The Biggest holiday of the year

The month of fasting ended on Sunday, making Monday the biggest holiday of the year.  Celebrations look much like those of our major holidays in the States.  People travel home, usually to where ever their oldest relation lives, and the day is filled with a great deal of eating.  On our block everyone, except us and a neighbor directly across from us, traveled outside the city.  On Sunday night we joined our neighbors from across the street for parade.  Cars and trucks are decorated with lights and signs, then drive through the city.  Other cars and motorcycles join in by following the parade.  We too joined in the motorcade, driving the route of the parade in a car and seeing one 'float' and hundreds of motorcycles. 
Monday we joined our neighbors again, for a meal at the great-grandma's house.  We ate traditional wrapped rice, hard boiled eggs, chicken, and fish.  Then there were sweet drinks, usually some sort of soda, and lots of cookies to snack on. 

With our neighbor's family.  Neighbor girls in white and pink - center.  Two of their aunts on left, grand parents back-center, and cousin on right. 

Erin with our neighbor, same age as Whitman. 

Our neighbor, far left, with her eldest daughter in pink, same age as Caedmon.

Erin and the grandmother.

The grandpa with two granddaughters.

More family.

After eating we just laid around, watching TV or chatting. 

Traditional cookies and peanuts.  After eating with family, people spend the next couple of day or up to one week visiting friends and family.  At every house you visit during this week you will be offered at least cookies nicely displayed in jars and a sweet drink. 

 Another aspect of this holiday is new clothes and money.  Kids and many adults too, look forward to getting at least one new outfit for the holiday.  Kids also receive money, usually small new crisp bills, from friends and relatives.  It is also the custom for kids to walk around the neighborhood for money as well.  It reminded me of Halloween as kids I've never met before stopped by and said a phrase to get something in return, just trade the candy for money.


We took the opportunity to get pictures and names of all the kids in hopes of actually remembering their names. 

As one final activity this holiday, John and I learned how to make containers for one of the many varieties of wrapped rice.  Young leaves from a coconut tree are woven into little square containers.  They are then filled about half way full with rice and steamed for hours until the rice is cooked. 

It just takes longer...

After living here for more than 2 years, I, Erin, am still surprised at how long things sometimes take.  We come from such a time oriented culture, “Time is money” for example, that I frequently get frustrated with the time it takes to get things done. 
I often think, “I’ll just whip up a batch of…,” then it turns out taking much longer than anticipated.  Here in Barat the only canned food I’ve seen is sardines.  Even the equivalent of brown sugar, which is actually palm sugar, has to be either melted or chopped-up to use.  There are no prepared lunch meats (oh how I miss that), peeled baby carrots, or frozen vegies waiting to be steamed.  My quick and easy, last minute, go to meal of Spaghetti now requires tomatoes to be chopped (pealed and seeded if you really want a nice consistency) to make the sauce from scratch.  Thankfully last time we were in the big city we stocked up on canned tomato paste...instant spaghetti sauce here we come!

Palm sugar wrapped in banana leaves. 

Tomatoes waiting to become sauce.  These are the biggest I've seen. 

Milk to be made from powder!

The epitome of things taking time has most recently been experienced in my attempt to learn more about the occurrence of malaria here.  Two blocks away there is a local clinic, similar to the public health department in the States.  It offers minor medical services and attends to community health needs.  There is a specific offices dedicated to malaria so I thought this would be the best place to start.  The first day I asked to speak to someone in regards to malaria.  The office worker wasn’t in as her hours are 8am to 12pm and I had come in at 2 in the afternoon.  I returned the second day only to find she was out sick.  On the following day, a Friday, she was still out sick.  On Monday I finally was able to meet with her.  She said she was really busy but could prepare some documents for me if I would bring a thumb drive in on Thursday.  Thankfully we were able to briefly discuss some of my questions.  Thursday I returned to find, that once again, she was not in the office, though it was 9:30 in the morning.  Unfortunately no one knew when she would be in and her cell happened to be inactive.  On the sixth day, Friday again, I returned again to no avail.  This time I left my number to be informed when she returned.  I have yet to get the documents she mentioned, but was able to get a small picture of malaria occurrence here in Barat from our brief conversation. 


The "Public Health Center"

 

Kids and Questions

There are many questions here that are ok to ask that are taboo in the States.  Any time you leave the house people ask, "Where are you going?"  Then when you return people ask, "Where are you coming from?"  These are pretty simple questions to get use to, though it is hard to get into the habit of asking them of others.  Other frequently asked questions, that are a little more uncomfortable are, "How much did you pay for that?", "What's your religion?",  and "What type of birth control do you use?"  These are all appropriate to be asked by someone you just met!
Yesterday a couple very inquisitive kids were at our house.  They began with simple questions about Caedmon and Whitman.  Could the boys speak the national language?  When are their birthdays?  Have they ever eaten rice?  Then they proceeded to ask about what I was doing on the computer.  They followed with, "Where did you get your computer?"  "How much did it cost?"  "Where did you get your clothes rack?" "How much did it cost?" "Are Caedmon's cousins in school?" 'Where are they in school?"
I was quite surprised with all their questions, but began to see a little into their world.  Such as when they asked, "Who gave Caedmon's school uniforms to him?"  To me it was obvious the school did, for a small price.  But they probably got their uniforms handed down to them by older siblings or cousins, so it was only logical to ask who they came from. 

Are you fasting?

We are half way through the month of fasting.  Here in Barat it feels quite different than in the big city.  Many of the people, particularly the kids, will ask us if we are fasting.  It seems to be a pretty common question among themselves as well.  All restaurants are closed until the evening and people seem to do a lot more staying inside than usual.  All in all the town is pretty quite, opposed to the big city which remains pretty busy even during this month.  Each afternoon local women set up tables on the main road near our house to sell home made goods usually eaten to break the fast.  I, Erin, had the opportunity to learn the process of two of these treats with a friend.  We made a local sweet treat called 'green bananas' (literally translated) and a fried snack that looks a lot like a turnover but is filled with potatoes, carrots, and small noodles.

The kitchen in my friend's house.  She does have a two burner gas stove off to the right.  She used the wood burning one against the wall to steam the dough for the 'green bananas.'  The dough consisted of flour, water flavored with palm leaves chopped in a blender, salt, and a little margarine.  It was thinner than pancake batter, but turned into play dough consistency after steamed for 15 minutes. 

Various ingredients. 

The steamed green dough is flattened and filled with a slice of banana. 

 

The dough is wrapped around the banana and shaped.  Later it is eaten with thickened coconut milk flavored with more palm leaves.

I had a great time learning about the process and spending time with a friend!  A few days afterward we had a group of elementary teachers over to break the fast and we served her treats!