Kitchen Explosion Plus

You've heard of bulging cans. Beware. Tomato paste is sold in three-ounce cans here. I like them because many recipes call for just a few tablespoons of paste, and what do you do with the rest of the can? We were making baked beans from local dry beans, all the work was done, we just needed to add a little tomato to the mix. I picked up a little can and attached the can opener, squeezed the handle sending the blade into the can, and... we had a kitchen explosion.

The red contents glazed my face, pasted my hair, moved on to the white curtain, and onto the ten-foot ceiling. We opened another can of tomato paste, not a bulging one, and got the beans into the oven. Just a half hour of work standing on the kitchen counter to clean the ceiling, take down the curtains and get them into the washer. Just in time to eat a pretty good dinner.

Our dining table is a slab of joined wood, an equatorial tree species called Kambala. The big trees are harvested in the jungle and floated down the Congo river to Kinshasa and offloaded at a river port near us. The immensely heavy timber is then trucked to market.

Since we arrived, the table has shown three problems. The base rocks on the floor, the slab rocks on the base, and the surface was uneven. In addition, the finish was gone, and every sweating drink cup or spill of milk left a stain. Mark has a loan recipient in our program who is a carpenter and exotic wood specialist. He came and looked at the table and gave us a price to rehabilitate it. On the appointed day, he came with two helpers and rebuilt and refinished our table in six hours using only hand tools.

 

They removed the slab from the base, split it into two planks, and planed the parts. They removed old mortise and tenon joints with wood chisels and carved new ones. They glued, rejoined, and clamped the parts together. They scraped and sanded the surface laboriously in the hot sun on our balcony.

They refinished with two coats of primer and two sandings, followed by two coats of varnish. They planed the base and delivered a level, stable table that will be easier to keep clean.

After the workers left, a storm rolled in off the Congo River. The clouds were dark and brooding. The river itself took on a black color, and the wind howled and whistled at our fifth-floor perch.

But, we are grateful for the rain. This is rainy season, but we haven't seen much yet. It cleans the air and bring lots of green growth to everything. We are back to another week of work. On Sunday we will see General Conference broadcasted from DVDs in our chapel. A week later, we will see Elder Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve, and Bishop Gérard Caussé of the Presiding Bishopric visit here. We look forward to the instruction.