Today was the second annual tomato paste making day at Shiloh.  The day started at 6 a.m. when Eric, our favorite taxi driver, picked Guy, our assistant, up at his house.  Traffic was light at that time of day, so they rushed across town to a market I've never been to before.  It's where all the produce grown in different parts of the country are trucked to.  I'm told it's a wild and crazy place.  People called "Buy-Um-Sell-Um" arrive early in the morning to greet the trucks as they roll into the market.  They quickly barter for the best price, purchase whatever quantity they want, and head off to markets all over the city.  Or, people like us show up once a year during the height of tomato season, and buy a ton of tomatoes.  Guy picked out five large boxes for us.  Then they rushed back across town, arriving at Shiloh just as the rest of our team was coming to work.  We filled every large basin we own with water and got busy washing the tomatoes.  Then came the cutting phase of the process.  That is, cutting combined with lots of talking and friendly banter.  Even hard work can be turned into fun.  Next the tomatoes were put into very large pots and cooked for an hour or so.  When they cooled down a bit they were then put through a large sieve to remove as much juice as possible.  Eric and his taxi came back and took Francis, our cook, and many containers of cooked and strained tomatoes to be pulverized.  There are ladies all over town who own large machines that are used to grind all sorts of things from grain to tomatoes and everything in-between.  Meanwhile back at Shiloh, the rest of our team was busy washing our very large pots and filling them with water.  It takes forever for that much water to come to a rolling boil.  Time to wash all our canning jars and lids.  When the tomato paste returned to Shiloh, the process continued.  Finally the water was boiling and jars and lids were sterilized.  Near days end jars were filled with our new tomato paste, lids tightly screwed down, and back into the water they went.  Twenty minutes later out came rows and rows of jars of freshly canned tomatoes.  Tomorrow we will can tomato juice.  Then we will put our canning equipment back on the top shelves of the pantry for another year.  

We have calculated our savings and are paying just one third the price of store bought tomato paste.  Cameroon cuisine calls for lots of tomato paste, so this is an important savings for us.  

Hard work?  Yes.  Lots of fun?  Yes.  Profitable?  Very.  Repeatable?  Definitely.