Chapati

There is a popular food here in Tanzania called chapati. It is made just like tortillas. The ingredients are almost the same. Jodie and I have been practicing and we've learned how to make it.

Last week Jodie and I geared up to make some chapati. After we had the dough all mixed and ready to roll we thought it would be fun to do something different besides making the chapati round. So...with our favorite African in mind...Pastor Mbasha...we decided to cut out some shapes that he would enjoy. The first shape was easy to choose...Pastor Mbasha is a man of love. He only knows how to love. When someone treats him wrong, his response is love...every single time...he loves to love. Almost everyday I tell him (in Swahili) that he is one big heart with arms.
So...our first chapati shape was a heart.
After the heart came out so nice we decided to try something else. Jodie shouted out, "Mapacha!" Mapacha is the Swahili word for twin...Pastor Mbasha says we are twins. We share the same birthday, including the year...we are the exact same age. So I made a boy and a girl mapacha chapati...I made sure the boy had muscles just like Pastor Mbasha. :)
It took a couple of tries to get the mapacha chapati right...Pastor Mbasha's head broke off and then my foot didn't survive the frying pan part of the cooking. After a few tries my mapacha chapati came out great. I took a picture of my mapacha chapati with my cell phone and attached the picture as my wallpaper on my phone. :)

After we finished with the mapacha chapati we wanted to make one more design...but we couldn't come up with any ideas. Then it hit me: God is Light (my last blog entry was all about God is Light). He came out great. Our night guard came to the door to ask us a question and I showed him God is Light and he said, "mbuzi." That is the Swahili word for goat...it really looked like a goat.

While we were making the chapati I sent Pastor Mbasha a text page to let him know we were making special chapati just for him. The next morning he asked about his special chapati. We brought it out to him one at a time...the heart first. He loved it. Then the mapacha chapati was second...he kissed it. God is Light was brought out last...He laughed so hard and then he tore the head off and ate it. His reactions were just what we knew they would be...priceless. :)