Pumpkin Tale

One of the nice parts about living at Tenwek is the availability of fresh produce. We may not be able to drive to the grocery store, but there are plenty of little wooden fruit and vegetable stands near the hospital, and even people walking up to our doors on a fairly regular basis, selling stuff. I've been making Maggie's baby food since she started on solids several months ago, and now figuring out what to feed her has gotten a bit more challenging. We decided to see if she liked pumpkin (as she was already a fan of butternut squash, which is not very accessible here). One of the first days after our arrival, our house helper Ruth took us to the market and we mentioned that we wanted to buy a pumpkin. She walked us by a few shops and deemed their pumpkins, priced around 120 shillings (or $1.5), too expensive. She assured us she could find us one for 50 shillings instead. But she had no luck at the market the next week either, and so told us she was going to buy a pumpkin at a shop near her house, around an hour away.

The next day she arrived at our house, pumpkin-less. "I have bought you a very nice pumpkin! Very big!" she announced. However, it was so big that she could not carry it to our house. So she said she would keep it at her house until she could find a car to bring it. What? We were wondering if this was some sort of pumpkin scam. :) But lo and behold, on Christmas Eve, she brought the pumpkin. She wasn't working for us that day, she was working for another family, who didn't need her until 9am (we have her come at 8) so she could "walk slower" and carry the pumpkin. She was right, it was very big. And very tasty. It's now all baked and pureed and waiting to be either eaten by Maggie or turned into bread, muffins, stew... All for the low low price of 75 cents.