Grace

TODAY'S HEADLINE:

My baby done lef' me.

Today, August 11th, was a cloudy, rainy, windy, dreary day in Lilongwe. Some say it is due to the fact that there are winds blowing from the lake and a heat wave is on its way, but I think it is because Grace MacNair left Malawi yesterday.

OHHHH HOW MY HEART ACHES.

I can not express how grateful I am to have spent my summer with this wonderful woman. She has taught me so much about so many things. The lessons I have included on this blog don't even BEGIN to cover all that she has taught be. I do have a few more to share though, so here is my final 

mini- installment of Lessons from Grace:

     1)    Whenever cooking a dish that has dairy in it, like quiche, put some nutmeg in it. It brings out the    flavor of the dairy so much more.

2) Sometimes babies come out of the womb lactating. Girls and boys!! Apparently, the hormones coursing through the mother’s body can affect the baby so much that the baby will temporarily lactate. Also, baby girls sometimes come out having a period. WHAT?!?! Fascinating!

3)     The inside of an egg is sterile- whatever contaminant that makes people sick (salmonella, E. coli) just comes on the shell!! So just wash that egg before you crack it! (This might just be more of a common sense DUH kind of thing, but I used to think that any undercooked egg was just crawling with nasties. Just an example of a Paranoid Kaitlin misunderstanding)

4)    When making a cake for a vegan, instead of using eggs you can use bananas! Making banana bread for a vegan? Just add a few more bananas to replace the eggs. Holla.

5)   When baking a cake, putting a cup of boiling water in the batter is what will make it moist 

One final note: 

We dropped by the hospital yesterday on the way to the airport so she could give something to a coworker and we came across a mother that Grace had helped the day before. When the woman sees Grace, she starts beaming. Grace runs up to her and hugs her, telling her what an amazing job she did during delivery. I almost cried. It hit me that this was just one mother that Grace worked with this summer, and I could see what an impact she had on that woman's life. I can't even imagine the difference she has made for so many mothers in Malawi. 

More than almost anyone I know, she makes me happy.