Mafuta is a nearby village in which there is a feeding center that we provide food for. There are local volunteers who do the preparing of food, serving, and teach the preschool. Since Jessica has been gone on furlough, I've been the delivery/firewood girl and yesterday was my last day there. Shortly after they had made me do the final stirrings of pap (corn meal) for the kids (exhausting...seriously), a guy rode by on a bike selling tiny little fish. The largest was maybe 1 inch long and were N$1/cup. So the makuwas threw in N$5 for the experience on how they are prepared and, of course, a taste test :-)
First you separate out all the large (1 inch) ones from the small ones then put them in water a bit at a time and start squeezing handfuls to remove their innards. Then you sort through them and pull out any grass or large pieces of dirt. To cook them, they are all put into a pot together over an open fire and fried with oil. They are stirred for a while before finally getting mashed up and adding salt to taste.
The final outcome included everything from bones to eyeballs, but all eaten mashed onto a handful of pap. I have to say, I had my doubts, but it was extremely delicious and definitely worth the experience. Pictured above is me with the Mafuta volunteers enjoying our meal of pap and (tiny) fish.
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