PC lesson number one finally hits home: Host nationals must want change for change to be effectual. I could not convey why my mud/cow-poop stove would save time, wood, and smoke/soot-filled eyes. My poor language skills failed me; but moreover, no one wants a new stove because the old stove is just fine for their purposes. Silly me – lost their attention in less than 10 minutes. All that time trying to describe and then illustrate a better stove.

 

So tell the Inuit people that they need a better mouse trap. Hey, they don't have much of a mouse problem, so why would they need a better mouse trap? Moose trap? Maybe. But trying to sell a better mouse trap to someone who hardly has a mouse problem and you're going to encounter some cultural obstacles. Thus it was with my better stove. Not an easy sell. And thus I returned to making dinner with the girls.

 

Tonight's fare? Something that I believe is called (or at least phonetically pronounced) benyadoh. Here's how it's made.

 

Take a large scoop of leave from any bean plant. Not the beans, just the leaves. Pound the heck out of 'em in my favorite Burkinabe device, the old mortier and pilon. Make a green, liquidy pulp. Mmmmy, right? Toss the watery pulp into a gigantic bowl and add about a pint of finely sifted millet grain. Then put some raw peanuts into the mortier. Again, pound the living daylights out of the poor little nuts, sift the powder, and add another pint of peanut powder to that gummy green leaf mix. To this, disolve in water about a golf-ball sized piece of potass (I think it's potassium). Mix, mix, mix, but only with your right hand. Add water as needed to make a fairly soft paste that just barely holds together. Then form (right hand only) into golf ball sized balls. This isn't difficult. It's not even difficult to get fairly uniform little balls. But the girls laughed and laughed at me. FQR. Filles qui rivent. I saw at least 40 balls in the pot, and for the life of me I could not distinguish their balls from my balls. Finally, one of the girls remarked, about my ball, tres jolie. Very pretty. This escapes me. I thought my balls were fine.

 

To conclude this tall ball tale, the raw balls are placed atop of the raw greens from the peanut plant (roots and all, peanuts removed, however), which rest on a devise like a steamer inside a large marmite over a flame. So I suppose the leave-nut-balls are steamed. They don't taste bad . . . like a vegetarian meat substitute. I can actually image that, with tomato sauce, they be great as meatballs or even lasagna filler for Italian food. Maybe meatloaf. With lots of lettuce and mustard, possibly even a burger.

 

Wouldn't things would go so much quicker here if we could use our left hands? We can only speculate.