from Africa...

We received a package yesterday from my cousin, who has spent years in Niger, and recently traveled to Malawi; she thought we would enjoy this beautiful array of beans from her latest trip...

Such a feast for the eyes! There was also a bag of groundnut (peanut) flour, to use in baking, and baobab fruit powder. Doesn't that sound like a magical ingredient? I looked up an image of the fruit, and it dangles on a long stem, like a lantern, from the branches.

It was doubly interesting to get this awesome package, as our Netflix movie arrived along with it: Kirikou and the Sorceress, an animated film adaptation of a West African folktale.  With music by Youssou N'Dour and beautiful images (the plants! they are really gorgeous!),  it was a nice change from the Africa depicted in Disney films.  I am sure someone who has lived in Africa would have a different perspective on it, but I loved that the women were not clothed for our more puritan American audience, that the voices in the original (which is in French) are African, not Parisian, that the first sound heard is the rhythmic pounding of grain... The message is very pro-child: you may be small but you can do mighty things!

PS - We watched this again tonight with Papa for our movie night...had to absorb it more, you know. I love the messages in this movie! I caught so many more of the details, the images, the color, the words, (we watched in English)...there are a couple of things I would change (!!), but overall I think it is really good.