Eat Your Weeds

Much of my job entails going out to the surrounding villages, giving a presentation on nutrition and pneumonia and/or diarrhea (as these are the 2 leading causes of preventable infant deaths in the country), and the class follows with a cooking demonstration in one of the women's kitchens. We make everything from soy milk from scratch, soy chorizo, tortillas fortified with green leaves or pureed carrots, and chicken and vegetable soup made with local vegetables brought by the women.... all in a Lencan woman's tiny kitchen with no modern amenities.

During one of my first trips out to an aldea, the women and I were gathering leaves to grind and add to the maseca for tortillas, when someone shouted, "mira, espinaca!"... they found spinach. You couldn't have imagined my delight at hearing the word! Someone has spinach?! So we walk on over to where the women are pulling the leaves, and my heart sinks. "Ummmm.... that's not spinach. That's a weed..." I wanted to say, as they smiled and fervently pulled bunches for lunch. But, I didn't say anything and just watched as they added the leaves to the mixture and we went on with lunch. I figured if 10 mothers were eating the stuff, I wasn't going to die. And, low and behold, I didn't :)

So, being me, I went home and scoured the internet until I found an identical leaf structure and started researching exactly what it was. Turns out, it's what we would call Lambs Quarters, and most people in the US just pull it up like it's a weed. I then went to nutritiondata.com (only go there if you really want to feel bad about eating something unhealthy.... there are always way more calories than you think.... don't do it!) Anyway, I compared the nutritional content to that of what we would call spinach, and it's pretty spot on! So, feel free to eat your weeds! Well, this weed (I read somewhere that it has a large amount of oxalic acid, so in case that's an issue...)

I remembered there being a 4 foot tall stalk of lambs quarters in the backyard when we went to look at the house we are currently renting and instantly got excited. Of course our landlords, who were trying to be very nice, chopped (well... macheted) down our entire back yard right before we moved. They left a few flowers and the huge elephant ears, thankfully. So, I've spent the last three months waiting and hoping more would pop up... and just like a weed, I found 10 sprouting all of the yard.

Yesterday, I cleared out a spot in our yard and transplanted every single one to the new space to cultivate. And, nicely enough, while clearing up the spot, I found 5 small green bean vines!

Lambs Quarters

Green Beans!

Over the last month, while poking around in the yard, I've been finding edibles all over the place. While clearing out some sugar cane (it's taking over the backyard!) I found what the locals call pepinitos, or mini cucumbers. They're growing on the back fence and are the size of a chubby pinky at maturity. We also have swiss chard from the former volunteer living in the house, our sweetsop tree is overloaded with fruit, we're getting 3-5 patastes weekly from our vine, and our plum tree just started producing. We've made some good friends out of neighbors by giving them fruits and veggies from the yard... Neither one of us can stand pataste, and I can only eat so much sweetsop, so it works out for everybody :)

I can't believe the garden I have... and I barely did a thing! To compensate, I've planted pak choi and more swiss chard, garlic, ginger root, lavender and rosemary so far. I hope to plant much more, but Jacob and I are currently working with the local daycare on a vegetable garden, and that's taken up alot of time and energy (will blog about that later).

Anyway, I'll end on a few pics of flowers that just popped up in the yard this week... so nice!

MARV Meeting in Tela, Honduras

On a side note, we'd like to thank Susan and Hatch for sending us a care package, and Jo and Aaron, too!!! Thanks so much guys, sorry I didn't post pics... it only means we devoured the box of goodies before I could get ahold of the camera :)

Marv, or Married Volunteers is a Worldwide Peace Corps group focusing on the needs of just that, married volunteers (Married coupes only make up about 7% of the volunteers serving). Twice a year, we marrieds get to meet in a location of our choosing for 2 nights and catch up, swap stories, etc... without having to use vacation days or personal leave.

Not that being a married volunteer is that difficult, I actually believe it to be easier. You come to Peace Corps with your best friend, you always have someone to talk to in your native language, and you can always get advice from someone who is not a host country national. Plus, being a woman in a foreign country isn't always easy, so there's the added bonus of a male traveling companion. And, as much as I hate to say it, having a husband in such a machista society seems to make my work more credible... they all assume he did it anyway.

But, regardless, having this meeting semi-annually is helpful. For this trip, we chose Tela on the North Coast... not too shabby, right? Please be aware that the US Government is not funding a get away for couples twice yearly. Yes, they do provide a small stipend to help with traveling to/from the meeting, but it comes no where near the amount of the cost of the trip for each couple. Other volunteers like to give us a hard time about it... we just tell them to get married :)

Tela, Honduras

Anyway, the first thing we all decided to do was jump in the water, a stone's throw from our hotel. The tourism industry in Honduras is still small and according to the locals here, tourism fell even more in 2009 and hasn't fully recovered. So, the beach was rather empty.... nice for us, but not nice for the locals trying to earn a living. There was one other family on the beach that day...

That night we decided to have our official meeting over dinner at Maya Vista... if you ever come to Tela, the restaurant has a great view...

During dinner we all simultaneously discovered that no one at site invites us couples to anything... weddings, fiestas, birthdays, or even lunch. People in all of our sites seem to assume that we have our own daily agendas and can't be bothered. Our single volunteer friends all tell us of the crazy fiestas they've been to, and Jacob and I kept thinking maybe the locals didn't like us too much. But, at least now we hope it's just because we're married, and I need to be at home to cook my husband's breakfast/lunch/dinner/wash his clothes.... you name it.

The next day, Honduras celebrated it's 190th year of independence, so we headed down to the central park to see the Garifuna marching in a parade and several Honduran marching bands from the local area schools.

Next stop was the boardwalk. We had piña coladas while watching a group of men play for people on the beach, and later ate pizza at a restaurant (Bella Italia) owned by an Italian woman. It was great! She spoke with us for a little while and told us she moved down here about 13 years ago with her husband. It's a small world when you can have authentic Italian pizza and wine in a little town on the edge of Honduras.

I'm already looking forward to our next meeting in March. It's always great to catch up with other volunteers, but especially nice to see the other married couples who sometimes face the same issues, and more often than not, provide great advice.

Christmas in July, Part Tres!

Continued from the last post...

Since the boxes my mom sent were also from other people, including Joyce and Megan, I'm not quite sure who sent what... but I think Joyce sent the some of the seeds, art supplies and The Week, thank you!

My parents have had to listen to me moan about how cold it is in our municipality (which I'm sure pisses off all the other volunteers in Honduras with their 90-105 degree days sans air conditioning), so they sent an entire box of hoodies, flannel pajamas and fleece... you guys are the best! I'm proudly sporting sweatpants and a fleece lined hoodie as I write this... so much better.

Enough art supplies to outfit an army of child artists... yay!

Aside from the seeds sent by the booster club (all of which will go to the daycare and other community projects), I now have an amazing personal stash of herbs and veggies. The only thing I have to do now is pick up a ton of rocks in the backyard and tier the space for a garden spot this November!

Christmas in July, Part Dos!

When Jacob and I came home yesterday, our host mom gave us a call. Jacob's boss was driving through our town on the way to see another volunteer in the West and dropped off 9 packages with our host mom! We were thinking we'd have to travel 5 hours to the capital to go pick them up, but no!

So, this post goes out to Megan W., Linda L., Ramona M., Joyce J., and my parents.... THANK YOU!!!! (another post to follow) You are all wonderful, thank you so much for taking the time to send us so many goodies! I now have 20 sticks of chap stick... seriously, I'm not kidding... and they will all be used within the year.

We also ended up having 5 containers of Lemon pepper! A few host family relatives came over last night with fried plantain empanadas for Jacob, who recently got 2 stitches (I'll let Jacob tell that story). So, we gave our host mom and her mother in law each a thing of lemon pepper, which made them very happy. Please don't be offended that we gave away a gift, it's sort of expected to share your gifts here, so this allowed us to do so without giving up something we only received one of... and nobody uses chap stick here, lol.

No packages were opened or rummaged through, our only uh-oh was not realizing that chocolate and gummy bears should not be sent during the hottest summer in a really long time. The gummy bears look like they're having an orgy... all glued together and such, and we're eating the chocolate in huge chunks... doesn't mean we're not going to stuff our faces with either, though.

Also, one package was from a Booster Club in California which donated over 100 packets of seeds for a garden we're starting with the local daycare (will blog about that later).

Anyway, here's what nine packages looks like... to a Peace Corps volunteer, these are diamonds!

All things awesome!

Ramona, I didn't know they made M&M bags this big! Also, thanks for the magazine... missing my New York fix.

Megan, we put the pic of the girls on the fridge, too cute! Our host mom came over last night to see the loot and wouldn't stop talking about how beautiful they are!!

Linda, you are now my husband's best friend... he ate all the jerky already, lol. Thank you!

Christmas in July!!!

Last week, another Peace Corps Volunteer passed through the capital and she gave me a call, saying there were "a ton" of packages at headquarters for Jacob and me, and she offered to pick up 5 of the smaller packages.

Yesterday, she was passing through our little town (and in very Honduran fashion) the bus driver stopped in the middle of the dirt road outside the church, and she passed them to Jacob and me through the bus window. Then the bus driver gave us a honk and went on its merry way, lol.

So, a heartfelt thanks goes out to the PCV to went out of her way to help us out! Only another PCV really knows how wonderful it is to receive a package (or several!) from the States.... it's like a tiny piece of home. There are still a few more boxes in the office, which means more Christmas to come!

Anyway, we want to thank my parents and Sue W. for sending boxes... look at all these goodies!!!!!

Nuts = nom, nom, nom!

I can't wait to have my first miso soup in 5 mths! A side note, I found a good recipe for tofu that I plan to try with my schmorgasborg of Japanese ingredients: Quick and Easy One Hour Tofu — La Fuji Mama

We now have enough nuts to hold us for at least a little while (I doubt the pistachios will last the weekend), and enough Japanese food, too... and lots, and lots of herb seeds, and stickers out the wha-zoo! I plan to plant several seeds in the next few weeks, and will also donate some to the local daycare where I'm planning a vegetable garden. The stickers and art supplies will be going to the local orphanage where I hope to start a large art class this Fall. The colorful band-aids will be going to the daycare and orphanage, but I may steal a few, too :)

My mom also sent my winter coat, which you'd think was a bit weird here in Central America... but apparently it gets down to almost freezing November-January up at our altitude, so this will definitely come in handy.

Anyway, we just wanted to send a great big thank you to Sue and my parents so being so very awesome! **Don't worry if we haven't received your package yet, apparently there are still several at headquarters and we'll be getting them shortly.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Lauren and Jacob

Lencan Kitchen: Pizza Edition

The first week we arrived at site, our host mom asked if we could teach her how to make pizza. "Sure!" Her next question was whether she should go out and buy ketchup and hotdogs for the pizza.... (NOOOOO!!!!) "Uh, don't worry about the ingredients, we'll take care of it."

Fyi, the word pizza here is a rather subjective term. Anything on a flat piece of bread/tortilla with something red, aka ketchup, and some type of cut up meat (don't forget the baloney!) is considered pizza.

Anyway, it's the last weekend living with our host family, and we thought we'd do a little something for them, since they have been so generous with their home, etc... So, Jacob and I bought all the ingredients yesterday and prepared all the veggies last night.

This morning, I showed our host mom how to make the dough, and we let it rise for two hours while the horno (outdoor oven) was heating up with a dozen or so pieces of pine/firewood. We basically went step by step through the pizza making process, adding the sauce and veggies (then hiding them beneath the cheese so the kids couldn't tell) and the meat and cheese. We had to make a few substitutions: the meat was a mixture of hamburger and chorizo, because it just isn't a meal without chorizo here. Also, there's no such thing as mozzarella here, so we used quesillo, the closest Honduran cheese we could find. Quesillo has a bit of a stronger flavor, but it still worked and is local.

The Honduran version of an oven (made of brick and clay) is actually quite similar to a brick oven seen in pizza shops, so the pizza came out great and crispy. Everybody seemed to enjoy it, and it was quite nice to have something other than eggs and beans for lunch! Pictures below!

Host mom and brother

The largest cutting board ever

Pizzas ready!

Into the horno

Nom, nom, nom!

Live Like a Peace Corps Volunteer: Honduras Rules

I noticed the "Live Like a PCV Challenge" posted on another PCV's facebook page and of course had to take a look.

Here's the link: http://www.LiveLikeaPCV.org/

Anyway, the purpose of the site is to raise awareness about Peace Corps and to see what it's like to live like one of us.

Don't get me wrong... we're not trying to be martyrs here, and I embrace any resemblance of our "normality" in the US (aka peanut butter), but Jacob and I have actually adapted pretty well. Up until this point, we've just been accepting the differences, and now they are no longer so foreign to us. So when I read the Honduras Rules, I thought... "Oh, yeah. That is kind of weird, huh." Now, when we go back to the States, please don't yell at us for throwing our toilet paper in the trash.... sorry!

I figured that since Jacob and I never really discuss our daily living situation very often, I thought the Honduran Rules could be a good template for you guys to see how we live and work every day...

(See the website above for explanations to the rules and levels, etc...)

Dátal– Difficulty Level I:

(Choose 2 of the following)

You canʼt use running hot water, you may only use water you boiled (yes, this includes baths): True for now, but the house we are moving into has an "electro-ducha" which is an electric shower head plugged into a socket that heats up water (and somehow doesn't electrocute you), thus a hot shower! No hot water in the sinks, though :(

You canʼt use any microwave: What's a microwave?

No checks, no debit cards or credit cards, cash only all week: True, but we can use a debit card at the larger supermarkets in the state capital... just not at our site.

No washing machine or dish washers - plus you must wash all articles of clothing you wore during the week by hand: Ugh... so true! A hand washing video demonstration will be posted once we move into our house (ample warning for any cursing that may occur during said demonstration).

No flushing your toilet paper: True. For the next 2 years, Jacob and I get to throw our toilet paper in the trash next to the toilet. We then throw it out in the backyard in a burn barrel and burn all trash once a week (food is composted). *Don't judge our burning trash. It's either burn your trash or it sits there creating lawn art. There is no such thing as trash or recycling pick-up in our site.

Manzano - Difficulty Level II

(Choose 2 of the following plus 1 from Dátal)

You cannot watch television, but may watch soap operas and soccer at a neighborʼs house: Somewhat true. We have cable at our host family's house (but won't have a TV when we have our own house), but it's of course all in Spanish. And the soap opera and soccer comment is definitely true!

Must keep all valuables (cash, phone, id) hidden. Some options include bra, socks, hats. Get creative. So true... I'm now a master at hiding all things in my unmentionables. I even have "traveling pants" which have about 10 pockets and a spot for rolled money. I even forget where it all is sometimes, lol.

No sitting on couches for the week: Nah... there's even a couch in our room, which frankly is kind of annoying.

Internet only every other day and for only 1 hour each time: Oh, so False... we have a monthly internet plan. It took some time and pretending not to understand "no" in Spanish.... but we have lots of internets now :) But, other volunteers will say this is on par.

Men and women may not wear shorts in public (only choose this item if you live in a warm climate): True for me, not for Jacob.

Chata- Difficulty Level III:

(Choose 2 of the following plus 1 item from Manzano or 2 items from Dátal)

You can use your toilet but you must manually fill the tank or do a bucket flush. (turn off the water to the toilet): Thank God this is False! It is true for volunteers in hotter parts of the country where water doesn't come everyday. Our site is inundated with water, so no problem there.

Power outage. Have someone else throw a dice every day for how many hours you will be without power between (5a-11p) He/she cannot tell you how long it will be out for. (And he/she must turn off your power breakers): True, but at least it's not every day, only twice a week on average. Sometimes it's only for an hour... sometimes it's almost 24 hours.

You can only use one burner on your stove and no oven: True for now. I've never seen any Honduran use their oven for anything other than storing pots and pans. Most people have a stove/oven combination and only use the stove part (and usually only 1 or 2 burners work). But, Jacob and I plan to buy a gas oven in a few weeks for the house, yay for all things baked!!!

Say hi to everyone (including strangers) and make a comment about the weather to people you know: True, but actually they say "adios" when walking past, so really they are saying bye... odd.

No supermarkets: True. At site there are only the equivalent of convenient stores (think very minimally equipped 7 Elevens.) But, there are 2 supermarkets in the state capital.

Guineo - Difficulty Level IV:

(Choose 2 of the following plus 1 item from Chata or 2 items from Manzano, or 3 items from Dátal)

Reduced living space. You may only use your living room, bathroom and kitchen: OMG, so true... for now at least. We live in a 7x7 room, and I'm surprised Jacob and I haven't tried to kill each other yet. But, our house will actually be bigger than our apartment in NYC... which in reality isn't saying much, but we're definitely happy about it!

No driving. You can use public transportation, bike, or walk: True, but we're very used to this. No car in NYC either.

Cannot leave your house after sunset or before sunrise: Very True. The streets are deserted by sunset. There is no such thing as a night life here, and it is very inappropriate for women to be seen out of the house after dark.

No running water from your house, you must go fetch it from somewhere else. (a neighbors house is fine): False for us. For other volunteers, this is very true, but we're lucky in this regard.

Plátano - Difficulty Level V:

(Choose 1 from each level)

No English for the entire week: Nah, Jacob and I are cheaters... we get to talk all we want to each other in good ole' English.

Lack of temperature control. No heater or air conditioner in your house or car: True, but you'd be amazed at how easily you get used to it... of course this is coming from the coldest region in Honduras where the temperature is never above 80.

You can only use your cell phone for 10 minutes per day: False. Don't really know where this one comes from.

Your diet for the week must include coffee twice a day with 4 tsps of sugar with each cup or drink soda twice a day. Also must eat tortillas, beans, and eggs daily. (absolutely no butter): Sooo freaking True!! I'm rather addicted to sugar with coffee in it now, and I doubt I would consider anything a meal without eggs, tortillas or beans in it, lol. Oh, and the butter thing is true too. You can get all the "mantequilla" you could ever want, but it's not like the butter in the States. For US style butter, you must scour the shelves at every supermarket around for one block!

Anyway, that's a peek into some of the changes and adaptations we've made. It's pretty easy to get used to... but, oh how thankful will we be the next time we lay eyes on a washer and dryer!

Have a great weekend guys, and the next time you have a night out on the town, drink one for us!!!