initiate a conversation with them about poverty and explore what the Lord is doing in their thoughts and their little hearts. I decided to make a typical Zambian meal for dinner. As we set the table, we sang "There's No One, There's No One Like Jesus", my favorite Zambian worship song. As we ate, we talked about Victoria Falls, nature and some interesting Zambian cultural tidbits and traditions. It's important to me that our girls see the beauty and appreciate the good things about Africa and that they don't grow up only seeing the negatives.

Nshima and ndiwo is a typical Zambian meal. Nshima is the Zambian staple food made of corn flour (“mealie meal”). It cooks very similar to grits, but is a finer grind and tastes like the masa part of a tamale. When done, it has the appearance of mashed potatoes, but is thick enough that bits can be broken off into your hand. Because it’s rather dry, nshima is usually served with some sort of moist or juicy side dish called ndiwo or “relish”. The most common relish is chilemba, or boiled beans. Sometimes there will also be a vegetable side dish called ifisashi, made of collard greens or another green called rape and peanut powder (for our meal, I simply used Glory brand canned mixed greens (turnip, collard and kale), which I thought were close enough and would give the children something on their plates they were familiar with). In Zambia, if it’s a special occasion, chicken or goat or other meat will be served, and maybe some fried caterpillars or termite ants on the side (For real, y’all, caterpillars! Next year, I’m gonna sample some!). While looking for recipes, I stumbled upon THIS website, which has a lot of interesting information about nshima, including the significance of nshima in Zambian culture, history and politics.

How to Make Nshima and Chilemba:

Ingredients (serves 4-6 people):
4 cups dry beans (I used pinto, you could also use light red kidney)
2 tomatoes, chopped (I used 2 small tomatoes and ½ can drained diced tomatoes)
1 white onion, chopped
1 small bag plain white cornmeal (I used approx. 3 cups)
1 tbsp. salt
2 tbsp. cooking oil
Water

Chilemba:

If you haven’t already sorted through your beans , do so and remove all halves, rocks, discolored, etc.. ones (always amazing what you find in a bag of beans!). Put 4 cups of beans in 4 quarts of water with oil and salt and bring to a boil. Boil, stirring occasionally, for about 5 hours, adding water as needed to keep from drying out or burning. Whatever you do, don't let your beans burn! After about 5 hours, when beans are about done, stir in tomato and onion.

Cook for 10 minutes, then cover and move to the beans to a back burner (they will stay warm covered) to give yourself plenty of room to make the nsima.

Nshima:

Pour 5 cups of water into a medium pot and bring to boil as you add 1 1/2 cups of cornmeal, one tablespoon at a time, while stirring continuously. Keep stirring slowly until the mixture begins to thicken (will look a little like cream of wheat), boil and bubble. Turn the heat to medium, cover the pot, and let simmer for 3 to 5 minutes. Cautiously remove the lid. Slowly, a little at a time, pour into the pot the other 1/2 cup of corn meal and briskly stir until smooth and thick. Stir vigorously and continuously, adding more cornmeal to thicken.

I got to observe the Mapalo campus “lunch lady” making nshima one morning. She cooked in big pots over an open flame and used what looked like a wooden oar to stir. It takes 2-3 hours of stirring to cook a pot of nshima big enough to serve all of the Wiphan students.

It’s hard work, but she made it look easy:

Then she offered to let me have a try. I put all of my weight into my stirring motion; the nshima was so thick that it nearly lifted me off the ground! Everyone got a good laugh.

Ahh. . . this pot is MUCH easier to stir but still a lot of work!

As the nshima cooks, sprinkle a little more corn meal until desired thickness is obtained. The nshima should be very thick (no liquid remaining) and smooth (no lumps). Cover, turn the heat off and let the nshima sit on the stove for another 2 to 3 minutes. Serve hot.

With clean hands, tear bits of nshima off and use them to scoop up the ndiwo. Yum!

We’re trying to teach them to be adventurous eaters—often encouraging them with “if you want to go to Africa, you need to be willing to try new foods.” Miss K and Miss A were both sports and took bites of everything, but then requested a banana and an orange, respectively, to round out their meals. Miss M cleaned her plate and announced “Well, I’m one meal closer to going to Africa!”

As we ate our Zambian meal, our conversation turned to our sponsored Wiphan kids, G and C. What their lives are like and how Wiphan is helping them. We talked about all of the children in the compounds that are not able to attend school and who don’t get the one meal a day that the Wiphan students get, and what has to happen for Wiphan to be able to serve those children, too. We talked about our sponsored Compassion kids, E, A and T. We talked about James 1:27 and what it means to visit widows and orphans. And what our family can do to put James 1:27 in action—in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Haiti, and in Lakeland, Florida and wherever else God might lead us.

It was a fun dinner and a beautiful conversation. I love how my girls feel personally invested in the projects and organizations D and I are involved with. I love their excitement about new cultures and new people and how they care for and feel connected with children all over the globe. And I love their compassionate hearts and enthusiastic desire to serve others and change their world. I love that they are willing to part with their beloved toys and that they want us to adopt again so that an orphan can have a family. I pray that I will learn not to cling too tightly to things of this world, money or dreams of my own but always have an open heart and a willingness to go where the Lord tells me to go and do what the Lord tells me to do. I pray that the enormity of poverty and the orphan crisis never makes me cynical or complacent and that God will instill in me a pure and simple desire like my girls have to do what I can do. They inspire me and make me hopeful for the future.

As you all know, this is a time of terrible famine in the Horn of Africa, a region that includes Miss K's birthplace of Ethiopia. This has been something at the forefront of our minds and our prayers over the past few months. My cousin D is there right now, on the border of Somalia and Ethiopia, and he is witnessing some pretty horrible stuff. Anyone who grew up with me remembers the Ethiopian famine of the 80's. Well, this one is even worse. This is the worst famine in 60 years. Mothers should never have to watch their children die, much less to watch them starve to death and have to leave their precious bodies alongside a dusty road. It’s so unfair and unjust and everyone should be doing something, whatever they can, to help. And if we all do a little, together we can do a lot. Tomorrow, I’m going to have a guest blogger here to share something you can do to help. I hope you’ll stop back by and participate.

Epilogue: When I finished writing this post, I read back over it and thought how weird it was to one minute be talking about feeding programs and famine and the next minute be sharing recipes and pictures of our abundant table. I think most bloggers would have broken it up into a couple of different posts, one serious, one lighthearted. I decided to leave it all in one as a pretty accurate representation of the struggle that seems to be constantly going on inside me between wanting to enjoy the blessings in my life while at the same time being so burdened for those who suffer and frustrated about all the things that are so terribly wrong with the world.