Roasting...coffee. Real, Tanzanian coffee.

Did you know that you have to peal raw coffee beans after you dry them...before you can roast them? I didn't! until i had to peel a whole kilo of beans by hand. dont worry, i had help! Last Tuesday i went over to St. Laurents in the afternoon and asked if anyone knew how to roast coffee...the raw stuff that i got from Mbinga region. one of the cooks knew how, and helped me through the process. my students also helped a lot, especially with the peeling and

grinding! if you have never ground coffee with a mortar and pestle before, i highly recommend it.

i have made this coffee once since we roasted and ground it, and it was delicious! if we had power every morning when i wake up, i would make it every day.

today i made my weekly trip to Songea. i did some shopping in the market. i bought some raw peanuts, pumpkin seeds, and popcorn. this afternoon i made candied peanuts. i would say sugar-roasted, but there was way too much sugar to call them anything other than candy. they are very good, and very sweet!

while i was gone today, Charlie, Anne, Lennart, and Christa made jam out of some local strawberries and mulberries. i have already tried some. it is delicious.

Mass tomorrow morning at 7am. Last week i slept in and went to the student Mass (with the St. Benedict secondary students) at 9am with Charlie. since the audience is all students, the sermon was longer...about 40 minutes long to be exact. if you think 40 minute homilies are difficult to follow and too long for a Sunday during English Mass, imagine them in a language you only partly understand, like Kiswahili :) so, tomorrow we will go again with the monks at 7am. i like the music better at that Mass, too. after Mass tomorrow maybe i will bake a chocolate cake...look for that update in the next post.

all for now. almost time for bed.

below is a new picture i found of me and our previous German volunteers eating dinner at the St. Laurent's girl's dormitory.