SIMPLE BUT TASTY Mariah Stone makes a favorite Kenyan dish. Stone was raised at Dagoretti Children’s home in Nairobi.

A friend of a friend in Maine used an online dating site, Afro Introductions. He was an American adventurer who had sailed halfway around the world and loved to hang glide. A woman in Kenya responded to his post. She was an emergency room nurse in Nairobi. She didn’t like hang gliding but considered herself adventurous. The two hit it off. He visited her in Nairobi five times and surprised her with a marriage proposal. “When I remembered how to speak, I said, yes,” recalls Mariah Stone. They had a child, got married and moved to his home in Maine. Just a month after arriving here, she offered to teach me how to make a favorite Kenyan meal. She didn’t know what ingredients she would be able to find, but she was happy to try.