Cooking on a fire

All the cooking is done on a fire with either wood or charcol and it takes so much time.I admire the African woman and the time and effort it takes just to make a simple meal and to think that they have no refrigeration and so they have to cook at least two different times a day. I thought cooking in the states was time consuming but nothing compared to it here. They have very little variation in their diet and eat the same thing each day. They are woman of just trying to survive and keep their children in school paying school fees. When we lived in Philadelphia we came in contact with a sweet African family with 4 children and 2 parents and a grandmother. Each week they would take all of their clothes to a laundry mat and do the laundry for the whole family. I had wanted to buy them washing machine and Tim told me that I could but I would have do with out some things and I was unwilling to to that. Twelve years later they visited us in Utah and I asked if they had a washing machine yet and they said no. They still weekly went to the laundry mat. My heart ached for I know that if I would have been willing to sacrifice for a moment my needs would have been met with time but they still had no washing machine. I have decided that I am not leaving Africa with out buying a stove for someone here. I never want to wonder if only I had helped.