The following will offend vegetarians

Well what a start to the new year. Not unusually we were greeted in the morning by Masai who had taken to popping by to have long chats to us in what we believe was Swahili, happily bantering away with us completely unaware of what he was saying. This morning it seemed Masai wanted to lead us somewhere - we didn't know what he wanted so we followed him into the property next door and came to understand he wanted us to take a photo of him. After much confusion we finally realised we needed to go to where a large cow was standing and take a photo of Masai and Nathan with this cow. So here is the photo.

This is where we met Loveness, a very friendly Tanzanian girl who introduced herself to us after we walked into the yard unannounced with a Masai warrior and took a photo of her family's cow. Loveness who is a lawyer in Dar es Salaam informed us that in a few minutes, the cow was to be slaughtered cooked up as part of their family new years tradition. She introduced us to her lovely family and they all insisted we join them and their friends in the days celebration. The slaughtering was hard to stomach and has surely made us reconsider our eating habits. Masai was a key-man in the process and although he was thin and tall, he was crazily strong! He turned the whole cow over on his own! And he did not spill a drop of blood on himself or anyone else. The whole process was swift and precise with everyone operating as a well oiled machine. It was incredible and a little disturbing to see the massive pots full of seasoned beef which had been moo-ing only minutes before.

Then we got to witness a most incredible feat that would put all good catering businesses to shame. Some of the women and men of the family began the cooking process - meat, veggies, bananas, potatoes, rice etc were all being cut, chopped and seasoned. The cooking was carried out in the largest pots I have ever seen. The meat was cooked in about 4 different ways and accompanied with spicy vegetables, salad, pilau and biryani. It was such a smooth process and looked much easier than it was. Everything was spiced and cooked to perfection, using oversized spoons (the size of shovels) to stir the food. The smells were divine!

From the slaughter to having an incredible amount of food on the table, only took about 3 or 4 hours. The food was served piping hot, a complete mountain on each plate, for several hundred people!! We had never witnessed anything like this!

We parted ways (with very very full stomachs) and Loveness' mum had saved a mango for us from her farm, and she insisted we take it for dinner. Hands down, this was the best mango we have ever eaten.

Thanks to Loveness and her family for restoring our faith in humankind (- Nathan and I were becoming cynics after being ripped off, cheated and lied to so many times through Africa.

Happy New Year!!