For Thanksgiving, a Post about Food

Most days I come home from work with food. Whether it is simply a single tangerine or a whole bag of pears (avocados), most people in the rural areas grow lots of food in their yards and are always willing to share it with me. The forty-ish year old man who loves to attend my youth club meeting in Pratville brings me bags of cane and oranges most weeks. One of the old church ladies in Cross Keys regularly sends me home with at least two different foods. From cho cho (sp?) to pumpkin to bananas, it’s always a surprise what she’ll have for me. The parents at the Basic School have even started bringing things when they pick the kids up if they saw that morning that I was there. This influx of produce has led me to start experimenting with my Jamaican cooking, as I received a bag of gungo peas and some sorrel from some parents one afternoon last week. The next day being my day off I made my most Jamaican meal yet: rice and peas. Jamaicans eat rice and peas more than any other food I have seen. The most common version of this dish is rice and red beans (which they call peas), but the traditional dish is actually made with the gungo peas, that are currently in season and which that mother had picked from her yard to give me. (The red peas version is more common because red peas are cheaper. I definitely prefer the gungo pea version.) Anyway, I knew little about how to make it, but I went to the market and asked the woman who we usually buy our produce from, and she was nice enough to give me directions AND the ingredients for free. In case anyone at home wants to try to make it (with the red peas, since I don’t know if I’ve ever even seen gungo peas at home), I’ll quickly share the directions. I boiled about a cup of gungo peas in a pot with about 4 cups of water and about 2 cups of coconut milk (I used poweder – I wasn’t ambitious enough to make my own milk from a coconut). Anyway, in that pot I also crushed two cloves of garlic and put one scotch bonnet pepper (these really spicy little peppers – I didn’t cut it or anything, just put the whole pepper in like the lady said to do). I also added some chopped scallion and a few sprigs of fresh thyme. After about 5 minutes, once the peas had cooked pretty well, I added 3 cups of rice and let it all cook together on a low heat. 

While that cooked I also cooked some bammy, which I had purchased at the market. I know I’ve mentioned bammy before, but it is one of my favorite Jamaican foods. Made from shaved cassava, it is slightly bitter, but when it is cooked it reminds me of Baba’s pedahaire (I know that is not spelt anything like it really is, but I figured the family might understand what I’m talking about better). One of the boys from my youth group has made me bammy before, and he promised that he’s going to teach me how to make it, but for now it’s a learning experience just for me to buy it and cook it.

 I soaked the bammy in milk and then fried it on a pretty dry skillet. Soaking it in milk gives it a pretty gummy texture, but then the frying makes the outside crispy, just like pedahaire with the crispy outside and potatoes inside.

Anyway, for my lunch that day I ended up having the rice and peas, bammy, AND plantains, since Natalie had been making them at the same time. Also, Kathryn had used the sorrel we received to make the sorrel drink that is so popular here at this time of year. I love the sorrel drink. It is made from these flowers that you take the petals off of and then put into boiling water with some fresh grated ginger. You then add sugar and allow it to cool. It is one of the best drinks that I have had. Jamaicans say that it’s even better with rum, but I’m yet to try it that way. Anyway, to complete my very Jamaican lunch that day I had a glass of sorrel. I’m very excited to know how to cook these things, and I hope that someone will give the rice and peas a try! If not, I’ll definitely cook it for everyone when I get back!

On another note, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone at home. It’s really strange to be here for Thanksgiving. When I missed Thanksgiving when I was in Europe it wasn’t so strange because the weather was at least cold and Tarah and Jenny were there, so it was a little bit more like a Thanksgiving weekend at home. It’s a little bit stranger to be here, but we will be having our own family Thanksgiving dinner tonight as well as a big one at Bosco tomorrow night with over fifty other Americans on the island. It’ll be nice to still have the same foods, but it definitely won’t be the same as Thanksgiving at home!

Some Updates and Some Sweet Sap

On behalf of Sean, thanks to everyone who offered ideas about his books. The good news is that a priest from his high school has a brother who owns a shipping company, so the books will be making their way to Florida soon. Thanks again for the help.

Things have been crazy here, so this is just a short post with a little taste of Jamaica. This is a picture of one of my favorite fruits here in Jamaica. The season has finished now, but they were excellent. They are called Sweet Sap, and the inside tastes a little bit like honey.

This second photo is of the inside of the Sweet Sap. The other thing on the plate is sugar cane, which is a very popular snack here, (which given the lack of money and access of dental care, you can imagine the state of a lot of people's teeth). Anyway, more on Jamaican food soon! 

Mi Beggy Some Ideas...

I'm writing this post as a bit of a plea on behalf of Sean, one of the other volunteers. This is Sean's second year serving as a volunteer at Black River High School, and beyond his role as head coach of their basketball team, Sean has set out to build their library at the school. From Jamaica he has been able to secure about SIX THOUSAND books from various sources in the States. The nonprofit Food for the Poor will be able to bring these books into Jamaica duty free, which is huge, but the problem is that the books must somehow get to Coconut Creek, Florida where the headquarters are located. Sean's family has been inundated with books, as they agreed to let him use their home on Long Island to store them. However, the transportation from Long Island to Florida fell through, and his family is looking at the holidays with a home decorated in cardboard boxes. We have brainstormed and brainstormed and tried many different options, but we are out of ideas as to how to get them to Florida in an economical way. That is why I am looking to all of you for some help. I am hoping that the more brains we have on this the better the chance of finding a solution. We welcome any and all suggestions! Thanks in advance for your great ideas!

I'm Still Here, Dad - "Don't Worry, 'Bout a Thing"

The last two weeks have been some of my busiest since arriving in Jamaica, but they have also been some of my best. From an overnight to Dunn's River Falls for our first house trip, to my new weekly routine of spending Sunday afternoons playing football at the Bosco Boys' Home, to the several days where I have been the substitute teacher and had my own class, it has been a whirlwind that I have thoroughly enjoyed, despite the fact that I have been out of energy and have a new habit of falling asleep in my taxis.

Having been in schools for over two months now, it is amazing to see the amount of progress that the students have made in such a short time. For example, yesterday morning I took taxi out to Holy Cross Basic School in Pratville, and the taxi driver was the father of one of the students from the class in which I usually work. We picked the boy up for school along the way (making him the 4th person in the front seat, sitting between me on a pillow on the center console and his father in the driver's seat). At the beginning of the year Tavary was basically a zombie; he would wander into school at a very slow pace, only when coaxed, and for at least the first month I had not heard him utter a single word, not even his name. The past two weeks he has started to give trouble in class. Most teachers (if I can group myself in that) would be annoyed by a problem student, but I've just been so happy that he's been coming out of his shell. His father didn't believe me when I told him of Tavary's newfound personality, as he claims he barely talks at home either, but when Tavary got in the taxi yesterday morning and saw me, he became animated and even answered my questions (which impressed his father). The best part was that since I was filling in for another teacher yesterday, I was not in Tavary's classroom as I usually am, yet Tavary spent the entire day sneaking out of his room and down to the four year old class where I was, content to just stand there holding my hand while I taught the letter "Hh." Every once in a while he would tell the class "Mi daddy carry Auntie Danielle a school today!" Tavary is quickly becoming one of my favorites (as is half the school), but it really is great to see the little ones becoming little people with big personalities.

Anyway, I really do want to make an effort to post more frequently (not just 'cause my father has been pestering me to do so). I feel like there are so many interesting and wonderful nuances about Jamaica that I miss when trying to post solely on big events, so I want to try to post more often and work in the small details that I think are the most important in understanding what my life here in Jamaica really is like.

Happy belated Halloween to all of you who were in a country that celebrated it! My favorite answer that I got for why Jamaica doesn't celebrate Halloween was from one of my Jamaican friends who stated that "Jamaica 'ave nuff scary people dat we don't need a 'oliday fi dem good ones a be actin' scary too!"

Passport to the PVI Residence

Yesterday was a public holiday in Jamaica, National Heroes Day, so there was no school. Natalie, Brendan, Mr. Samuels (a teacher at the Bosco Boys' Home), and I decided to have a cookout and enjoy our day off. In the course of our day Natalie and I ended up finally filming the tour of where we live, which I have been promising for a while. For some reason we chose to spend a lot of time in the schoolyard, most likely because we were excited that there weren't kids everywhere for once, but I hope that the video helps you get a better idea of where I'm living. The apartment is huge, as I'm sure you'll see,   so we are really lucky. It makes me sound terrible when I grumble about the lack of hot water and green TV, I know!

Photos!

This week was probably my favorite in Jamaica thus far. I did so many different things, and I hope to post about it soon. For now I just wanted to let you know I put up some photos from October so far, and you can see them by clicking HERE! They are from both basic schools that I go to, St. Joseph's in Cross Keys and Holy Cross in Pratville.

St. Joseph Basic School - Cross Keys

To give you a better idea of what my days are like, I'll share yesterday, especially since I took some pictures and videos!

Shaqueel, one of my favorites at St. Joseph Basic School

Kimora

On Fridays I get up at 6 am (I'm going to do a video tour of our apartment next week, I promise!), and get ready for the day. By about 7/7:15 I walk into town, which is about a 10-15 minute walk. Like I've mentioned before, I have to be pretty awake for the walk into town, 'cause there's usually a decent amount of people that are in the mood to talk, even at that early hour. When I get into town I go to the area where the Cross Keys taxis park, and I try to find one that is nearly full so that it will be leaving shortly. There's a high school down in Cross Keys, so I can usually get a taxi with students pretty quickly. Since all Jamaican schools have uniforms, it's easy to spot the Cross Keys High students, as the girls wear pink shirts and grey jumpers. Since I've been going down to Cross Keys for a while now, I'm getting to know a good number of taxi drivers, and look forward to the mornings when I get to ride down there with a familiar face. Mom, Grandma, and Grammy may want to stop reading now, but the taxi ride is pretty interesting. We usually sit with one or two people in the passenger seat and then four or five people in the back seat, not counting any kids under age 10 who can be crammed in anywhere. There is occasionally a seatbelt in the passenger's seat, but they aren't always functioning properly. Some of the cars are in good shape, but some look like they have been built by putting together the parts of about 10 different cars, so those can be interesting. I also like the ones that have a trick for every car function, whether it be putting the window up, opening the door, or even shifting. You never know what you're going to get with these cars. This particular Friday, the taxi driver only put 4 of us in the car, which was surprising, but then he told us he was going to have to drive into the "bush" to pick someone else up on the way. We all told him that was fine, but then when he pulled off the road we ended up taking a 15 minute detour down hilly dirt roads that we realized at the end was solely to avoid a police roadblock/inspection that was set up on the section we missed. (The police set up roadblocks all the time where they stop cars at random to inspect their paperwork and various other things). Anyway, after avoiding the police we made it to Cross Keys smoothly, even if the drive had taken about 40 minutes, rather than the usual 25.

Some of the taxis will drive me to the school, but others just drop me off at "Cross Keys," the intersection of two roads that constitutes the rural district known as Cross Keys and earns it a place on the map. I like being dropped at Cross Keys cause I walk down to the school with some of the parents and students or run into people that I know and get to say hello. I usually aim to be at school by 8, because that's when the kids start arriving. We hang out and play until 8:30 when devotion starts. All Jamaican schools do devotion, whether they are public or private. At St. Joseph it consists of all of the classes gathering together outside and singing 2 or 3 "lively choruses," which are songs with lyrics like "Jesus' love is a bubbling over, Jesus' love is a bubbling over, bubble bubble bubble bubble bubbling over, Jesus' love is a bubbling over." The students then sing the Jamaican National Anthem, recite the Jamaican pledge, and then recite different psalms and sayings about education and manners. After all of this, which takes almost half an hour some days, the school day begins. On Friday I found out that one of the teachers wasn't there, so I ended up with the class of three year olds that I'm usually with on my own! We had a great time. I taught some geometry (the triangle), and sang and danced as much as I could to keep 20 three year olds  under control as best I could. (I know what you're thinking - my singing and dancing skills probably made them want to leave, but it worked!) Anyway, it was a tiring day, and it gave me a lot more respect for those teachers who handle that many students of that age on their own every day.

School ends early on Fridays (1pm), so usually I would try to visit some people in the area to say hello, but on this particular Friday I had to get back up to Mandeville to get to the bank since I'm in charge of the finances for us here in Jamaica. It's not my favorite job, especially since banks here are a lot less efficient than at home. (Open 8:30-2 M-Th and 8:30-4 on Friday; no online banking; 15-45 minute wait in the line for a teller, etc.)

Anyway, I took a couple of videos at school, and I put them together into one, so here it is. These are some of my favorite students, and they will introduce themselves in the video. The part at the end where I am repeatedly calling Shawndee's name is a little thing he does every single day I'm there where I say his name and he immediately says "don't call me" or "no call pon me" over and over. I know I probably shouldn't have favorites, but he and Shaqueel are definitely up there on the list!