Kiev, Ukraine - (not Ukranian) Food

Here is some of the food we ate in Kiev. 

How could we not eat an Obama burger?? 

Definitely not Ukranian, but o so delicious!

We also had some "fried" ice cream which was also quite yummy!

It starts with either a vanilla, chocolate, or green tea base. They were out of green tea, so i had a vanilla base. After you choose your base then you choose the fresh fruits you want chopped in. I chose kiwi and melon.

Then they spread it all out on a frozen (not hot) tray.

Then scrape it into rolls, and wallah! Pofta buna!

Connecting to where my food comes from...

So, i decided i need to take part in connecting to where my food comes from...if i can eat it, i should be able to do whatever's necessary to prepare it...hence the chicken head and axe. I killed a chicken while Mama-G laughed uncontrollably. I prayed beforehand and told the chicken i was sorry. The worse part was definitely the actual killing (except for Mama-G's laughter). Everything else was fun - feathering, gutting, and eating! 

They use EVERY part of the chicken, which is really great. Whatever is not eaten is given to the dog and cat to eat. Even the stomach contents were used for some kind of compost/fertilization.

Chicken feet...It's What's for Dinner

We raise our own chickens here and we use it all! Usually Mama-G keeps the parts she thinks i might find weird to herself, but one night i noticed she was eating a chicken foot and i told her i wanted to try it, so the next night that's what i got! It was actually pretty good! Way more tender than i was expecting. I thought it would be more cartilaginous. I'd definitely eat it again! :o]

And a Happy New Year

Hello, 2016! This year will start in Malawi for me and end in the good old US of A. It's kinda hard to believe.

New Years Eve in the village is like a big party. There was music late into the night, and people were out and about, laughing and talking into the wee hours.

When the kids came by this morning, we all wished each other a Happy New Year in English, and talked about our Christmases. Then we decorated a little  Christmas tree, since I didn't have time to do it before I left for the holiday. They got a little carried away with the stickers.

Then we collected fallen mangos, practiced some English vocabulary with the flash cards I made, and I gave then some biscuits. Cuz it's a holiday after all!

In the afternoon I went to my neighbor's house to chat. They were preparing their New Years meal of chicken and rice. These are both expensive foods for villagers so they are usually only served on special occasions. They gave me a small piece of chicken to eat since I said I was making beans and rice for dinner. It was boneless and soft, and I have no idea what part it was except it wasn't a wing or breast. They use the whole chicken here, feet and all. It was well-cooked and tasty. Then they gave me a mandazi (donut) to take home with me.

For dinner I made lentils and brown rice and veggies. It took a long time to cook on the hot plate, but it was worth it. And I made extra so I could share some with my neighbors too. They said it was "kucoma" (tastes good).

Oh, and this evening I saw the first toad of the year! It was two inches long. So cute-- look at it's little feet!

Merry Christmas from Malawi

Khrisimasi Yabwino, Aliyense! (Happy Christmas, Everyone!)

For Christmas this year I went North. Northern Malawi that is, not the North Pole. Which means I was still far below the equator.

I visited my PCV friend Tally at her site in Rumphi. She lives near the lake and has a gorgeous view of the surrounding mountains.

Tally's family make cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning just like my family, so that's how we started our day. Don't they look delicious?

We decorated her basil plant with little mini-ornaments and then ate our cinnamon rolls with powdered sugar icing.

Then we planted maize. This isn't a Malawian Christmas tradition or anything, but she had just gotten her seeds and the weather was good for planting.

After that we headed to a nearby lodge to hang out. We bought cold drinks and played Bananagrams. Then we played a modified version where we tried to make words in our new languages-- Chichewa (me) and Chitimbuka (Tally). It was way harder than we thought it would be!

For Christmas dinner we made lentil burgers and chips (that's the Malawian term for fries). Full disclosure--Tally is an amazing cook and effortlessly made all these goodies herself. I just chopped veggies, did dishes and made sure there was Christmas music playing.

My Mom had sent me a can of pumpkin a while ago, so I brought it North so we could make pumpkin pie. We didn't have any eggs so we used a modified recipe. It was really good.

This is Wizaso, Tally's dog. Isn't he adorable? He got a special treat for Christmas too-- usipa, which are small dried fish they sell in the village markets.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Exams, Heat and Noodles

It's near the end of Term 1 of the 2015-2016 school year here in Malawi. We started exams on Monday and they will continue until next Thursday. Then there is a term break until January 4th.

I have given two exams so far, and my last one is tomorrow. I have huge stacks of papers in my house to prove it. I started marking exams already, but it gets so tiring, especially in this heat. After marking for a couple hours at school this morning I took a break to organize the library a little. Then at home I organized these two huge piles of papers I had accumulated. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you are procrastinating! It'll all get done though, little by little.

It's been really hot this week. It's the bright and searing heat, not the muggy overcast heat, so my walls are all hot by evening time and it is not even cool in the mornings anymore. I'm asking Santa to please send rain and cool weather for Christmas. No gift wrap necessary.

Even though it is hot, I still like at least one hot meal a day. My new favorite hot meal is noodle soup. (Although I usually let it cool off before I eat it, so it is more like lukewarm noodle soup). I found these packaged noodles in the Boma for about K120, which is around twenty cents. It's like the African version of Top Ramen.

It comes with the noodles and a little spice packet, and you just add hot water. I got fancy because there was power for a little while, so I added some sautéed onion, tomato and a small bell pepper to the noodles. It was pretty tasty.

Pumpkin Season!! :-D

Mama-G knows i LOVE pumpkin, so she cooked some up for me to eat plain or with whatever. :oD She even let me help prepare it...it's so easy! You just cut a pumpkin, skin it, cut it in chunks, and put it in just a little boiling water, and that's it! 

I ate it everyday with my porridge! 

Making Adgecă Again

This is my 2nd time making adgecă! It's a type of salsa...soooooo yummy! 

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...garlic... ;o]

Here's me this year looking very Moldovan with my "house dress" (aka "robe" in America) on:

Here's me last year wearing the same pajama bottoms :op:

Here's the grinder that took a chunk out of my finger. As i was grinding, i thought to myself, "I wonder if my right hand will stop grinding if my left hand gets caught...it should right? Since they're both attached to the same brain?" Well, not necessarily...my right hand did stop, but only after a chunk was taken from my left finger.

It doesn't look that bad, but it was deep and very painful.

I didn't tell Mama-G and kept grinding vegetables, making sure to keep my injured finger away from the food...then a wasp stung my right finger! That hurt bad. It was like searing hot pain traveling up my nerves from my finger all the way up my arm. That one i couldn't hide from Mama-G cuz i immediately shot my hand back in pain. She asked me what happened and i told her and she told me to rub garlic on it (an old Moldovan remedy for stings)...so i did, but it didn't help. Then she saw my other injury and told me to stop grinding and take care of my finger. So i put a bandaid on it and went back to grinding ;op.

Preparing for Masă

Here are a couple of the foods i helped Mama-G prepare for her birthday this year. The one below is a "salad" with this recipe: 

- line bowl with mayo and garlic

- add layer of shredded potatoes

- add layer of mayo

- add layer of shredded carrots

- add layer of may

- top with thick layer of shredded butter

- add pretty garnish 

...for realz.

Delicious clătite (crepes) with vișine (sour cherries)! Mama-G really knows how to make crepes! They're soooooooooo yummy!!

Malawi vs Moldova: McDonalds

Malawi

This is the closest thing to a McDonald's in Malawi. This vendor in Cape Maclear near Lake Malawi had this clever sign advertising his "chips" (in the British sense, which is french fries to us Yankees). Colii and I didn't try them, but I haven't tasted anything in Malawi that comes close to real french fries.

Oddly enough, we do have one American fast food chain in Malawi though. KFC is located in Blantyre. They offer chicken and chips, and for a little local cultural flare-- fried nsima balls. I might make Colii try them with me if she comes back to Malawi next year.


Moldova

Moldova has the real McDonald's. I had Colii take my picture here, but we didn't actually eat here.

Lilongwe

I meant to post about Lilongwe while I was there last December for my PC In-Service Training, but for various reasons it never made it to the blog. However, I just passed through there earlier this week on my way back from Camp Sky, so here it is, at long last.

Lilongwe is the capital of Malawi, and is located in the central region. Lilongwe is also the name of the district, which is divided into different areas that are each assigned a number, like Area 25 and Area 23. The city of Lilongwe has government buildings, shopping areas, restaurants, a hospital, hotels and of course the PC Office. It also has lots of outdoor markets and shops.

One of the best things about being in the city for a PCV is the food. Particularly pizza.  This was my first meal when I arrived in Lilongwe last December. It was from Sana, and it tasted as good as it looks.  Which was very good.

The outdoor vegetable market in Lilongwe is amazing. They have everything! Except I don't cook when I am in the city because I am usually staying at a hostel with no kitchen facilities.  Oh well.  It is still nice to look at.

As PCVs we can't afford new clothes from the shops, so we buy used clothes from the markets (although there is a used clothing chain called DAPP that we frequent also). The Lilongwe clothes market is HUGE!  To get there you have to cross a rickety wooden bridge and pay a small fee. Here is a photo I took of the bridge last December.  Back then it cost K20 to cross the bridge.  However, the bridges collapsed during the storms we had in January, so they had to rebuild.  Now it costs K30, and is hopefully much more stable. I walked across it in February and it seemed pretty solid. There were a few wobbly parts though.

Used clothes shopping is more like pile diving. Piles are usually divided by gender and article of clothing.  I was looking for skirts for teaching the last time I was there, but I didn't have any luck that day.  I did find a few cute shirts and blouses though.

You can buy shoes there too, though so far I have only bought cheap, new ones.

Lilongwe also has a wonderful chitenje market.  To get there you have to walk past the clothing market and then wander through a maze of vendors, often jumping over mud puddles and walking through dirty alleys. Good times. But it is worth it. When you get there you see a narrow aisle with a huge selection of chitenjes and the best prices I have seen so far-- K1300 each. The first time I went I bought one to make into a skirt, and one for a PC bandanna swap my group was doing at our IST. (I ended up with some really cool patterns after the swap).

Guess what-- there is ice cream in Malawi! Which is great because it is so hot here. And also because ice cream is delicious. You can find soft serve at a few restaurants, but sometimes you come across something special. Like this place, which has milkshakes!  I can't remember the name of the place, and I only went there once in December, but I definitely want to go back. Here is a photo of me having my first milkshake in Malawi.  (I had been up since 5:30am and spent hours on a bus earlier that day, so I was exhausted, which you can see in the photo.)  All the more reason to enjoy a delicious treat with my PCV friends.

The accomondations in Lilongwe are really nice.  It costs more than the place we stay at in Blantyre, but the rooms have their own bathroom and they have air conditioning. Some even have refrigerators.  I feel like royalty when I stay there.

So going to Lilongwe is a nice treat after being in the village for a while. It's a chance to eat some familiar foods, speak English, hang out with the other PCVs, do some work at the PC Office and just enjoy a hot shower, a clean bed and a toilet. Lilongwe is pretty far away from my site, so I'll probably only go there a few times a year for trainings. But I will definitely enjoy being there when I go.

Happy Pi Day

I totally forgot today was Pi Day until I saw an article about it on NPR. (If you haven't heard of Pi Day, you should read the article. There are also some yummy looking pie recipes.)

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2015/03/13/392637619/making-pies-for-pi-day-think-inside-the-circle

Since my avocado tree is bursting with ripe fruit, I decided to make an avocado pie. I went with this recipe: http://kirbiecravings.com/2013/07/no-bake-avocado-pie.html

However, since I am in rural Malawi, I had to make a few substitutions. I decided to substitute an egg for the yogurt since they don't sell yogurt in my village. Then I substituted bread for the graham crackers. And I left out the condensed milk, even though I have a can here at my house (they sell it in my village trading post). I also had to substitute a frying pan for the pie tin, and a hot plate for the refrigerator.

My modified ingredients:

Okay, so basically my Pi Day treat was a fried egg and avocado sandwich. Which isn't quite the same thing, but it was pretty good anyhow.

Happy Pi Day, everyone! Eat an extra slice of real pie for me : )

6 months at site kuno ku Mulanje

I was at a training in Lilongwe when I hit my six-month mark so this
is a little bit late.  It's okay though because I am in Malawi and
everything runs a little slower here, so this only shows I am
integrating well, right?

Compare and contrast how you thought your service would be by this
point, and how it actually is.
I think I imagined that after six months I would feel pretty
comfortable with teaching, daily chores, Chichewa, knowing transport,
all of it.  Still, six months isn't much time, so I wasn't expecting
to know everything.

I am pretty comfortable with my home and with teaching, but I still
come across new things everyday.  For example, I just recently learned
that my village trading post has fresh milk in bags.  And I just went
to my first PTA meeting last month, which was a whole new experience
for me. So I am still learning, but my life has more of a routine to
it than it did when I first got here.


What do you do in your free time...if you have free time?
I like to read, garden, play with my neighbor kids (lately we are
drawing with chalk), try to figure out new ways to cook  tomatoes with
onions and rice, read the news and of course blog!


How has "integrating" into the community been going?
For me, my community is my school, my village trading post, and my
neighbors.  When I am in those places, I feel pretty well integrated.
At school I know all the teachers and I have my students and my
classes and my work in the library, so I feel comfortable there.  In
the market I usually buy from the same 6 or 7 vendors, so we say hi
and chat in Chichewa when I go there. My neighbors are really friendly
and helpful, and I spend a lot of time with my neighbor kids.  So
while I will never be confused for a local, I feel like after six
months I have made a place here for myself.


If you have any type of media, what do you watch, read, listen to, etc?
Mostly I read books.  I usually have a few going at the same time-- a
couple new ones including the one I am currently reading for the book
club, plus rereading some of my favorites, like "The Mists of Avalon".
I listen to music sometimes.  I have been listening to a lot of
Frente! and Cat Power lately. I was also able to download some
podcasts when I was in Lilongwe, so now I can catch up on a few
episodes of This American Life!


Do you have any new hobbies?
Does weeding my garden count?  Because I have to do that everyday. I
have made a couple friendship bracelets with some embroidery floss
that the previous PCV left for me. Plus I just got a new book from the
PC library so I might have a new hobby in time for the next PC
milestone post.


What's at least one thing new that you've learned since being at site?
Let's see... I think the biggest thing I have learned is how to make a
little bit of water last a long time. I am pretty efficient with the
use of water for bathing and washing dishes and other household needs
now.

Other stuff: I have learned a lot about fire from burning my garbage.
I can now hang, repair and properly wash a mosquito net. And I learned
a new way to cut a pineapple.


What time do you usually go to bed?
I get in my net by 6:00pm since it is dark and the mosquitos come out,
but I usually go to sleep around9:00pm.  Hence all the reading.


What do you typically eat everyday? - what do you "still" like and
what are you sick of?
Breakfast - maize porridge with brown sugar, raisins and pumpkin pie
spice (thanks, Becca!)
Snack - energy bar from care packages, but those are almost gone so I
might try eating boiled cassava as a snack now
Lunch - egg on toast, piece of fruit if I have any, or peanut butter on bread
Dinner - rice with soya pieces, tomatoes, onions and whatever veggies
I can find (today it is eggplants)

I still love toast and peanut butter and eggs and maize porridge.  I
am kind of over the rice and veggies dish, but I try to spice it up to
make it palatable.  I make spaghetti once a week which is a nice
treat, and I've made pancakes a couple times, though it isn't really
the same without syrup.


What does your typical "work" day look like?
I usually wake up at 5:30am and start getting ready for the day. I use
the latrine, get my water for the day, start boiling my drinking water
and making breakfast.  I leave my house and walk to school which
starts at 7:30am.  This term all my classes are in the morning.  In
between my classes I am usually marking homework, preparing an
activity for the next day's lesson, or working in the library.  I
usually leave school around noon. I might stop at the market to pick
up a few things and then I head home.  I make lunch and maybe relax a
bit, then start lesson planning for the next day.  Usually the
neighbor kids will come by and I will take a break and hang out with
them for a little while.  Then back to lesson planning.  Around 4:30pm
I start my evening routine of bathing and cooking, so I can have
everything finished in time to be in my net by dusk.


What are you so over, but you still hafta do it for the next 1.5 years?
Well, there are lots of things that I won't be sorry to say farewell
to after I complete my service, but I try not to think about them too
much (because I still have to do then for another 1.5 years). I will say that I don't enjoy having my bathroom outdoors,
especially when it is raining and my yard is basically a muddy
obstacle course on the way to the latrine in the morning. But that is
more a Rainy Season problem, which won't last forever. And of course
the Rainy Season has lots of cool stuff too, like how pretty and green
everything is right now, and the gentle patter of rain showers on the
tin roof, and how fast my garden is growing, and all the cool frogs
and toads I see in my yard. So there are lots of things that I like
about this season too.  That is kind of my way of getting by here.  I
try to think about what is special about being here in Malawi, and
focus on that.

Moldovan food art...foarte interesant!

The pictures of people (mostly children) on food in Moldova is foarte interesant (very interesting)! Just see for yourself...

                            (Biscuit, aka cookie)

                          (Box of oatmeal...?)

 

                                  (Cereal box)

Chakudya Cha Masana ku Malawi

Here are photos of some of my lunches during homestay.

Nsima and chicken

Nsima and soya pieces (cooked with onions, tomato and oil)

Ngaiwa nsima with beef and cabbage (Yum! Anything ngaiwa is delicious, and cabbage is my favorite vegetable side dish here. This isn't typical, but I enjoyed it so I wanted to share.)

Nsima and cabbage

Dinner is usually the same as lunch. The leftovers from lunch are covered and stored in our house until dinner time, then reheated and served with fresh nsima for dinner.

Other lunches/dinners:

- rice with scrambled eggs

- nsima and beans

- rice with hard-boiled eggs

- nsima with pumpkin leaves