Padaria (Bread Bakery) Alecrim

Nearly every morning around 7:20 we head out the door for a 25 minute exercise walk. These walks are for exercise, yes, and for sharing. They aren’t the same as Janet’s walks back home with her girl friends, but they are time to talk as we walk.

They are also time to explore our city of Mindelo, at least areas within walking distance of our house. I (Dennis) lead the exploring and we have covered a lot of different neighborhoods. And we find interesting things, like Chicão’s house.



Within the first week we were here we discovered the Padaria Alecrim. We had walked down to our beach, Laginha, walked past Electra’s water desalination plant and electrical generating facility, and immediately picked up the aroma of fresh bread.


It was too good to not go inside and explore more, so we entered the store and saw the shelves of fresh bread. I don’t recall if we had money to buy any bread the first visit, but if not we were back in a day or two and bought some coconut or cinammon rolls and we also saw a whole wheat loaf of sliced bread. We bought some of that too.

Fresh Bread Shelves inside the Padaria

 

Our favorite sliced wheat bread

 

The rolls were good, but the real prize was the wheat bread. It was better than any other bread we had found in town, It was better than most whole wheat breads back home. It reminded us of Janet’s bread. This was an exceptional find.



That was 19 months ago. It is still our bread staple. We have two loafs in the freezer right now and every week we buy two to four loaves. We use it mostly for our sandwich supper, but also as bread and butter with other meals and french toast for breakfast (that is one of my meals to prepare).

Young Adults making tuna sandwiches from the basic white roll

We do enjoy other breads. The basic white bread rolls are tasty as an occasional bread. On Fogo that is all we can find. Praia has Pão Quente which has a 3 cereal bread which we like as a multi-grain bread, and another store close to Sister Mcknights that has a good whole wheat sliced bread, but nothing is as good as Padaria Alecrim’s whole wheat bread.

Like in many countries, Capeverdians are accustomed to buying fresh bread, almost for every meal. During our morning walks that take us past mini-markets or bakeries, we see is a flow of children and adults heading to the store with their bread bag for their morning bread. None of the breads have preservatives and generally are meant to be purchased and consumed now.

Our wheat bread comes in two sizes, medium and small. The small is too small for me, so we buy medium.



While it is not a long walk to Padaria Alecrim, about 10 minutes, it is out of the way for normal grocery shopping. Fortunately our favorite grocery store, Galina and Silva’s sells various breads from Padaria Alecrim, including our whole wheat bread. We know if we go after 11:30 AM they will (or should) have our bread on their shelves. They normally get 3 loaves a day of this bread. There have been days when we bought all three loaves.

The people at Galina’s know us pretty well as very regular customers. One day several months ago we went in and there was no bread on the shelves. I turned to ask a sales clerk what was up and she handed me a loaf of our bread. I asked her if she had two and she handed me a second. They try to take care of us.

Another time it wasn’t on the shelf we were told that the Padaria was having trouble with their slicer and couldn’t make it. They thought maybe they would have the uncut bread at the Padaria. We made a trip to the Padaria only to learn that there was none of the bread. I seem to recall that it was more than the slicer that was the problem, maybe they were out of the whole wheat flour they used.



Given their bread is something very special, we had discussed our interest in taking a tour of the Padaria to learn more how it is made. With our exit from Cape Verde looming ever closer we decided to give it a try.

On a recent Saturday we got our house work done, dressed in our missionary dress, and headed over to the Padaria. They were a little unsure about us taking a tour at first and insisted we talk to the manager. In the mean time we learned that the woman who told us to wait was one of the owners. This was a little odd.

Two of the owners, the manager on the left and the daughter of the baker on the right

While we waited we began a conversation with this “owner” and learned the following:

• She and her husband are joint owners with another couple. She and her husband live most of the time in Holland. Thus the other couple manages the business.
• They got started about 9 years ago when an opportunity came up to buy the bakery equipment at a discount and the two couple decided to join forces.
• The woman we were talking with had grown up on Santo Antão, the daughter of a bread maker. Her brothers still run the padaria on our sister island. She feels right at home in the business.
• The other couple made a trip to Brazil, early on, to learn bread making. They brought back recipes for various breads, including our wheat bread.

About at this point the manger came out and we expressed our interest. He seems a little doubtful, but we looked innocent enough. He gave his permission and our new friend handed us hair nets and took us down stairs where the main operations are.

We were both a little glad it was not high summer and pitied those who had to work down there when the heat of the ovens would combine with the heat of the sun outside.

The Giant Mixer and the Bread Chef, a Potent Team - The water cooler is right behind them

The basement was large and provided plenty of space for the making of bread. They had one giant mixer where all the batches were mixed up. It put a lot of work into the dough so it was critical that they use chilled water in the recipe to avoid overheating the yeast and the dough.

A batch of white roll dough being weighed out for final cutting into rolls

We watched as they made a batch of white flour rolls. We didn’t get to see the raising and baking, just most of the prep work. This video shows the primary steps we observed.

Get in on the fun action of the dough boys and girls

Another crew had premeasured all the ingredients besides the flour into the plastic containers shown here. They were ready for a number of batches of various breads. Janet noted that one of the ingredients was wheat fiber to increase the gluten content.

The main padeiro (baker) oversaw everything. He put his hand in the mixer a couple of times to check the dough as it mixed. Janet commented that she does that all the time. A bread baker knows what a good dough feels like.


The last steps we saw were the weighing out of the dough for cutting into roll size balls. The roll dough will go onto trays in large racks and into the raising oven (below on the left). From there the rack will go into the baking oven (below on right) then out to the cooling area before being taken to the store for sale or onto one of their two delivery vans. Some bread, like our wheat bread, must first be bagged.

The rising oven on the left and the baking oven on the right. Open the door and roll the racks in.

Here is a photo of a delivery van from another padaria making the rounds.



We learned of one other product Padaria Alecrim makes – bread flour, a very fine bread crumb. They take old bread, slice it in thick slices, lightly toast it in the oven, then grind it into bread flour, package, and sell it to cooks that use it when a recipe calls for bread crumb/flour.



There you know a little about bread in Cape Verde. Go ahead, enjoy a roll or slice from your local padaria.

Irmã Chicão

Some people are hard to miss and hard to forget. Irmã (Sister) Chicão is all of this, but above all she is a friend and fellow saint.

In the photo above Chicão is in one of her favorite places, Praça Nova. While she has not lived her whole life in Mindelo, she has spent a considerable part here and is part of the history of the place.


She speaks often of Eden Park, an old movie theater that faces the praça but is currently closed. I don’t remember all the connections, but her father worked there and she loved to go to the movies there. She remembers when our church group met there, and seems to know a lot about the past owners of the place.



I believe it was our first Sunday here that we saw her. I’m not sure we met her, but you couldn’t miss her and we heard her regular name, not the name Chicão that everyone knows her by. She is around 86 years old, has a quick temper and sharp tongue, knows who she likes and who she doesn’t like, but smiles like a baby when in a good mood, which is most of the time.


When she prays in Church or bears her testimony, you can predict most of the things she will say. She prays for her only son who seems to have forgotten her since she last saw him at least 20 years ago. Her prayer is that she will see him again and be reunited, if not in this life, the next. The two little boys in this photo are from the neighborhood.

She lost her mother when she was about 13 years old and was raised a lot by her father, but it was a hard life. She earned her way through life mostly as a cook. Now she doesn’t care to cook much, except to live. She is the daughter of a white mother and a black father, has one sister and brothers which are lighter skinned, lighter hair, and blue eyes, and she was black. She was made to feel like the servant rather than the sister because of her color. In this photo you can see photos of family members and of a latter-day prophet.

But Chicão has stated on several occasions her absolute faith in God’s plan for his children. She is glad to be black because she is happy with everything that God has given her, everything because it comes from God according to His will.

 

Chicão and her brother in front of her house

We started to develop more of a friendship when we happened upon her little three room house on one of our morning walks. It sits next to her brother’s house, her closest family member and faces the corner of the neighborhood soccer field. The house is hers, as far as we can tell. She must live off of a government pension like social security as she likely has no other source of income.

She has no water in her home and is a candidate for our water project. We keep watching for her name to show up on the next list. She has no electricity in her home. We have seen a oil lamp which she must use some of the time. Other times we have seen her neighbors two houses away, string a power cord over to her house for night-time lighting. They are recent converts to the gospel and have offered considerable help since joining.



Within a few months of discovering her place, we learned that the branch compassionate service leader and Relief Society President wanted to organize a project to help improve her home with painting, cleaning, and adding a floor to the third room which was just dirt. They wanted to install a bathroom, but that hasn’t been possible yet.

We got some good photos of the groups working on the house. Here is a series with some commentary.

Turn out for the first day was wonderful, with fresh paint on everything, everything…

The sister front right is the compassionate service leader, and an aggressive organizer

 

The young missionaries were a reliable source of help even without a lot of concrete skill

In December the Relief Society wanted to help out again with cleaning and laundry. Without water, or the strength to carry that much water, doing laundry is next to impossible. When Janet learned of the situation, she volunteered to use her new washing machine to help with that part.

Chicão and a young man from the branch

We didn’t quite anticipate the quantity or quality of the work required, but Janet took it on and managed at least 5 loads with an extra pre-wash for each one to get the job done right.

On December 24th we took the second load of wash up to her house and visited with her. Janet read the Christmas story from the Book of Mormon, and she shared some of her stories, again, but with a focus on Christmas.

She doesn’t know how to read, but she has seen the movie of the nativity at Eden Park, and probably since then from Church videos, and bears her testimony of this event based on what she has learned from video. Another prayer of hers is to learn to read before she finishes this life.

Here is a video clip from our time with Chicão on Christmas eve day. It shows a little of the inside of her house, including her dog, Jamarie. You can hear her talk about her testimony.

Chicão does not read, but listens intently as Sister Broderick reads to her

She loves the gospel, is so very grateful for the help given by church members, but can’t quite accept our new branch president because he doesn’t live as close and can’t offer as much help as the previous president. He lived just a block away and had his own mini-market from which he could offer quick help.

Chicão with members of her Church family, who love her

The last few Sunday’s her dog has followed her to church as she walks the mile or so, and causes a bit of a commotion at church. Chicão has been a little more out of sorts lately, but life is not easy for her, never has been. But she openly expresses her faith in God and her thanks to Him for taking care of her day in and day out.

Família dos Reis

We want to tell you about the dos Reis (name changed to protect their identity) family shown above. They demonstrate many of the strengths and challenges that Caboverdean families face. This particular family lived, until recently, about a block from our house. In this short time they have worked their way into our lives and our hearts.

Here is where they lived. A classic old house in a classy older neighborhood, but the house has been abandoned since we arrived here, At night it is the perfect haunted house. The owner replaced the wooden shutters about a year ago, but still no one moved in.

One of our wheelchair recipients, who lives on the street in his wheelchair, used to use the front porch as his bedroom several times a week. We noticed that he stopped doing that about the time it appeared that some one had moved into the side yard of the house. That group seemed to have moved out and then someone else moved in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That second family was the dos Reis family. Only part of the house was open to the family allowed by the owner to stay there rent free in order to provide some protection for the home. It had no bathroom, no electricity and no water.

Even though they lived close, we would have never known them if the young missionaries had not found them and began teaching them the restored gospel. I still remember how excited the elders were to find them, the perfect family. They invited us to share a family home evening with them and other members at the church. Soon after we stopped by their home to see where they lived and get better acquainted.

It was not uncommon to find the kids home alone, as in the photo above. The two little guys are twin boys 3 years old. In the middle is a 5 year old, not quite old enough for school. The baby is a year and a half and will only go with Mom or the oldest girl, 9 year old Joiana (name changed). Joiana is the babysitter while her mother and step dad are out working, looking for work, or looking for food and other necessities of life from whoever will help.

Like most families, there is a lot of mixed parentage. Her step-sister Dercy (name changed), also 8 going on 9, is no blood relative. She is the daughter of Dad but with another woman. Joiana is daughter of Mom but with another man, so she and Dercy share no parentage, but are good friends when together. Dercy lives most of the time with her mother, but joined the family group for some very important family events.

Here are the two girls add dressed up for Mom and Dad’s wedding day. It was Joiana’s Mom’s and Dercy’s Dad’s wedding.

Dad had no regular job, as is the case for so many families, but that was not for not trying. He is a young and very ambitious guy with lots of energy, but not much in the way of education or opportunity. He also seems to lack good connections to get a shot at what work is available. His primary work experience is in construction, which seems to be true of a majority of young, uneducated males.

As the family learned of the restored gospel they were drawn to it. Dad began to attend meetings in our branch and they continued taking lessons with the Elders.

Mom and Dad were not married. They had 4 children between them and had been together for at least 5 years. This is the most common type of relationship in Cape Verde. As their interest in the gospel grew they learned that they would need to get married so they could be baptized. They decided that is what they wanted to do. Getting married costs money and they would need help as money they did not have.

In this case other church members came to help. One of the church leaders offered to pay for their marriage license out of his own pocket. A well known sister who was close to the Mom’s size offered her the use of her wedding dress. One of the Elders had a suit that fit Dad. Others stepped in to provide formal clothing for the whole family. The photo above shows them with their branch president who got married himself a week later. Below is the whole family group including the bride’s father and another family member on the left.

Not only did the branch help them dress for the wedding they put on a nice reception in one of their homes.

Two days later Mom and Dad, Joiana and Dercy, were baptized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was a very happy week for the dos Reis family.

When we learned they did not have water we invited them to come to our house for water if they needed. They didn’t take us up immediately on our offer, but when they did, they were coming by ever other day or so. To clean up for the wedding they, the children, came by for 12 - 5 liter bottles.

When we saw that getting water was a regular need we started to ask the water bearers to do some little cleaning jobs to “pay” for their water. They were very happy to help and our challenge became finding meaning work for them to do. Their parents encouraged them but checked to make sure they were not staying to long.

From the very beginning they would bring an offering of flowers collected from shrubs and trees nearby. Sister Broderick always found a bowl of water to place the flowers in and offer them a drink of water. When they returned the next time we would pluck out the wilted flowers and replace them with new ones. We came to enjoy the color on our eating table.

One of the last visits Joiana brought flowers and a lovely note expressing her love

They were very consistent. The one time Dad came to get water he didn’t bring flowers and we gave him a really hard time.

We would occasionally get a bashful request for food from the girls. After responding a few times, we discussed the need with our branch president and they received help through him. That didn’t stop the children from asking for food when they were home, in charge, and there was no food in the house. We decided to try and teach some welfare principles to Mom and Dad.

We had wanted to invite them for dinner and family home evening and decided this might be a good time to talk with Mom and Dad. We had a very pleasant dinner. The 5 year old didn’t stop eating. We had a short lesson involving the parents then played games proposed by the dos Reis. At the end we talked with Mom and Dad and got their agreement to work with the branch president for help.

We had the opportunity to help Mom make contact with the branch president the next time she came asking for help. We also invited her help when we needed some helpers to move humanitarian supplies to our partners, and she very readily responded.

We tried to help Dad find work through our contacts at the hospital. He was able to interview with the director, but this contact has not yet produced a job.

Dad is interested, among other things, in learning English. He has been one of our more steady students.

Mom is illiterate but really wants to learn to read and write. She was excited to learn that the church is planning to start a literacy program based on the scriptures. We know that would be very good for her and hope it works into her life.

When Dad could still not find work he began looking at alternatives on other islands. So far he has not taken that step.

The oldest daughter is an excellent student. From their home near us she would walk over a mile and a half up and over the saddle and down to Ribeirinha. She started 4th grade this fall which may soon put her beyond her step father in schooling. She has read the Book of Mormon with us a couple of times when she came for water at the right time and does very well.

Janet has tried to help Mom spiritually by reading the Book of Mormon to her. It was hard to find the right time, but Mom sincerely appreciated the exchange.

When our young single adults wanted to do a service project the presidency recognized an opportunity to help the dos Reis family. They gathered food and clothing and delivered it one afternoon.

Dad jumped right into his priesthood duties blessing the sacrament. Unfortunately Mom did not feel comfortable attending church regularly and stopped coming. Dad continued to come for a few weeks alone, but then he too stopped.

In the middle of this Mom found a job caring for an elderly near invalid. The family invited the dos Reis family to move into the home with this elderly woman. They readily accepted the invitation as living conditions were considerably better. We were happy to see them move to where they had water and electricity and a bathroom.

This little dirty footprint from our water bearers stayed in front of our door for many days after they moved

We lost contact with the family for a few weeks, partly due to our travel schedule. We missed having them bring flowers and take home full water bottles and wondered how they were doing. We didn’t know where exactly they had moved and hoped they would make contact with us at church.

About a month ago we were walking through the area near the hospital and we heard the older daughter call our name. Joiana had seen us walking by and invited us to come and see where they live. We were delighted to make contact again and witness their new living arrangements.

Our hope now is that we can find ways to encourage and help them from further away. We were very pleased today when the older daughter showed up at church with her younger brothers. We had invited her to the children’s sacrament meeting program earlier this week. She had come by our place to visit and pick up some pencils to replace some that had been stolen and we had made the invitation. Dad showed up too at the end of the program. This was a great sign.

We feel great love for the dos Reis family.

Luciana’s* Prayer

This is a short post about a simple event that speaks to the simple faith of the youth of Cape Verde. It stars Luciana (*this is not her real name as we realize we need to be careful to not reveal identity of people in our blog), a 9th grader at our local secondary school and a member of the Church on our island.
This past Wednesday morning Luciana came by our apartment so she and her school friends could get into the local chapel to study. We had agreed to help them when the night before she saw us after seminary and asked for permission.
I walked over with her and a classmate to the chapel where we met four others. I took some work along as we felt we needed to be there with them while they were in the chapel alone. I learned that they were going to study together for a math exam on Friday.
They set up in the large institute room which had a white board and lots of table space. I turned and saw them sitting at the tables like an institute class and said to Luciana, "Are you going to have an opening prayer?" It was one of those question/statements I sometimes (and maybe you too) make without thinking. I asked half in jest but didn’t show it.
Luciana didn’t say anything to me but turned to the group of students, only one of which was LDS. She invited them to join her and she offered a simple prayer. She asked Heavenly Father’s help as they studied together and prepared for their exam. She offered several statements of thanks and ended in the standard Caboverdean way “We offer this prayer in the name of Thy Beloved Son Jesus Christ, Amen.”
There was no embarrassment, no apologies, no hesitation, just simple faith in a God who hears prayers.
I left the room and went to a room nearby where I could work. Occasionally I looked in and they were working very seriously at the white board, writing out equations, one after the other.
Friday night we asked Luciana how the math test went. “It was easy” is all she said.

Luciana is a convert of about a year and a half. We had forgotten, but one of the first baptisms we witnessed after arriving in Mindelo last year was hers. She shows every sign of being a stalwart latter-day saint and a wonderful influence for good on many others. May we have the faith to pray like Luciana and then work for the blessings that God wants to bestow upon us.