The Preparation for Our 10th Birthday Party
Many days of effort went into preparing the cake, the food, and the events of our 10th birthday party.
The birthday cake
An “eye-catching” cake was specially made for our 10th Birthday Party! Look at the joyful faces of our team during the cake-cutting ceremony! Did you know that the colours on the cake, green, yellow and red, are the colours of the flag of the Republic of Congo? It is a super idea to celebrate the country we’re serving!
The birthday cake for our 10th Anniversary celebrations was truly a group effort! Joanne, our staff in UK, gave the inspiration and instructions on what to do.
- Joanne bought icing, food colouring, candles, cake boards, smarties, rice paper, edible glue and fondant in UK. She also bought dowels and straws to keep the layers of the cake up.
- All these the Samoutou kids transported to Congo.
- After arriving, Pierette our Congo team member and Cherissa made the layers of cake
- Cherissa and Joyce did the decoration
- Ezra helped with getting the colours right (remember the Congo colours green, yellow and red?)
- Karis mopped up all the icing remains
- Henri drove the car carefully to transport the cake
The Samoutous brought the cake at the last moment from home so that it wouldn’t melt, just in time for Facebook Live and by the time it ended it really was melting and going to topple over. But well done, everyone! We couldn’t tell from the screen it was melting! It looked lovely and happy.
Party invitations and banners
The Congo, UK and Hong Kong teams worked together with joy and excitement to decorate the walls of Interim Surgical Centre and decorate the social media platforms of New Sight to prepare for the festivities.
The making of Foufou
Our staff Patrick and student Franck made the Foufou in this vigorous mixing method! They are mixing paste from grinded cassava to make Foufou, which is like bread or mantou (Chinese steamed bun), to eat with other delicious Congolese food. Enjoy this video of making of Foufou on Facebook or Instagram.
Wendy and Tondolo fruit
Guess what fruit our volunteer staff Wendy is preparing?
Answer: It’s called Tondolo in Lingala. It’s a local forest fruit that grows only in Africa.
She’s scooping out the white pulp with brown seeds from the hard, red outer skin. The “fruit salad” is just Tondolo mixed with water. Looks very refreshing!
Making the outdoor stove
The team made an outdoor stove to cook the bushmeats, such as monkey, porcupine and wild boar, as well as catfish wrapped in leaves.
Annita and Pierette cooking the soups
Here’s Annita and Pierette preparing the wild boar and fish soups, first in the kitchen, and then in the outdoor stove for that unique Congolese flavour!
Pierette and Saka saka
Here’s Pierette our cook making Saka saka in our outdoor stove. Saka is the Congolese word for cassava leaves, which are only found in the tropics. This special dish Saka saka is made from boiled ground cassava leaves, mixed with palm oil, garlic, onion, eggplant and smoked fish.
Annita and onions
Do you know why Annita our staff is cooking with sunglasses on? She wants to cut lots of onions without crying!
She is cooking a special Congolese dish – salty fish cooked with aubergine, tomato, onion, garlic.
Annita making hibiscus juice and ginger juice
Our hibiscus flower juice and ginger juice were completely homemade! The ingredients were first boiled, then strained through fabric, and finally put into plastic bottles. They have natural and intense tastes and the ginger juice was very spicy!
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