Roly-Poly Fish Heads

Fish Heads in the bucket

Roly-poly fish-heads:

The details of how I got into such a mess are unimportant, needless to say. We ate some intestine destroying tacos for dinner because we thought a certain group of people were not going to uphold their promise to feed us fufu, or to meet with us. 

We were dead wrong and the entire family was poised to feed us the moment we walked in the door. We sat down and the husband changed whatever Netflix show he was watching to Kinyarwandan gospel music. The wife and daughters set freshly made fufu down before us with 3 meat options: beef, chicken and fish. Then one of the daughters came over with a large basin, soap, and an empty pitcher of water. Not about to let anyone wash his feet Elder Alleman quickly shot his hands out and the girl washed our hands. Elder Bugingo later informed us that it was a pretty common practice to do that among refugees from Congo  The father said like a 2 second prayer and then I sat looking at the food. I grabbed a piece of fufu and immediately regretted it. It was as hot as a foot burning George Foreman grill. Without screaming I calmly set it on my plate. I started to reach for the beef but then the father came walking around the corner with a bucket. Honestly, I wasn't even surprised when I saw the contents: large fish heads.

"Elder Murdoch loves fish!" Elder Alleman said, with a grin.

The father got really excited and got a soup ladle and used it to hack off part of a head. He plopped it on my plate and after waiting for a second dumped fish juice on a separate plate. 

After taking a photo I got a piece of fish and bit into it. Bones. It was almost entirely bones. No one else seemed to mind though so I just kept them in my cheek like an idiot and kept eating. The fish was not cooked, it had been gutted and soaked in something but not cooked. I thought back to my zoology days and tried to remember what the signs of liver flukes were. It didn't taste that bad, better than trout at least. 

I kept following my hosts lead shoving fufu and fish into my mouth. Finally someone asked me, "Are you eating the bones?"

"Hawh! Nooo..." I said lowering my lip and letting tons of fish heads fall onto my plate. 

Like every other fufu encounter everyone else was done before me and I was sweating. But eventually I managed to finish my fish head and my fufu. 

Angelique:

We have an investigator named Angelique, I'm sure I've mentioned her before but everyone please pray for her. I can't ask you to fast for her because that's against the rules. She is just the greatest.

She excitedly called us Thursday evening to tell us she had passed her citizenship test and that we were invited to her celebration barbeque on Friday. That was really cool that she liked us enough to invite but when we showed up, it was to hot to barbeque. She told us to come back later though. After having great Swahili adventures in the same complex where we met the dark wizard last week we returned at like 8:45 really apologetic that we had missed it. She told us she had just decided to throw a party next week and that she was only going to cook for close friends and family that night. She considered us to be close friends and had prepared, cooked, and packed Tanzanian style barbeque chicken for us. Then on Sunday she told us she was seriously considering baptism but it was just a matter of timing. She'd been dropped like twice before but now she thinks she's ready. Guys, please pray for her as she prepares to take this step. 

Sorry it was such a lame email this week, a lot happened but I didn't have enough time to type. Sorry If I don't get to all your emails too.

Love y'all,

Elder Murdoch