Tuesday, June 10

When we were visiting Gayly and her family back in America, we attempted to make cassava pudding using frozen cassava that had already been scraped, banana leaves a colleague found at a specialty store, and canned coconut cream.  It was a disaster!  So today, we showed Gayly how REAL cassava pudding is made.  Before we could get started though, my sweet friend, Margaret Rasol, came by bright and early to bring a shell necklace for Gayly.  

I had already planned to ask her to make one, but thoughtful Margaret beat me to it!

Water is getting low, so we decided that today would be the last day to wash sheets until we experienced a big rain to help refill our rain tanks.  Sweaty, stinky sheets are no fun, but they are much better than not having any water to drink.

The tool we use to scrape cassava is called a “maio” and it looks like some medieval torture device. 

We were able to get an early start on scraping since we brought back cassava from the garden yesterday.  

We also had lots of very ripe bananas today, so we decided that it was time to make another big batch of banana cake to share with our neighbors.  We've almost completed the entire village, and we hope to have enough time (and bananas!) to get through the whole village again before we leave for Honiara.  When we reached the first house for banana cake delivery, we found a large family group gathered to shell havu.  Tis the season!  Katherine sat down to take her turn  while the rest of us visited and held babies.



I took my turn trying to crack open these very tough nuts, too.  It's very humbling when small children can shell the nuts twice as fast as I can.  But sitting and working together and chatting away builds special memories, too, even if I am slow!
We wanted to show the kids the starfish we discovered yesterday, but the only path I knew was from the cemetery, and we found ourselves on the other side after delivering all of the banana cake.  Thankfully, Leku came to my rescue.  I asked for directions, but she offered to come along and show us the way.  I wasn't sure she would want to, since we had to walk through the bathrooms to get there.  But she was willing and even called me back when I took a wrong turn through the bush.  I don't know if anybody ever uses this sign at the start of the bathroom beach, but I was thankful to find it turned to the “girls” side as we walked through.
The starfish were still there on that little strip of sand, and Benjamin especially enjoyed playing with them.

Katherine's favorite thing to do was flip over the starfish and watch them perform gymnastics feats to get right side up again. 

 

Sarah found a little hermit crab and nestled it in the palm of her hand.  

What a beautiful piece of God's creation, right here in Marulaon! 

We had to hustle home to start the cassava pudding cooking.  Aaron had already started the fire, and the sun caught the smoke as it streamed out of our little kitchen.  

  
The kids and I quickly showed Gayly how to put together the cassava pudding, alternating the thick coconut cream with the grated cassava,  then wrapping the whole thing up in banana leaves to cook on the hot stones.  We will have a VERY early start in the morning to go over to Karumulun Village and celebrate St. Barnabas' Day.