Christmas Breakfast

On the 21^st of December (Happy Birthday to my brother, Stephen!), our Toshao (chief) hosted a breakfast for his area of the village. (The village is divided into small sections for organization and governance). Though I don’t live in his area, a few people invited me. So, I showed up with a little food and they let me stay.

Thank goodness!

It was a lovely Christmas feast. It felt good to be sitting at a table, surrounded by pots and happy people. It felt a bit like Christmas. Well, except for the fact that it was 6am. That was unusual. But nonetheless, I left with the fullest belly I’ve ever had at 7am. Everything was delicious.

The whole table:

Sneaking coffee from the pot:

Hadashia brings her bowl of food:

Toshao checking out the food:

Toshao in his Chief's hat:

Christmas Dinner – Part 2

• Eggplant
• Bora (stringy green beans)
• Garlic and onion
• Sweet pepper
• Yard chicken
• 2 pounds fresh fish
• Farine (local staple)
• Eddo (ground provision – like a potato)
• Snap peas
• Chives
• Limes
• Mangoes

…. That is what the ladies found and brought for the Ladies’ Dance Group Christmas Dinner. We decided to cook together for our holiday party. We set ourselves a few guidelines:

• Avoid frying
• Find local, fresh food
• Avoid MSG and ‘cubes’ (bullion containing MSG)
• Prioritize fruits and vegetables
• NO carbonated drinks

So, the day of the party, ladies started showing up with whatever they could find, and we piled it on the table. Quite an assortment. Now, what to cook?

We came up with a lovely menu:

Curried chicken, eddo, eggplant and bora

Roti (Like a flour tortilla/nan bread - We used flour from the shop! Oh the shame…)

Fish damoriti with fahrine (Local food – boiled fish with fresh hot pepper)

Steamed vegetables

Limeade

Mango milkshakes

Mango cobbler

… And it was amazing! I love how fluidly and fluently women here cook. I have a feeling with that variety of ingredients and no plan, it would have taken American women any number of hours to produce a meal that effectively used them. But my ladies had dinner on the table in about an hour and a half.

Healthy, mostly local, and a lovely variety.

Sisters

Roti maker - you must clap the dough after cooking, while it is still hot!

I can roll roti!

Renata makes excellent greens:

So glad we found fresh fish!

Thanks to Eustace who went into the Savannah to the Rupununi River to get it.

I’m so proud! Now, if I could just merge my knowledge of nutrition with their cooking skills, I’d be so happy!

Christmas Dinner

Here's a sneak peak of the Christmas Party/Dinner we had this week with the Ladies' Dancing Group. We got together and make a meal with two things in mind: Nutrition and Local food. So, we tried to cook without frying, little salt, no beef, and no shop food. We almost made it. Menu and more pictures coming soon!

Santa hats were a big hit with the little ones:

I've never even thought to actually put my stocking on my feet, but that was the first thing Ashley did!

I miss the cold. Sure, the rain makes it chilly here, and we really rejoice if we are cold enough to put on long sleeves or get a second sheet for the bed. But, I miss the COLD. Needing a scarf, wearing cute coats, socks and shoes, eating soup to warm up, wanting hot chocolate, not to satisfy your choco-addiction, but because it’s cold! Needing your husband to keep you warm….

My friend had a picture up on Facebook of a snow hike. The same time, last weekend, we hiked. We don’t often ‘hike’, because hiking isn’t like back home. Hiking in the savannah is like wandering in the dessert. The savannahs are open grassy plains, and under the Guyana sun (we’re 4 degrees from the Equator, if I guess from the map) it is HOT. So, hiking is more like baking. But, we did it Saturday. That was all I did for the whole weekend – Saturday night and Sunday I just rested to recover from my exhaustion. We climbed the Aishalton mountain, or hill as it should rightly be called. It does give you a nice view, of the Savannahs, the village, and the Kanuku mountains in the distance. We went up with our neighbors and friends. Suffice to say, the 7 year olds fared better than the 18 year olds, and the 18 year olds fared better than us 26 year olds. And, the 26 year olds barely fared better than the old mamas. We ate a full breakfast, and started off with the clouds as our friends. We reached to top, had a full lunch – rice, beans, fahrine (local staple made from cassava), beef, and limeade. It was on the way back down, after noon, that the clouds broke and the sun started to bear down. I had sweat trickling in all kinds of new places. The water bottles finished, some people’s sandals broke, and our clothes started to soak in our sweat. We made it home, went promptly to the creek, and bathed. Lovely cool, creek water. We are recovered now, with the help of some foot massages, more limeade and water, and hammock naps on Sunday.

It is so hot here. I have no weather channel and no thermometer. When I talk to people back home, they ask how hot it is here. They’re wondering if it is 85 or 95. If I had to guess, upper 90s most days, but it doesn’t seem to matter to me anymore. I used to check weather.com every morning before school or work. I loved planning a cute rainstorm outfit with my rain boots or planning to wear my scarf or a short sleeve shirt with a cardigan. Now, you just wear your high-tech performance clothing or linen. Everyday. I can't wait for a real winter....

The changing times

We understood that by signing up for Peace Corps, we might be living a rural, electricity-less village life. And, thankfully, that’s what we got. (Plenty volunteers have electricity, refrigerators, fans, lights, TVs, running water, the whole 9 yards…) We, however, are one of a handful of volunteers in Guyana who are living in very remote villages, complete with difficult transportation, no phone service, and no electricity. So, that leaves us relying on kerosene lanterns and flashlights after 6pm. It hasn’t been bad… It feels a bit natural and woodsy to be in sync with the spinning of the world and the cycles of the moon.

Back in March, our building was finally wired to be powered by the generator that was running from 6pm-9pm each evening. That felt like a blessing, because that huge generator is right across the street from our home and was spewing it’s loud rumbles AND diesel pollution right into our house, but we hadn’t been getting any of the benefits. So, for a blissful week and a half, we were wired. We plugged in our computers, charged our rechargeable AA batteries, and played music. We sat in the lights, with the newfound freedom to cook after 6pm! Then, a week and a half later, the loud, stinky generator quit. And, for the last 9 months, various parts have been brought in attempts to fix it.

The part is coming…

The part is being calibrated…

A back up is on the way…

Various excuses we heard for 9 months while the hospital, school dorms (100 children, no lights), police station, and we sat in the dark.

Then, last week, a glorious new generator showed up. And, hallelujah, it’s being housed in a different location. So, we get all the benefits – lights and electricity – and none of the stinky pollution. We are in our second and a half week of having electricity here in Aishalton. Only 4 hours, 5pm-9pm, but it is amazing. We no longer have to beg shop owners and others to charge our things. We can watch movies! (Only in May did we attain a laptop that shows movies – thanks Parents-in-law!) We can cook dinner in the light! Such a nice surprise to come along, we had pretty much given up on it.

Now, I hate TV. I hate television shows, I hate the way people latch on to television shows. I think it is just a massive conspiracy to keep us all stupid and shopping. Now, I make my one exception for The Office, which my mom has been so sweet to send us seasons 5 and 6 that we’ve missed, Congrats Jim and Pam! We just saw the wedding…..

Mostly, we were watching movies, as they are quite cheap here in Guyana. But then somehow we picked up the first season of show from several years back – Prison Break.

Oh

My

Gosh.

I can’t sleep. I dream Prison Break. Sleep Prison Break. Think Prison Break. I love it. It’s a pretty terrible show – the acting weak, the plot line unbelievable. But, it is incredibly addicting. The drama is through the roof. I got hooked. Never heard of it? It’s about a man wrongly accused of murder and sitting on death row in a max security prison. His brother, a genius architect, gets himself thrown into prison just to Break His Brother OUT. It’s crazy. Anyway, we’re addicted. Like hopeless television addicts. Ugh…. No more TV shows for this girl.

Lord help me if I ever become like this over The Bachelor, Lost, or Grey’s. No, no, no.

Mangos!

They're here.

The trees are HEAVY with mangoes. I just had my first one of the season two days ago.

My photo is not great, but if you squint, you can see just how many mangoes are on the trees!! And there are... nearly a hundred trees around the village!

I can't get my kids to come and read after school anymore, they're too busy throwing sticks, mangoes, and bottles into the trees to knock out the ripe ones!

I love mango season!

Culture Wednesday

Every Wednesday, the youth of the CRS Course have Culture Day. Learning self-confidence, especially about their Amerindian heritage is a large part of the course. So, every Wednesday, we learn how to weave baskets from ite palms, and how to shoot bow and arrow.

This photo is our leader, Eustace, who is most highly skilled in every traditional activity I can think of. He teaches Joyce to weave:

Curt and Silvio working together:
Joanna is a bit shy, here she's hiding behind the ite palm: (The thatched roof you see in the background is also made from the same ite palm, it's just been dried).
James advices Elenie: