And we're off...

Just a quick note to ask you to keep us in your prayers.  In just a couple of hours, we are off to Kyela (about 2 hrs away - near the border of Malawi).  We have a meeting this afternoon, two tomorrow and another one on Sunday.  This seminar is with a newer contact.  We haven't been with this group before.  We really don't have much information - don't know where we will stay or anything, but we are trusting God to make it fruitful.
So, this blog will be quiet for at least a few days.  Hope you all have great weekends - no matter what your plans are!
xoxo

Beesiness...

So, a little while ago I briefly posted that we were harvesting honey.  First of all, we headed over to our friend's house to help them with their four hives.  Benjamin was taking the first set of pictures, so you won't see him until a little way down.  Overall, it was an exhausting experience, but very rewarding.  Hope the pictures give you a little glimpse into the whole process.

Here C is starting to smoke their first hive.  The smoke apparently makes the bees think there is a fire, so they want to save the honey - how do they do this?  They gorge themselves on it - this makes them a little 'drunk', but honestly, it doesn't make nearly enough of them more 'passive...'

Just want you to get a good look at how beautiful this honey is!  It is a lighter color than some because it was made by the bees more recently.  The longer the honey sits, the darker it gets.

 Yeah... hmmmm.... anyone want to play around these suckers without a suit???  I didn't think so!

Some of the honey and stuff that falls is left behind for the bees.  You want to leave a little bit on top for them  to build down from again, and you also want to make sure that your hive is staying healthy, so you don't take as much wax and honey as you can.

This picture below shows the hazards of the honey harvest.  There was a Tanzanian man working with C and Ben, but unfortunately, his hat did not zip to his suit - it was a draw string hat.  Can you see all of those bees clustered between his shoulders?  A number of them infiltrated through his hat and he got 5 stings on his face.  After this hive, he decided to be 'done' for the day and did not assist with the other 3.  He was medicated and sent home - and we saw him the next day - he seemed to be doing much better.

That night, the men processed some of the honey.  We ladies even got involved.  Due to some logistical issues (2 hives were on the top of the wall and the other one was on the top of the chicken coop roof), the men had a harder time with the other 3 hives.  It is hard to explain, but because of how they had to do some stuff, more bees ended up in the honey than normal.  The ladies joined in the processing process by using spoons to pick some of the bees out of the honey and off of the honey comb.  Then the men squeezed it and strained it.  We didn't get home that night until after 1 am.  Then we were back over around 10 am to finish up the processing process.  Don't you like those two words together???  :)  We were able to finish around 1 pm, so we had a nice lunch together, went home and rested for a bit, then all converged at our house to harvest our two hives.

The handsome men in their special suits... posing on the porch before heading out back to tackle our two hives.

While this was Ben's fourth time participating in the harvest, it was his first time being the one to open the hives and do more of the hands on harvesting

Good lookin' stuff right?

Hmmm... I think this picture ended up out of order.  Oh well... I will give you a little bit of Tanzanian trivia.  There are some Tanzanian tribes that make a habit of harvesting the wild honey.  They usually go in the middle of the night either wearing underwear... or nothing at all.  Why?  Because if you are wearing clothes and the bees fly/crawl into them, they WILL feel trapped and sting you, so less clothing = less possibility of getting stung... unless we are talking about a bee suit here...  And the bees are less active in the night time and with any cooler temperatures.

After harvesting the honey, we had dinner together, then the men went to work.  Thankfully, the honey was much less mangled and it was much easier to make it close to 'bee free'.  The ladies didn't actually have to do any work at all!  And we both agreed, we like that we can help, but bending over a bucket in the same position for 3 hrs the night before was more than enough!  Our necks and shoulders were complaining a bit.

This part of the process went sooooooooooooooo smoothly.  We were both surprised and thankful.

Here is the hubby showing off a container of honey he decided to keep in the comb.  It was all still quite nicely capped and somehow he enjoys eating wax...  Childhood memories or some such thing...

Here is a close up of the men squeezing the wax to release the delish honey.  They squeeze it into a strainer which then drains into a bucket.  Afterwards, the balls of wax that they have already squeezed are left to drain in another strainer.  Sometime in the future, the wax will be melted down, the impurities removed and it will be able to be used for other things.  We know someone here who makes candles and chapstick out of it.  Maybe one day we will do that, but I think for now, most of this wax will be used to bait hives for others who want to start keeping bees.

Well, in the end, our friends got over 26 litres (close to 7 gallons) of honey and we got somewhere around 12 (a little over 3 gallons).  While both men did get some stings, we are thankful for the Lord's protection over them during this process.  We are also excessively grateful for His abundant provision through His fascinating creation.

Be brave...

Following my recent tradition of random unrelated posts while some of you are waiting for the follow up posts to others...  I present a new post.  I titled it 'be brave' because some of these pics may be just a TAD embarrassing.  We were invited to a dress up party last week.  It couldn't just be ANY dress up party, NO! It had to be stuff you would rather die than be seen in public kind of clothes.  So, a friend and I went mitumba (used clothing) shopping.  We got caught in the rain.  As in, we got totally soaked.  And unfortunately, they covered up the 500 shilling piles (about 32 cents) before we could dig through too many.  Our outfits ended up a tad more expensive than we liked, but still pretty good - all things considering.  I think K's in total was about $1.37.  Mine was more, but I will be able to wear my stuff separately... well, except for the culottes (kinda) - meaning, if I get them taken in, I could wear them for pajamas.

You cannot see them totally in this picture - be thankful you were spared - but please notice the heart pattern in yellow, teal, lime green, and bright pink.  They are about 6 sizes too big, but have a draw string.  They came to my knees, and I paired them with knee high brown socks, just for a 'special' effect.  Oh!  And I should have a better picture of my shirt - it has like bat wings - you know, where the arm material is super baggy and like connects to your side material or something... anyway.  

The pictures don't really do us all justice... some of the excitement was simply from the special materials.  LOTS of polyester, an 80's jumper, shimmers, sparkles, an Elmer Fudd type hat, and a pleather yellow dress which I am bummed to say, we did NOT capture on camera.

 My full outfit also included a purple scarf, green undershirt, and pink shirt on top.  What can I say?  I love color... except these culottes just don't do it for me...

These fun ladies work for SIL in Bible Translation.  The one is a linguist, the other does accountant type stuff.

I was almost pretty jealous... this Elmer Fudd type hat - I mean - it had ear thingies that folded down.  AND it was multi-color... how cool is that???

Lovely family of four, aren't they?  Ben was almost jealous of C's tie that K found, but then I had a special one for him... Again, bad picture, hard to tell, but the tie is red with teddy bears all over it.  I told him to tie it WAY short - and in the end, I think it made him look kinda like an airline stewardess.  I must confess, he actually wore this tie to teach class today.  We told him just to make sure he didn't stop kids in the street and offer them candy while wearing the tie... creepy...


Hope you enjoyed this peek into one night of our life.  On the off chance that you visit and gain 300 lbs, I have a pair of culottes that will probably fit...
             'til next time!  xoxo

Subiri Kidogo...

Hey all, sorry I haven't posted more of the promised pics.  This post is basically to let you know that you will have to wait a bit...  I got taken down by a migraine last week, then fought acid reflux for about 5 days, so just generally felt icky.
Yesterday, we helped some friends harvest 4 of their honey hives.  Last night we got back home around 1 am.  Back today, picking out bees and bee parts, squeezing, sorting, cleaning.  Tonight we head over to our house to harvest our two hives for the first time!
More updates and pictures will follow... it just may be a few more days.
Loads of love!