Family Entertaining

Stro with Erin Anna

Team Gentil (The house is named Villa Gentil), aka Chanelie and Wellcome, work very hard to support Stro in her own work. We decided it would be fun to give them an extra day off, bring in a guest team, and serve a lunch to them and their mothers and children. So we chose a recent Friday afternoon when everyone was available. I was excited to meet their mothers and the children, especially Erin Anna, my Erin Strother's namesake, who is all of six months old now and has long outgrown the little dress I knitted for her. 

Monica is entering high school

We enjoyed beverages and hot canapes of samosas and a hot pepper sauce and got acquainted inside before going out to the porch where we had two round tables beautifully laid with flowers and tablecloths. Wellcome's boys, Prodige (&) and Ilyes (3) and Chanelie's daughter Monica (14) were all equally shy and quiet. All of them had presents from Vermont, such as books, wooden toys, goat milk soap, maple candies. Erin Anna, who also got a pair of red Keds for when she is about one, was the center of attention and she graciously put up with being snuggled and hugged by all the adults. In fact, she is such a placid baby we did not see anything but stares and smiles form her all afternoon. But we must have worn her out because while we ate she crashed on the couch.

Crashed

Both moms are teachers and are on vacation at the moment. Leontine, Wellcome's mom, lives in Pointe Noire and comes to visit when school is out. Chanelie's mom, Monique, teaches here in Brazzaville. Everyone arrived beautifully outfitted in pagne, which we also wore as a sign of respect. Our guest hospitality team of Antoinette and Beaujolais offered us a substantial Congolese lunch featuring fish with vegetables, beef brochettes, mixed green vegetables (spinach and small green eggplants), and plenty of both rice and manioc root. For dessert they gave us a dish of fresh fruit, including passion fruit and mango, pineapple and bananas. 

Fish & vegetables

Ilyes and Prodige checking
out the hammock

When they got bored at lunch, the boys tested out the hammock. Their conclusion was not a wholehearted endorsement but maybe more like, this is weird.Then the real fun began. Stro has a new toy called a "ngongo." This one is very old and was used to send messages in the bush or village. After observing Monique play it, Prodige got brave and stepped up. In the meantime the grandmothers were making rhythms with the shaken rhythm instruments Stro collected on a visit to the DRC. 

Prodige on the "ngongo"

Chanelie with a tray!

The entire visit was relaxing (though we had to keep Chanelie from cleaning up) and fun. The conversation was mostly in French, which meant I missed a lot but could follow a respectable amount of the conversational drift. We tried to take a group photo at the end but it was starting to get dark.

Leontine and Monique add some rhythms.

Team Gentil