NothingMore’s yard. Did you know that even chickens have their in and out groupies? This chicken is not part of the popular in-group of chickens in the yard and is being chased away by the nicer looking ones. He is quite tame and I often find him sitting quietly in a corner close to wherever people are working – even in our “class room”! On this picture the little black chicken is sitting on NothingMore’s veranda among the miscellany of a Mwinika household: It includes the white cassava (manioc) roots being dried in the sun to be stored and later pounded into a flour. This forms the Mwinika’s staple food. In the back and right in front on the left, the stringy stuff peeled from coconuts. Everywhere in Mwinika Land you can find coconuts and it is used to cook with leaves to form a spinach-like dish, or cooked with fish or rice for special occasions. Next to the chicken on her left side is a “capulana”, a piece of cloth that women wear as wrap around skirts, as tjarlies to keep warm, as blankets or as slings to carry their children. Very versatile! On the right is a broom made with sticks that we also use in our house to sweep the house and yard. A swept yard is the pride of any good Mwinika housewife! That only leaves the underpants in front of the chicken… not sure what that is doing there.
A Mwinika bathroom and toilet. Just a few stones on the sand where you can dip water from a clay pot to wash and do your “number 1” :). It’s surrounded by woven palm leaves, but because of the surplus of water, it is often overgrown by plants like this passion fruit that grows here in happy abundance! On the right in the picture is a handmade fishnet being used here to keep chickens out of an area where cassava root or peanuts can be dried. Nearly everything in a Mwinika household is multipurpose and biodegradable!
#Img3# With the rains falling, it is time to start planting sweet potatoes. Sweet potato easily grows from cuttings and here you can see two family members of NothingMore arriving with the sweet potato leaves and stems to transplant in their fields. In the background – the Literacy class is being taught!
A cute, big eyed baby in a sling with his mom. Won’t you pray with us that many, many more Mwinika will hear the Gospel and will come to Christ? So few know that they don’t need to work to get in God’s favour, but that Christ has already paid the price for their sins. Then, babies like this little one, can grow up knowing that he is loved by the mighty God of the universe and can call him Father!