Homeschool: Our Night in Nigeria

Calvin studied Nigeria in Geography, so we called upon an expert to round off the unit study.

A man in our ward is from Nigeria, and his family hosted us over for some culture. :) We made our own Nigerian flags and brought them with us. We also learned the children's names in Nigerian. When I round up that information, I will post it as well. :)

First, we saw the wooden bowls used to make their food (no food processors there). CS added Plantains and Yams and then some Palm Oil. Everyone tood turns mashing the food.

This was a very tasty dish - I am anxious to try it here at home. The wife of the family (JS) told us that when her parents were serving their mission in Nigeria, her mom would wake up at 4:00am to hear the women of the village pounding their food in their wooden bowls. They did this early on "Temple days" because the distance to travel to the temple was pretty great, so they made enough food to last them the whole day.

We ate the plantain/yam dish, coconut rice (YUM!), and catfish stew (YUMMMM!). We had tons of fruit as Nigerians eat that a lot. They don't typically have desserts, so we brought some ginger cookies (and fried chicken!). :)

This family even let Calvin try on some traditional clothing. CS put on his wardrobe as well. Doesn't Calvin look cute?

We leared about the soap they used (the big yellow block Calvin is holding is soap)

We saw a raw coconut (I never knew that the coconuts we see in the store is actually the coconut SEED!) Cool, huh? OH, and those things are heavy! In California, they employ young boys to climb trees and knock cocnuts down so they won't hit people on the head when they fall.

These are some very cool carvings that JS's parents brought back with them. They show traditional Nigerian life.

What wonderful people. We had a great time - we even got to see CS do a traditional Nigerian dance. I tried . . . tried being the word of the day. I don't think my hips are made for that kind of dance. :)