Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Ragi Ball / Ragi Mudde
Whenever I have leftover food at the house, Angel (our cook) asks me to not throw it away, she'll take it home for her family. This has included 1/2 of a child's serving of cold spagetti, to an overripe papaya, a crystalized 1/4 bottle of honey, etc.
Angel is the 2nd oldest of 10 children. Her father is not living, her mother is not physically able to work (I'm not sure what her affliction is but she has large swollen legs and sores, is this diabetes?) And one of her sisters lives in their "house" with two kids (one is deaf) and her husband left her to marry another women.
A majority of the household expenses falls on Angel's shoulders. But since she is a Christian she maintains her happiness and believes God will provide.
Yesterday I offered Angel a liter of heavy cream. She made a Valentines cake for us on Friday and asked me to buy cream. There are two sizes - small or BIG and I didn't know how much she needed so I bought BIG. She only used a little bit and the heavy cream here is crazy heavy so I knew we wouldn't use it. I asked her if she wanted it, she said yes but does not have any refrigeration so she didn't know what to do with it. I said to make a creamy lentil dish for dinner because the small children in her family are super skinny. I said the cream would give them a little fat and would be very filling. I also sent her home with .5 KG of a different kind of lentil so she could make something entirely new.
This morning she came by the house to thank me. She made the lentils and used the whole liter of cream in the dish (even swirled water in the container to get every last bit). She said it was the FIRST time they have had something new in their house for dinner.
WHAT?!?
For dinner, every night, they have Ragi Balls. Ragi is a black flour. Their mother boils water in a pan, adds the flour, stirs it until it's the consistency of dough, then they roll the dough into 12 balls (1 for each person). This is served with a "gravy" of dahl.
How to eat:
You pull off part of the Ragi Ball, dip it in the dahl, and swallow it whole. Like a tablet. You don't chew because it's too sticky.
And this is what she and the other 11 members of the family have for dinner every night.
When her mother goes buy "groceries" she spends Rps. 10/ = $0.21 to feed the family.
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