Spilt Milk!

I spilt some milk just now. I was making yoghurt. So this is me. Yes me infront of the stove and why am I smiling? I wonder.
Il n’y a rien dont je suis fière là, par contre pourquoi n’ai pas je honte? C’est pitoyable !
No don’t cry over spilt milk they told me. No need for shame

In any case, this is me, Pancho some sort of African with European roots educated in the US, who now wants to study further and really wants to be all intellectual and that, with too many things. I spilt some milk and I am cleaning it up. The irony was I boiled it for yoghurt making and now I find out that my stock of yoghurt went bad, so I have not zakvasva, or start up yoghurt to make it! Ahh, what else can I make with two litres of milk? Custard?


You will see in this photo that I have turned the situation on its head. What was once a tragedy has been transformed into bearing of fruit. In this case, the fruit of my work is the soft Indian cheese paneer. Yes, I turned that two litres of milk into paneer. I am proud of this skill – to be able to turn around a bad incident into something wonderful.

This morning, new years eve, I too woke up and planned I would go to Church. After some wonderful intimacy with the Lord (where I sublimated my truly lustful thoughts into thoughts and praise of Jesus), I felt the Lord called me. Somehow, I know it sounds crazy, but indeed He called me. I was not afraid of this, because I did not take this as something supernatural – not at all – in fact knew it was just my inner voice, which is nothing supernatural. Isaiah 55 he told me to open and I read it. If I recall, it spoke about seeking the Lord, and buying food and drink for free, which too me is a paradox. Here is the verse:
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
Come to the waters; and you who have no money
Come buy wine and milk without money and without cost
Why spend money on what is not bread and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good and your will delight in the richest of fare
Give ear and come to me to; hear me that your soul may live
I will make an everlasting covenant with you.
My faithful love promised to David.”

Though the passage refers to “wine and milk”, the food consumed for free is implied. Spending ones money on the what is not bread and what does not satisfy is likely to refer to the food we eat that only satiates us temporarily. I think this passage refers to spending ones money healthy, overall wholesome food, such as bread. However, bread itself only satisfies one temporarily.
So here I will begin to interpret this piece of scripture in light of the new testament. The buying of wine and milk at no cost, how does one do that? Does the Lord give us Milk and Wine once we accept him in our lives – become part of his elect? Milk seems to refer to the land of Milk and Honey, Israel, while the wine refers to the vine – Christ – who called him self “the vine”. Thirst is also there in the gospel, where Christ offers the Samaritan woman living water and says that it quenches thirst forever. Moreover, the everlasting covenant Christ made at the last supper was against the background of eating – eating his body and drinking his blood, his blood that was shed for a new and everlasting covenant. The new covenant, between the Lord and all peoples.

I am a human with a proclivity to finding patterns and signs, so there I found a link between Old and New Testament. Also, it was fitting that I read this passage this morning, since last night I had a very scrumptious dinner, of pork and cabbage, banitsa (a type of feta chesse pie ) and baklava. This morning, I did not have a proper breakfast, I took an apple and left for the church on foot. I felt the Lord really was calling me saying “Give ear and come to me; hear that your soul may live”.
I took several pieces of Baklava, three to be exact with me for the Priest and some of the candidates of the priesthood who were still there. When I arrived at the Church, walking into the grounds, the soil very moist with only one car parked, I pondered whether there was a mass. A man in the car said “Hello do you live here?” I shook my head and walked to the entrance of our Church to find it locked. There was no mass after all.

Nonetheless, I went to the living quarters of the priest and the candidates, and called from the outside of the courtyard. A young man my age let me in and I assume he was a “pre-Novitiate” as they call them, a future priest. He was not, apparently, he was there to just clean the Church and his sister Mary was with him. “Father is in Angola” I was told. Father Joseph was visiting his family in Angola. It is very possible he has family on both sides of the border, because this border was just designed as a colonial boundary. In reality, the linguistic groups, communities and families are on either side of the border. It’s basically arbitrary for anyone who lives there. I gave this young man the baklava. We ate some of it together.
How do explain what baklava is to someone who has never hear of it? As he dug into it with his fork and tasted some he remarked “It is very sweet , but I don’t know if there is any fish or meat or anything?” His sister that was with him asked me whether it was pizza! “No very far away from pizza” I said and I offered her to try some. She refused citing that she “did not like the way it looked”. It does look wet, we crusty layers. It is drenched in syrup – the baklava, which gives it this appearance. I told them that it had no meat only nuts, which I likened to the ongudu nuts one finds in Owamboland.
Jakes was his name and her name was Mary. Very friendly young people. There were on their way out to take the food from last nights party hosted by a candidate name Clemens to Greenwell Matango – just before where one of the Windhoek slums – Havana – begins.
I was then taken by them home, cause it was on the way. And that was that.