Funny how this makes sense to me...

Our usual AutoRickshaw driver said he would be g0ne for a few days, and would not be available to drive our family anywhere.

"Oh," I said, "what's happening?"

"My fathers elder brothers wife died fourty days ago," he replied.

"Oh, OK," I said, "See you when you get back."

Fourty days after a death, you are supposed to get together and read the Koran, and remember the dead person. But funny how I didn't need the explanation, since I knew that. Makes me feel weird.

In the meanwhile, Friday was meat day. About once a month, Amy will order a big pile of meat for processing. So Friday morning, we had eight pounds of water buffalo meat to deal with, plus a few pounds of sheep that Mr. B. had acquired for us earlier in the week.

First Amy went through and picked out all the bits of crushed bone and tendon portions, and then cut everything up into small, half inch pieces.

Then it was green papaya time. The meat we get is amazingly tough, so Amy grinds a green papaya and soaks the meat in that for an hour. This works pretty well as a tenderizer. (You don't want to leave it on too long or it turns into meat soup.) After the hour, Amy washed the meat, and the grinding process began.

Here was my chance to shine. We attached the manuel grinder to the kitchen counter, with a bowl underneath to catch all the blood and liquid that ran out. And we started grinding... and grinding.... and grinding. You have to stop every minute or two and pick out the bits of sinue and other things that would clog up the grinder.

When that was all done, we mixed the sheep and buffalo meat together. Some was mixed with sausage seasoning mix and formed into sausages. Most was mixed with a bit of egg and bread and a few other things, and made into Swedish Meat Balls.

Then everything went in the freezer, except for what we ate that night. And after that day, we had a pretty good appetite.