Eggplant Choka

Boulanger Choka (Charred Eggplant)

2 medium eggplants

4 garlic cloves

1 onion

½ sweet pepper

1 tomato

Oil

Salt

1. Chop onion, garlic, pepper, and tomato.
2. Cut 2 slits in each eggplant and insert a clove of garlic in each hole.
3. Roast eggplant over an open flame or on hot surface. Turn the eggplant occasionally and cook 8-10 minutes, or until the skin of the eggplant is charred.

See how charred?

4. Peel the charred skin from the eggplant and place eggplant and garlic in a dish. Mash thoroughly.

5. Sauté onion and pepper in oil for 5 minutes. Add tomato, eggplant, and a pinch of salt.

Enjoy with pita bread or homemade roti (recipe below!)

Eat Guyanese!

I know you've been wondering what we've been eating. Here's a typical Guyanese flatbread eaten with curries. I'll be posting a delicious eggplant dish in the next few days that goes delicious with roti. Try it out!

Roti: Guyanese flat bread

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1tsp. butter

¾ cup water

Oil

1. Sift 2 cups flour and baking powder. Mix in butter.

2. Add water and knead to make a soft elastic dough. Add more flour or water if dough is sticky.

3. Divide dough into 6 parts. Roll each piece of dough thinly on a floured board, apply oil to dough surface, and sprinkle lightly with flour. With a knife, cut a line in the dough from the center straight to the edge (see photo). Start at one side of your radius and roll the dough around the circle. Seal oil inside. Allow dough to rest for 10 minutes.

4. Roll out each piece thinly again, place on a pan over medium heat. Brush with oil to prevent sticking and turn frequently.

5. Once browning begins, remove roti and clap with hands or shake in container with lid until pliable. Serve with curry or Choka.

This is Chris, shaking the roti in the container. The roti should have delicious layers, the shaking or clapping helps pull them apart - flaky goodness.
Next up, The eggplant to eat with it!

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Giving Thanks

We sat down to a lovely table, brimming with green bean casserole, creamed spinach, rice and beans, apple cider, and mango cobbler. We said grace (or thanks?) with 3 of our local friends and dug in.

Plans were to head to Lethem for Thanksgiving with fellow volunteers (a meal which boasted treats from Brazilian supermarkets and shared with plenty of laughter). Just a week and a half before, Chris and I were in Lethem to pick our grant for World AIDS Day. When it was time to leave for Aishalton, we dutifully sat in front of Shirley’s, with our bags, waiting for a vehicle. There we sat: reading and finishing books, playing cards, and trying to sleep on the short concrete wall. Cars sped by and kicked up Lethem’s red dust, which blew over and settled on us.

After waiting for 4 days, we finally left Lethem at 1am in an SUV with 5 children, 5 volunteers, and 1 driver. It was a long trip back to Aishalton, overnight and overcrowded. We were just not up for another trip to Lethem, even for a rousing Thanksgiving.

Without much foresight or planning, we set out to have a Thanksgiving at home. We couldn’t find a pumpkin, only mangoes. There were no potatoes, no chicken. So, we cooked up our rice and beans, borrowed an oven for properly baked green bean casserole and cobbler, and whipped up calilloo into something like creamed spinach.

We invited our good friends Gary and Claudine; we knew they would enjoy the meal. (Gary took an internet phone call from his brother in Montana, USA just before our meal. His brother was enjoying thanksgiving in the states with 5 Guyanese and 2 Trinidadians. Gary informed him he had been invited to Thanksgiving with Americans in Aishalton.) We also invited Nurse Bertha, the smallest yet loudest person in Aishalton. Together, we ate ‘til our “Belly Full.” I contemplated all the things I was thankful for: to be celebrating Thanksgiving with Chris, serving in the US Peace Corps, and our new friends we were beginning to understand and who were starting to understand us.

Now, as I am again in Lethem to pick up a paycheck, I browse the aisles of the shops, walk past piles of toy guns, fake Barbies, and plastic greenery with cheap red ribbons (Christmas overstock circa 1987), I am a little nervous to spend Christmas in Aishalton. It will certainly be more like a traditional Christmas (in a cheap, tacky, consumerist way) than I’d like. Chris and I have agreed: no exchanging of gifts, let’s not try to prop up the day with meaningless social norms. However the day is celebrated, I know it and future holidays will not be as real as my Thanksgiving: when I sat down and shared a meal with the Amerindians.

Waiting

I’m hot and sweaty. Granted, that is the state I am in most of the time. This time, I’m also sore. We’ve come to Lethem to pick up our grant (yay!) which we did on Wednesday and proceeded to spend the money on red ribbons, art supplies, candies, and other materials for our World AIDS Day project. Thursday we began looking for a ride and on Friday and today, we’ve been sitting outside by the road leading South. We start about 7:30am and sit around til about 3pm, I’ve just left at 4:30pm. We perch in front of a store where most vehicles stop before leaving town, to pick up a few beverages and snacks for the road, perhaps fix a few things under the hood, and head out. There are many villages south of Lethem, Aishalton is one of the furthest, so it is fairly difficult to get to. There aren’t many vehicles, and few vehicles make the trip south unless they have a darn good reason because the road is so terrible.

So far, we’ve waited about 3 days to find a ride once we really start looking. It just makes for long days: waking up early, cleaning up the apartment, downing some coffee and lugging our packs a mile to the store. There, we begin our campout, perching on a concrete wall, shifting uncomfortably from cheek to cheek all day. Today, I finished a book. Sometimes we walk around. But basically, it’s a day of sitting around, looking for a truck, Bedford, or tractor headed to Aishalton. All the other trucks, not headed to Aishalton, drive by all day, kicking up the red dust which lands all over us and our stuff.

Tomorrow we try again.

Another poem from another of my students, so glad to see them thinking! Read and enjoy, maybe share with others. Get the word out!

Discriminating Me

People are always discriminating me

Just because I have HIV

The say I’m this and I’m that

So when I go out for a walk they call me ‘skinny rat’

When my best friends see me by the road

They give me no greeting, they just shake their heads and say ugly toad

Everyone is afraid to come near me

Because I have the virus called HIV

They don’t want to see me living

And this hurts my feeling

They throw me away like dirt

And say bad things that hurt

When they see me they run and hide

They say I looked as if I had already died

These insults drive me mad

And it also makes me sad

They hate seeing me in the home

So they say to me ‘you go your way alone.’

Francis, 12 years

I organized the students of Aishalton Secondary School to participate in a regional poetry competition by Red Cross. The poems had to address stigma and discrimination in some way, against HIV or any other category - race, religion, age, gender, etc... The students really came through and I wanted to share what I received with you. This first one is from a young man in the class I teach. My class is a remedial class, a group of 24 students who failed their first year of secondary school (7th grade) last year, and are repeating this year. I've actually had quite alot of trouble from them, behavioral and academic, they seem to have really given up. This student, Steve, in particular, has been rather difficult, but I personally challenged him to come up with a poem for me. This is what he turned in, and I must say... I'm amazed and very proud.

HIV

HIV is dreadful

It’s very sorrowful

To discriminate me

Makes me lonely

It drives me crazy

But you’re very busy

Discriminating me

Just to let others see

Stigma is very bad

It makes me feel very sad

Stop doing this to me

You might get it, so beware

Then it’d be you and me

Facing all the difficulties

And even the symptoms of HIV

Steve, 13 years old

World AIDS Day

So… you may be wondering how our work is coming along. Well, the cultural posts are far more interesting than our work so far, I'm afraid. Our main jobs at the Learning Resource Center (Kristin) and Aishalton District Hospital (Chris) are coming along just fine. In addition, all Peace Corps volunteers in Guyana work in the HIV and AIDS field. Guyana has the second highest infection rate in the Caribbean qualifies for President Bush’s PEPFAR funding (President’s Emergency Planning and Funding for AIDS Relief). The HIV and AIDS epidemic is concentrated mainly on the coast where most of the population lives. Here in the interior, HIV and AIDS epidemic is not yet spreading (that we know of), but we work hard to keep it that way.

Chris and I have decided that in order to address HIV and AIDS in Aishalton, we would plan a health fair for December 1^st, World AIDS Day. The theme for this year is “Universal Access and Human Rights”, a fitting theme for introducing it to Aishalton. We are very excited; we have written our first grant proposal and have received some funding through Peace Corps and the Red Cross.

Our plan for the health fair is to have people moving around and interacting with different games and activities concerning HIV and AIDS. We are trying to utilize as many community members as possible – the hospital staff, the Aishalton Youth Corps, church groups, and leaders. Some people with be doing skits to interact with others, others will be playing “Myths and Truths” or “Risk Factors”, and another group will be putting on a puppet show about “Anna Assertive”, a very assertive girl who knows how to say ‘no’ to peer pressure. We will also have HIV testing which is not regularly offered in Aishalton. Chris will be taking photos of the Amerindians dressed in traditional wear with bows and arrows. The pictures will be used to design posters with the theme “Be a warrior. Fight HIV” and used in the Amerindian villages throughout Guyana.

We’re really hoping for more support, or particularly, more active support, over the next few weeks as we prepare. We want to see more people volunteering, more people coming to our planning meetings. Please pray for our project, I truly believe we have the power to change behavior and save lives with this health fair. Pray for support, pray for a good turnout and most of all, pray that people learn something and apply it to their lives.

We are going in to Lethem to pick up our funding, spend it on supplies, and bring it back out. Safe journeys all around. Hope all’s well in your neck of the woods.

Chris and Kristin