Burning bagels and bricks

 A quick update blog before I leave for an amazing trip to Cape Town and Zanzibar (an island off the coast of Tanzania) with Adam and his brother and sister-in-law.  All last week, Adam and I were excitedly researching restaurants in Cape Town, planning out each meal, making sure to find the best burgers and pizza Cape Town has to offer.  Crazy to believe I will soon be in the first world again for a couple weeks!

Meanwhile, back here in third world living, last Sunday, Adrienne and I decided to try to make bagels.  We lit our carvão (charcoal) and prepared our “oven” using the smaller-pot-inside-of-a-bigger-pot formation, excited with our idea for spending our lazy Sunday morning.

How to make bagels:

1.  Prepare the dough – yeast, sugar, salt, warm water, flour

2.  Let dough sit 30 minutes

3. Separate dough into small balls and add any desired seasoning then form in to bagel shape

Adrienne makes her bagels

4. Let rise 20 minutes

5. Put bagel in boiling water until it rises to the top, then flip over

Boiling the bagel

6. Remove and sprinkle with any topping seasonings

7. Bake until brown on bottom

A peek into the baking bagels

 8. Enjoy!

We each made three bagels –cinnamon sugar, garlic and onion, and random spices

In the end, our “bagels” came out…okay.  They didn’t really rise and were kind of a dense consistency, I think at least partly because the “oven” doesn’t get to the designated 400-500F temperature.  It was a fun experience, but not one that Adrienne and I are eager to repeat again J

--Library Update--

Things are still progressing with work on the library.  Everything takes longer here than it should, but slowly but surely, we are right on (African-time) schedule. 

Making the bricks has taken much much longer than expected.  After some complications this week with obtaining wood to begin the second phase of brick making, brick burning, I think we are finally in the last stretch of the process.  All 5,000 bricks have been formed and will now spend 4 days in a giant “oven”.

The "oven" and our brick masters

The “oven” is a giant structure made with about 6-7 rows of bricks stacked about 4-5 feet high and 3-4 feet deep and then everything covered with mud and sticks.  For the burning process, they will lay the wood in between the stacks of bricks and keep the fire going for the entire 4 days.  Then, they will let the bricks sit and cool off for about three days.  After, they inspect the bricks, checking for ones that did not burn well and repeating the entire process again.

Veranda in progress

I am hoping when I get back from my trip, we will actually be able to start the construction of the library building!  This past week, we began the construction of an outside covered patio area and have begun preparations with our carpenter to start making the window and door.  Once the bricks have finally been completed, I am hoping things will finally start to progress a little faster!  After almost a year of planning, preparation, grant applications, donations, and waiting, it is all finally starting to happen!  Pretty amazing J  

Later this afternoon, they actually started the burning!  You can feel the heat emanating even standing several feet away!