Blogathon Day 12: Dinner with the Solár Family

A while back, Laura and I went to Izaquel's house for dinner and to meet his family. They slaughtered a chicken for us -- an incredible gift from a family that often eats one meal of nothing but xima per day. Last week, we mentioned to Izaquel that we wanted to return the gesture and have them here for dinner.

"Maybe Sunday..." Laura said offhandedly.

"Sure, maybe," said Izaquel casually as he went to go wash the dishes.

We didn't discuss it again, and had completely forgotten about it until Sunday night, when Izaquel's parents and three siblings showed up at our house for dinner. We hadn't cooked anything and turned to each other with a panicked look of, "Oh, $#!%!"

Thankfully, we're pretty good at rolling with the punches by now. We put on a movie for them to watch (Ratatouille, which they loved) and took stock of our kitchen. Laura whipped up a potato stew type thing and I made a Mozambican-style cabbage salad.

During the meal, we didn't talk much. Only Izaquel and his dad speak Portuguese, and our Nyungwe isn't really good enough yet for us to have meaningful conversations his mom and brothers. There was a lot of charade-type gesturing. Still, everyone enjoyed themselves, and they ate a lot.

Izaquel's family.