Everyone is welcome at the table

Today was a truly unique day! Pastor Haferman took Josh and I and a couple of language teachers to the cattle market and it was very enjoyable, not to mention a true cultural immersion. The cattle market is near Dodoma, miles west of Morogoro. All the way there, there were nomads moving there cattle and/or goats along side the road in search for greener grass and any where that they could find water. It is very, very dry here right now as the long rainy season has not yet begun. Many of the corn fields are vacant where the corn died because of such little rain during the short rainy season. While driving to the market, we came across several lines of people trying to find shade from the hot sun while patiently waiting for there chance to fill a few buckets with water to carry back to their homes. Others were loading huge bags of charcoal onto the back of their bicycles, some as many as three full bags, in order to take them to town where they can sell them for about $25 US each, but the result has been that there is a lot of deforestation and the people have had to move east toward Morogoro because they have turned their own land into desert land. The government has made attempts to set up small forest areas that are under preservation in order to provide the people with firewood. I learned all of this from Pastor Haferman on the way as he invited me to take a special seat in the front of the truck for our journey.
Eventually we reached the cattle market where many people had set up shop to sell their goods: fabrics/wraps that the natives wear (a.k.a. kanga, kitunguu, or cha cha cha...I believe), maasai knives and cattle prods, beads, etc. Others had set up shop to cook meat that had just been butchered and then towards the back were the cattle where you could walk right up next to all of them as they were free to roam as their owners allowed. Being raised on a cattle farm, this was definitely a fun experience for me. In some ways the experience was like a county fair, only not really at all. All of the men and women wore their traditional dress which was very neat to see as most of the people here at LJS dress more like we do back home. After walking around and seeing everything, the Bishop invited us to join him in eating a side of beef (not a whole side, but it was several steaks large). The beef was brought out as one big piece and one person would use a knife to cut off a chunk for each person until we all had eaten one and then he'd go around again until every bit was gone. Everything gets eaten that gets handed out; it doesn't matter if it was all fat and only a little meat. Even the bones get handed out for someone to chew the last bits off of (something that most of us would leave as a job for our dogs to do or at least that's how it is at my house). Nothing here goes to waste. I can't lie, the first large piece of fat I received, I had a harder time dealing with than I expected, but I just put it in my mouth and swallowed; I figure my stomach can do the rest. At that moment, I was sure glad my parents have raised me to have a strong stomach.
A little later, we repeated this process with a goat leg that Pastor Haferman purchased. It was much better than the beef and a lot less fatty. PH says that goat fat doesn't affect your cholesterol (I'm not sure about that, but I'm not too worried about it yet). The culture here is so different. Anyone who was standing by and wanted to take part was welcome to pull up a chair and eat. As PH says, never say that you're ordering some meat for yourself because it is always to share. No one gets turned away if they come desiring to take part. Everyone is welcome at the table. But that is just the way it is here. Nothing is 'mine', it's always 'ours.'