Braai in SA

Jubilee has their own "thanksgiving" celebration.  At the service in the AM, it was all about thanks giving and showed a video of all the ministries that Jubilee has been involved with.  Since I'm in charge of the Mercy Store, i was in the video!  I wasn't too impressed with seeing myself up there in front of everyone.  After the service, everyone was invited to go celebrate and have a braai.  Jubilee rented a local high school's grounds and had huge slides blown up for kids, soccer games going, fun little activities for the little ones and they also rented the school's pool.  It was such a fun day!  

However, that is not the point of this particular blog.  The four of us (B, D, A and I) all have commented on how much a vegetarian would struggle here in SA.  People here LOVE meat!  There is meat everywhere!  EVERYWHERE!  So, because of the endless supply of meat, there is always an invitation to a braai.  A braai to them is what grilling/barbeque is to us.  The general rule is that if you are invited to a braai, you need to bring your own meat and drinks.  The side dishes would be provided by the "host".

At this particular Jubilee braai celebration, everyone had to bring their own food.  Anthony was in charge of getting it all fired up and ready for the meat to be piled on.  Then when the meat came, Anthony and Dave had been asked to take care of a few people's meat.  

Starting up the braai...

Few other men came to help out

This entire "grill" was completely covered with meat!  You can see many tongs poking through the smoke as the men guarded their meat.

Another picture of the meat filled braai.

Here the meat for the most part is cheaper compared to the USA meat prices.  Anthony had said that we could get four t-bone steaks here in SA for the price of one t-bone steak in the USA.  The t-bone steaks are no joke either, they are BEEFY.  One thing that is particularly interesting to me is that they do not grill hamburgers.  I'm still not sure of the reasoning.  They make burgers on the stove.  But that hasn't stopped us, we still make our juicy burgers!

It really has been so much fun to grill out every single week and have people over.  We all really enjoy it.  Well except Ryann, she hasn't gotten to the point where she can fully appreciate a dinner from a braai.