Rita's Family

Rita has been a shining light for us here in Konongo - apart from keeping our house nice and clean:-) She's always good fun and has a cheeky sense of humour, she's always on time (which believe me is a blessing around here) and no request is ever too hard. I've come to know her family well too, so we had them around to our house for a Christmas dinner last night. When I asked her mother what she would like to eat she replied "Cake, chicken and Malta (which is a non-alcoholic drink like Guinness) - fairly random requests!

So I cooked up a big feast (with Rita's help) - I thought I'd cooked up an enormous amount of food, but in true Ghanaian fashion they managed to eat it all! And they commented that I didn't eat very much - that's me, who usually eats more than any other girl I know! They have hearty appetites that's for sure (or its quite possible they hadn't eaten that day at all).

Rita's family is headed by her mother Mercy, who is a strong, little matriach (in yellow dress). Her first husband died, and her second husband (Rita's father) already had another wife! So its just her now and she has six children - two boys and four girls, who are all strong women too. Rita's older sister Olivia (in pink) and her three kids, and her younger sister Asha (in blue) and her baby Jacinta and son Jo are in the photos, and also Rita's son Kevin. We gave the kids some soccer balls and stockings filled with lollies, chips and party whistles - I wished they didn't have the whistles after about 10 minutes! But they enjoyed them....

I cooked a big cake too, with icing and Happy Christmas written on top - they'd never had a cake like that before so it was quite a novelty, and her mum asked if she could take the leftovers home with her. I think they liked it!!