Nsima Exam

So excited! My two daughters were taking exams for the past two weeks at school and I also had an exam at our home. For the month of March I made sure to cook "nsima," the staple food here in Malawi, or watch and take notes everyday so that I could finally master the mystery behind the magic. When first arriving in country, we hear nothing but "Nsima, nsima, nsima." We try it and like it a little bit. Most volunteers eat rice daily, not nsima but Malawians do not claim they have eaten until they have nsima. They could come to your home, eat an entire pizza, a dozen wings, and brownies and go home and tell their friends they didn't eat. Currently I eat nsima twice a day and love it! Nsima requires a lot of work to create the final product. First, planting maize "corn" and catering to the field for at least 5 months until it is time to harvest. Then after harvesting, removing the kernals from the cob and drying them in the sun. Then, pounding by hand...difficult, or transporting a 70lb bag to the maize mill (on a crappy bicycle) to have it ground by machine. Cooking is not easy either. I am pictured in the first and last stages of the cooking process, but the most challenging part, stirring, was left out. It is rigorous and dangerous because you are cooking over a hot fire and the first state of nsima is a liquid porride that must turn to a solid state by adding flour and rigorous stirring. Spattering is possible and on this day, I did burn my thumb leaving a blister for a few days. Many Malawians have nsima burns that are permanent! I sort of want a nsima burn before I go for a memory, like some other volunteers who branded the outline of Africa in their backs! A tribal, painful and macho way to remember...but I am not serious. So I was scored during this performance and received 19/20. I would have had a perfect score except that I was a bit hesistant with the amount of flour I added during the stirring stage and asked Beatrice for clarificiation (my youngest student/roommate) and she said, "Its find Madam." It turned out soft and she said, "Madam, you should receive a perfect score because I told you it was ok." I replied, "It was an exam and I shouldn't have been asking you for help. It is my fault." So now I am so thrilled because I know how to cook a "proper" nsima. I can't wait to cook it for someone else, i.e. my family back home when I make my authentic Malawian meal! Never tried it on a stove but it must be somehow easier!.