We can't say NO

I remember a song from some old broadway musical. I've been told that it's from Oklahoma . It's called "I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say NO."

Well, I think that I am that girl and Brent is no better than I am.

Women here make a living by going to the markets, buying fruits and vegetables, peanuts and beans and then carrying them on their heads to places where they can sell them. It is a hard way to make a living. Sometimes they walk for hours just to get to the places where they can sell their load of food. Well, this week two of those ladies came to our house to sell us things.

Here I am on the back porch with Rosa making a deal. She has eight children. She had walked an hour and a half to get to the center of town to sell her produce.

The great African dress I'm wearing did not come from Africa. It came from Ross in Tempe, thanks to Julie Curtis, who wanted me to be in style in Africa.

I told her that I couldn't buy things every day because the two of us just don't eat that much, but I would buy a few things one day a week and I made her a list.

Well, today she was back with all the things on my list and much, much more. She had carried it all on her head as she walked an hour and a half from her home. How could we make her carry it all home?

Being the softies that we are, we ended up with so much stuff that we will not be able to eat it in two weeks, or maybe three. We also paid way too much for it because we are not good barterers either. (Car salesmen love us.) This is what we now have to eat this week. (10 tomatoes, 8 potatoes, a bag of onions and garlic, 7 apples, 14 oranges, 6 bananas, a pineapple, a watermelon, 4 green peppers, 3 egg plants (which we don't even like), 3 cucumbers, a cabbage, a head of lettuce and 18 carrots.) And we know she will be back soon! Probably tomorrow!

I think we might have to tell Robert next time she comes to lock the barrier and we'll hide in the back bedroom . We just can't say NO and somebody has to save us from the veggie/fruit lady!

P.S. More food talk

This morning as Brent came in to eat breakfast, I said, "This oatmeal that we found at the store the other day doesn't taste like real oatmeal." Then I thought a second and added "And we're having it with sugar that doesn't taste like real sugar, milk that doesn't taste like real milk, toast that doesn't taste like real toast and actual bananas." Such is real life in the Congo.

But....there were twenty baptisms in Lubumbashi this week. So, breakfast tastes pretty good!