Matzke Mission

Note: Sorry there haven’t been any new blogs for a few days. I was ready to write up my market trip Friday morning, but the power was out for a while. Then when I had power Friday night, there were technical glitches and the photos wouldn’t load. I hope you enjoy a trip to the market…

After I dropped the girls off at school, I headed to the market to stock up on fruits and veggies for the weekend. I came home with a loaded market basket and then some more. I thought you might enjoy seeing what I bought.

One woman had lots and lots of ‘bushlimes’ which are a small lemon/lime type fruit. Bushlime juice is very refreshing! I bought 80 bushlimes at a cost of $20 (less than $3.00 USD). When I got home I put them in a bowl and poured boiling water over them. This softens the skin and makes them easier to juice. Later I juiced them with the juicer attachment on my Kitchenaid Mixer. Then I poured the juice into ice cube trays to freeze. Later I put them in a plastic bag or container and keep the bushlime cubes in the freezer for making juice quickly and easily.




I bought a few small tomatoes. In the market, they are placed in little piles worth $1.00

($.20 USD).

This is a small pumpkin. It cost $10 ($1.40 USD). We enjoy baked pumpkin.

Emily requested some guavas. This is a pretty good sized one. I hope she likes them – I tend to buy them ripe and the girls like them a bit green.




This bundle of greens is called “Chinese broccoli” and it does taste a bit like broccoli. It takes 3 bundles to feed our family and each one cost $6 (almost $3.00 US). Usually we chop it up and cook it in a little water with chopped onion. Yum.

Sometimes we can find green beans, but more commonly we find these ‘long beans’ in the market. I don’t like them as well as regular green beans, but they are OK. You may notice that the bundles of vegetables are wrapped in a leaf to keep them together. What a great bio-degradable way to package!




This unusual looking vegetable is actually the flower of a type of grass! The outside of the rough husk is covered with tiny hairs that can stick in your skin. The part that you eat is the white flower inside the husk.

When it is steamed and served with a cheese sauce on it, it almost tastes like cauliflower. This bundle cost me $8 (a little over $1.00 US)

There were lots of pineapples in the market and the one I bought cost $12.00 ($1.70 US) and it is sure to taste much better than ones you can buy in a grocery store in the USA!




I bought this chicken from a woman I know who was selling chickens in the market. It weighs a little over 2 pounds and cost $50 ($7.15 USD). Chicken is expensive here because all of the feed is imported since there isn’t any grain grown in country to feed chickens.

My just for fun purchase was the flowers. Saturday is the best day for finding flowers at the market, but I lucked out with these two bundles (which included some orchids) for $10 each ($1.40 USD).

My last purchase was a watermelon. I’m terrible about picking out good ones, so I enlisted the help of some local women in the market to help me choose a nice one. It worked because it is a nice red color inside and tasty, too!