Cooking with the sun

Our solar oven - let's get cooking!

Today is the day.  We are going to "fire up" the solar cooker!  All we do is set it out in the sun. What an ingenuis device.  Let the sun do the cooking for you.  There is a gas stove in the house, but we can't get gas bottles refilled here.  We have to take them to Juba, a whole day's drive one way! There is a charcoal pit at the back of the house we can use as well when we get charcoal, but as we have sunshine in abundance; today we will try out the solar way.  I wish I would've taken this up before -- on those hot summer days when you don't want to heat up the house -- just take your cooking outside and let the sun do the rest.
The first dish we cooked was rice -- it turned out really good.  The next day I cooked dried beans.  Unfortunately I haven't quite got the hang of reflective rays. The beans were in the cooker all day and were still a bit hard so I finished them up on the stove.  The third day I baked bread and brownies, yes very ambitious, but you have to jump into the deep end sometime!   Both turned out respectable, but improvements can be made.  All in all we are pleased with our solar cooking endeavors and as time goes on I'm sure our solar cooker will prove to be an invaluable piece of kitchen equipment.

At the market

We knew that as we moved into the house and began cooking, we would need supplies.  We brought some things with us, but certainly not everything. After our first dinner meal we realized the urgency of the matter.  We just could not live on dried greens and soya meat replacement for very many days -- well actually we probably could, but certainly not happily -- and we would quickly use up all that we brought.  So we must go to the market!

My new Wal-mart Supercenter.
He is filling a newspaper cone with our sugar.

Our list included rice, corn meal, wheat flour, dried beans, oil, salt, and eggs if available.  A friendly young man named Benjamin agreed to go with us our first time.  Market shopping is women's work, so Debbie was personally very grateful for the cooperation of Jerry and Benjamin who agreed to accompany her; lugging around a 20 kg (kilogram) bag of corn meal and 10 kg sack of rice would've been a serious difficulty for her alone!
The market is open air and you walk down dirt pathways to access the little stalls full of goods for sale.

The house in Rumbek

The house has been vacant for some time.  It needs a lot of TLC (tender loving care). Unfortunately while the house was empty it was broken into twice. Not only is it really dirty, the windows in the main room never having had glass in them, allows dirt to blow straight in, but it also looks as though it has been trashed to some extent by the intruders. Jerry has things he has to do.  First priority is to find the generator, if there is one, so that we can notify the well/pump guy to come and replace the old burned out pump which will allow us, once again, to have water on the property. I looked for a broom to begin the arduous task of reclaiming the inside of the house, sweeping “Africa” back outside.

The dust was swirling around me, but headway was made, and by the time we left the house at 5:30 in the evening we were bone tired but happy with our progress.

An arid place

A main road through Rumbek town.  

We have been in Rumbek, South Sudan for a week.  It is a very arid place. Yes, this is the dry season, but even accounting for that Rumbek and the areas that surround it are very dry.  We have met several people from more developed countries involved in well drilling projects.  Pictured here is one of the main roads through town. There are no paved roads, even the airstrip where we landed when we first arrived is unpaved.

Getting ready to go

Dried vegetable, soya meat replacement and dried
milk -- no refrigeration required!

We are on our way to South Sudan.  It is exciting as we are "going back to the bush".  However, I think this may be "bushier" than any of our prior "bush" experiences.
No one has been to the mission property in Rumbek since June, so we don't know the state of things; but we do know that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.  South Sudan is the challenge He has set before us and He is faithful to take care of us.