Cooking up a storm!

In the states I would consider Nate and myself, “Foodies”. If you are not familiar with this term, let me elaborate a bit. A “Foodie” is someone that loves food, I mean LOVES food and all it represents. They appreciate the color, taste, and texture of the food. They are concerned about where the food was produced, who produced it and how it was produced. They are obsessed with trying to combine different flavors (savory, sweet, spicy, etc.), and read cookbooks on their free time. Days, weekends, vacations are surrounded around food and where to score the best local cuisine. Food embodies different sentiments and for a “Foodie” celebratory events and seasons all have their own flavor. They are also constantly trying to learn how to take any meal and recreate it from scratch, with the occasional twist. Ok I could keep going, but I think you get the gist. So like I was saying before, Nate and I are “Foodies,” and since we have recently found a lot of time on our hands, cravings for all sorts of food we can’t get down here in Guyana, and a plethora of raw ingredients, our newfound hobby is cooking.

So I know a question on everyone’s mind, is what do we do on our spare time. Well we cook every single meal, and the only one that is not elaborate is lunch M-F, because we only have one hour to eat. Those meals usually consist of Mac & Cheese or peanut butter (or Nut-Butter, that’s what the Guyanese call it) and jelly sandwiches. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays is when we really go all out. It took awhile to learn how to cook on Guyanese cookware and on a gas cook top (since we still don’t have a range, fingers crossed we will be getting one in the next month). Guyanese have two staple items called a “Kahari” and a “Tawa.” A “Kahari” is a cross between a big pot and a frying pan that doesn’t have a lid and is made of aluminum, so the bottom of it gets pretty charred after using a few millions times. A “Tawa” looks like a big round griddle, also made of aluminum. Guyanese only cook with a few spices; these are Curry, Masala, Geehra, black pepper and salt. So learning how to use these spices was a challenge, before we got some awesome care packages with all sorts of seasonings. Our first few weeks at site, we ate a lot of burnt food and gosh-awful curried-spiced dishes. Of course, once we passed the steepest part of the learning curve we straight up began dominating some incredible dishes.

Fried chicken delight!

Let’s see if I can describe some of our prized meals that have come from scratch.

Dinner: Spiced split-pea soup, pan-fried okra, onions and tomatoes with whole-wheat flatbread. Homemade pineapple, onion, garlic pizza with a tomato broad-leaf spiced sauce. My famous three-bean pumpkin chili with homemade whole kernel cornbread. Panko-crusted buffalo chicken with sweet potato fries and chipolte ranch sauce. Chicken Mofongo that my dad would be jealous of (Wink, Wink). Eggplant parmesan with a fresh tomato and broad-leaf sauce. White-cheddar chesse sauce over pasta and fresh veggies with homemade breadsticks. Red-bean and oats burger with Guyanese cheese.

Lunch: Fresh guacamole and garlic/lime hummus with homemade corn tortillas. Homemade falafel with ranch dressing and a zesty-sweet cucumber salad. Plantain chips and phulourie (split-pea flour fritter) with Green mango sour sauce. Nate’s incredible New York style soft pretzels with a zesty mustard dipping sauce.

Breakfast: Banana and M&M (thanks Tammie for the M&M’s) pancakes from scratch with cinnamon-rum syrup Nate made, Holy deliciousness! Banana Bread…Incredible! Curry egg salad sandwich (we finally got a hang of curry). Our own grown Lemongrass tea. Hot chocolate from raw cocoa produced locally (you have to grate the sticks of cocoa and boil it).

Pancake cooking on a tawa.

As you can see, we are becoming quite handy in the kitchen and the best part is that we typically don’t spend more than $25 a week on all the ingredients, since we each live on about $4 a day. We also are lucky that we have some pretty awesome fruit trees in our backyard that include mangoes, cherries, and avocados the size of your face. Not to mention all of our generous neighbors that give us Pineapple and free-range organic eggs almost on a weekly basis. We have also become incredibly good at not wasting a morsel of anything edible. This anecdote is for my dad, you would be proud. Last week, we bought two pounds of chicken and made three meals out of it. We cut the skin off and made chicharrones, which is friend skin to put in our mofongo. We took the neck, all the bones and the spine of the chicken and made a soup and then we took the meat of the chicken and made Panko-crusted chicken nuggets, which is why we bought the meat in the first place. So as you can see, nothing goes to waste here. Not only do we not have the luxury of throwing away anything that is edible, we don’t have the heart when we see children who are malnourished.

Nate's homemade pizza.

Back home we spent a lot of time, money and energy trying to find food that was produced in a sustainable way that was local and organic. Living in Guyana, which is the food basket of the Caribbean, we feel even more connected to our food and the best part is that we don’t have to spend a fortune.

Till next time.

A day in the life of Nate

The Regional Education office, where my office is located.

In the 2 years we spent contemplating joining Peace Corps, we spent a lot of time wondering what our daily life would be like. What will our house look like; how will we get water; would a solar charger be a good investment; what foods will be available; what will our worksites look like; how will we get to work… and the list goes on. As the weeks tick by, Ilana and I have slowly begun to settle into a groove and our routines have begun to emerge. The following is a description of a typical week for me.

This is what the Internet actually looks like.

On the weekdays I get up around 6am, without an alarm, right around the time the hospital’s generator turns off. It’s one of those sounds that’s far enough away that after a few minutes of hearing it your brain tunes it out until the second the sound goes away and you suddenly notice its absence. The din of the generator is quickly replaced by the calls of songbirds, roosters, dogs, cows, passing cars, sometimes a neighbour straight rocking some 90s soft rock, and the fluttering of the birds that come inside our house to pick off the moths that didn’t hide so well. I get up, make coffee (recently it’s been Starbucks French Roast sent by my parents… they should call it “Ground Black Awesomeness”), and put the dishes away from dinner the night before while the coffee steeps. By about 6:30am Ilana’s up and we sweep the floor to clear out all the dead insects the birds didn’t want. We work out… usually some yoga (thanks to the book Ilana’s mom sent us), I do a prison-type workout and Ilana might do a workout video or go for a run, which really turns some heads since running in public is not something sane people do here. Unfortunately, some mornings I have to burn our trash. Definitely not my favourite thing to do, but the trash is not going to burn itself.

At 8am I walk to work, which only takes 2 minutes since we live on the administrative compound. I like that much better than the 45 min drive through traffic back home. The last traffic jam I saw was when the Prime Minister’s motorcade stopped in front of the secondary school and a few minibuses waiting behind him.

Here I am in my office.

Although it seems silly to mention it, one thing I didn’t expect would be an important factor about working in Guyana is the dress code. I thought that since I’ll be living 7° from the equator I won’t be expected to wear pants or long-sleeve shirts… Wrong. As a rule, Guyanese (and I’m told most other cultures) tend to dress much more formally than Americans do for work. One policy in my office is that people wearing shorts are not even allowed inside the building. Guyanese are also fastidious about pressing (ironing) their clothes everyday. Now it finally makes sense why Peace Corps was so emphatic before we got here about volunteers dressing in business casual all the time… apparently it’s a consistent problem that PC admin has to deal with. I guess when most Americans think “Peace Corps chic” it doesn’t usually translate into business casual.

At this point in my service, my job is basically to be gathering information about my community, try to identify and prioritize the needs, and then try to come up with a plan to help people meet those needs. Most days I spend a good deal of time observing or researching things like teaching strategies or grants. I have also done a bunch of workshops with teachers on subjects like lesson planning, differentiated instruction, Marzano’s high yield strategies, components of literacy, how to teach reading when you’re not a reading teacher (thanks SBAC Mentor Coach peeps!), and student engagement. I’ve also been giving tutoring sessions a few nights each week. Monday night is math for secondary students, Tuesday is English for adults trying to pass their CXC test to get a better job, and Wednesday is science/engineering activity day where I have kids compete in groups on some challenge like “who can build the highest tower out of 7 pieces of paper and 1 piece of tape.” It’s going well so far but I’m worried I might get spread too thin.

So I work from 8am to 4:30pm with an hour lunch break between 12-1pm. Since Ilana and I both work so close to home we’re able to meet up every day for lunch, which has become a favourite little tradition of ours. Lunch is usually a sandwich, chips and fruit, even though Guyanese don’t consider a cold sandwich a meal. I guess it all balances out when we see them in their business suits eating chicken and rice with their hands.

At work the culture is very different. Here it’s much more formal, for example everyone is referred to by either Mr or Mrs and their surname. Depending on the time of day, everyone is greeted with the appropriate salutation, which here include “Morning, morning” or “G’afternoon”. Only after the Sun goes down will people greet each other with “Good night.” That took some getting used to… it’s common for people to answer the phone “Hello, good night.” They are also meticulous about qualities we Americans don’t emphasize as much like handwriting, spelling, drawing lines perfectly straight (like when they hand draw weekly schedules or budget forms)… all things I’m trying to improve on.

Ilana doing wash.

At 4:30pm everything closes and people make their way home. The road usually stays “busy” (all 4 minibuses driving back and forth) until about dusk and then it’s pretty dead. We usually do laundry every other day to stay on top of it since washing everything by hand takes a while. We start making dinner around 5:30pm or so. A typical week’s menu includes some combination of: pumpkin curry, mac’n cheese and steamed veggies, chow mein veggie stir fry, pizza from scratch, Ilana’s newly famous pumpkin chilli, dahl and roti (spiced split pea soup and flat bread), or mofongo. Sometimes we splurge and buy chicken to batter and fry… ok, my mouth is watering so I’ll stop there. We eat pretty well and Ilana has become quite an exceptional cook, especially considering that we only can buy produce once a week and, even then, have a limited selection.

Taking a swim after our one hour hike to the Kissing Rocks.

After dinner we’ll usually chill in our hammocks or under our mosquito net and just talk or read or watch a DVD we bought for a $1. Right now we’re ploughing through the entire series of Lost, which is the best show we never watched back home. We were watching Dexter but haven’ been able to find the second season (cough, cough….Alex… elbow nudge, elbow nudge).

Me sitting on top of the Kissing Rocks.

 

 

Weekends are really chill and usually include some combination of cleaning the house, doing laundry, gardening, going on a hike, visiting other volunteers, or entertaining visitors. We also like to experiment with new recipes. Saturday mornings we like to make breakfast and some kind of beverage. Recently we’ve been able to make tea from lemongrass in our garden, hot cocoa from a cocoa farm up the river, and my favourite… Bloody Mary’s with V8, pepper sauce, and good ol’fashioned Vodka smuggled from Venezuela. And despite not having an oven, I’ve successfully made corn bread, banana bread, soft pretzels, granola, and I think this weekend I’m going to attempt biscuits or pancakes and syrup or… call me crazy…. Both! I don’t know… I don’t know if there’ll be enough time (wink wink).

The view from the top.

 

Turtle, Turtle!

Since we have been in South America, Nate and I have been able to cross a few things off of our bucket list. This past week, Nate was able to cross a big one of his list; see an endangered Leatherback Turtle come to shore to nest. We spent one night at Shell Beach located about 45 minutes northeast by boat from Mabaruma and saw not one, not two, not three, not four….but FIVE Leatherback turtles up close and personal. So close, in fact, we could smell turtle breath. We set out Wednesday morning to visit the remote area of Shell Beach to work at the health post and primary school. Here we met Mr. Audley, who was the founder of Shell Beach about 27 years ago. Fun fact about Mr. Audley, he single-handily planted all the rows of palm trees that you can see today. There must be over 1,000 trees!

Downtown Shell Beach

Mr. Audley welcomed us to his community and showed us around, and by showed us around, I mean he pointed at the seven buildings in the area due to the minute size of this community. There are only about 120 inhabitants year-round with the exception of turtle nesting season when groups of gringos visit the area.

Shell Beach, Region 1, Guyana

We spent most of the morning working at the school and health post, giving vaccinations and assessing the needs of the two sectors. Around 4pm Nate and I headed out on a premature beach walk, (you will see why this was premature a bit later) to see if we could catch a glimpse of any other wildlife. Unfortunately, we didn’t see anything on our walk, but we were able to forage for some dinner. Remember how I said that Shell beach was really remote, well Shell Beach is so remote that there are absolutely no shops to buy food or even dry goods. The people who live there either grow their own food or come out to our village’s market once a month. Also, because of so much beach erosion this community’s once produce garden has since washed away. So all we had was a small jar of peanut butter and jelly and some crackers.















Luckily, Nate’s caveman instinct kicked in and he was able to score us four paw paw’s (this is what they call papaya), one coconut and some cassava leaves, which surprisingly taste a lot like bland spinach. Once we washed down our delectable meal with a bottle of lukewarm filtered water, it was almost time to set out on our 5-hour beach walk to spot our leathery-backed enormous friends.

At 8pm we set out on our night through what can only be described as the backdrop of “Where the Wild Things Are,” as one of the other volunteers so accurately described it. You are surrounded on one side by ocean and on the other side by straight-up jungle. The only light you can see is that of your flashlight and of the moon shining on the pitch-black ocean. There was absolutely nobody else on the beach but our team of 8 and our turtle expert. By hour three we saw our first turtle in all her glory! This turtle was about 6 feet long and an impressive sight.

Leatherback turtles usually nest multiple times during the season at which time they can lay up to 120 eggs at one time. Once on shore they dig a deep hole using there two back fins; it almost looks like ice cream being scooped out with a scooper. After they lay their eggs they cover them up by flinging sand in every direction to camouflage where the eggs have been laid. Once this laborious process is done, which takes about an hour or so, our huge turtle friends make there way back to the water and disappears into the waves. Of all the eggs that leatherback turtles lay, only about 5% will actually survive and sometimes even less than that. In Guyana, turtle eggs are a delicacy and are commonly poached.

Some eggs had to be relocated further up the beach to give the hatchlings a better chance at survival.

I hate to admit this, but since I have been here I have eaten a turtle egg. I am not proud of this, but it was a cultural experience I couldn’t pass up and with all honestly I would have been considered rude otherwise. It was gross! The eggs are slightly boiled and due to the consistency of the outer shell you have to bite a small hole and suck the yolk into your mouth. I ate half the egg when my gag reflexes starting kicking in, at which time I tossed the remainder of the egg over my shoulder and pretended to be fully satisfied with my turtle egg. Moral of the story, don’t eat the eggs of an endangered species!

A mommy flinging sand to camouflage her nest.

At around 1:30am we saw our last turtle and retreated to our hammocks for the night. Oh, I forgot to mention that the mosquitoes on Shell Beach were something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. During the day they aren’t bad, but as soon as five o’clock hits, its like someone releases them out a cage. They were so bad that we had to wear socks, long pants and sleeves and bathe ourselves in repellent. Even with all our efforts, I was unfortunately attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes in the time it took for me to change from a long sleeve shirt into a tank top and get into my hammock. All it took was 60 seconds of exposed skin! Nate left without a mark, but I guess I just have sweeter skin.

My back after getting swarmed.

These shelters are build by fishermen who stay in them for a few nights at a time when they're out fishing on the river. In the background you can see a flock of endangered Scarlet Ibis.

Till next time.