While my roommate, the Wonderful, Amazing Heather, was gone to Senegal for the Peace Corps STOMP Out Malaria Bootcamp at the end of January, I didn’t have much to do. So I spent a lot of time wandering around Kakata, talking to our awesome neighbors, and (most importantly) baking. I perfected my cinnamon rolls (much to Lydia’s delight), half-invented a light, simple ginger spice cake, and figured out the best ratio of pineapple chunks to lime juice for tasty muffins.
While I was working one afternoon, Richard from my 10F class came by to visit. He was curious about baking and stayed to help me bake a batch of brownies and copy some of my recipes. As he was leaving, he mentioned that other students would be interested in learning to fix “sweet sweet cakes” so I told him to put a list together and if there was enough interest I’d start a baking club.
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| mixing the wet and dry ingredients for pumpkin cake |
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| measuring out cinnamon |
Richard is the class prefect of 10F and a very responsible and motivated student, so he did just that. And as it turns out there are plenty of students who like to eat cake and want to learn to fix it. So the Lango Lippaye High School Baking Club was formed. We’ve had two meetings so far, learning to make banana bread and pumpkin bread. Next week Ruth, who has some experience of her own, will teach us how to fix cassava cake (I’ll report back on that, of course, but I think it’s like cornbread?) and I have plans for pineapple cake and cinnamon rolls for May. And, in tune with the grassroots, sustainable, capacity-building development philosophy put forth by Peace Corps, I’ve got a group of creative, motivated students learning a marketable skill and building strong relationships with each other. I get to hark back to my former 4-H cooking project glories and eat tasty muffins at the same time. There’s no bad here!
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