Limbo Pasi

Wow. Well that was cool! Tiring, but really cool. The last two days-ish was a marathon of cultural event(s). I'm not entirely sure where one left off and the other began, so I'll leave it loose with that 's.'

I think I've talked about Brooko di Dea's before - it's in the style of an Irish Wake - when someone dies they have a funeral party that starts at dark and goes until the sun comes up. You dress in traditional clothing, eat some traditional foods, and drink decent amounts of um traditional rum? Did I mention that their favorite brand of rum here is abou $US10 a bottle and 180 proof? My friend Thomas doesn't read this blog as far as I know, but he may be getting a bottle as a present.

However, before we get to the Brooko di Dea let's talk about Limbo Pasi. I'd heard about this from a couple of people and one of my main contacts here - the Rasta and Basia Etchio, he of whose name I butcher the spelling and will stop explaining his relationship to me - told me he would help me go to it at around 7AM the next morning. So I was up and ready to go a bit on the early side - I've been sleeping a bit later recently and I'm usually lucky to be leaving my house to wash by 7am, not ready to take on the world yet.

Of course, no one had showed up by 8 (Etchio is better about this stuff than most, but this was not a surprise and just in stride, weird that it didn't even phase me - integration!) and then another guy came by and said I could walk with him. So limbo pasi would literally translate to clean the path - and that turns out that is exactly what it was! Community Clean up day of the Grand Landing and the path around it to one of the main ceremonial areas of the village. Everyone showed up with a machete, rake, shovel, and/or hoe and set to work.

You could say it was a bit of a pleasant Peace Corps shock - the first sign of wide spread community organization and working together I had seen! Went very smoothly, didn't seem to require much hassle or bribing, and a lot got done with a lot of hands in a very short time. Afterwards, most people hung around for a while and some rum appeared and suddenly huge amounts of sugar cane.

This is where lines blur and I'm not sure if this was still Limbo Pasi or was no prep for the Broko di Dea. We started washing and cutting up copious amounts of sugar cane. Sugar cane here, for those who don't know, kind of looks like thick-ish bamboo that isn't hollow. It's tastey in a not-my-favorite kind of candy sort of way (if you are ready this, please send chocolate. Please. I don't have a strong sweet tooth, but, like cutting weight for tournaments, Peace Corps causes food fantasies. I miss chocolate, beef , broccoli and mexican food - in particular burritos and cheap cheesy salsa. I'll talk about chocolate more in another post here in a bit).

Umm sorry about that...anyway...we washed the sugar cane and kept some of it in six foot segments while cutting up the rest into small chunks with machetes. A cool little simple machine made of wood was driven into the ground next to a beautiful tree - a basic cane press! We began to crush the cane juice out of the long segments there while other began to mash the small bits in the giant mortar and pestles that are one of the favorite tools of Surinamese. Not really that different from our cider making process at home, with a few modifications.

I, wisely for once, stuck to the washing part and thus escaped with nothing more than some splash stains and sticky hands! I haven't had a new injury in a while, which is nice. My thumb is just about all set and my feet still hurt but are on the mend, thanks for asking. Kind of having some kind of ear-ache issue, but on drops for that which are helping quite a bit! I'm sort of taking the accelarated health-acclimation approach from what the Doc and other volunteers have to say, but really I'm ok with that.

Once we had produced copious amounts of juice, the began to cook it down into sugar cane cider! Sugar cane cider, like sugar cane wine, is really really good.

After that, it was crazy hot and I knew it was going to be a late night so I basically spent the rest of the day cooking and resting. I cooked a lot! And! It turned out really well! A lot of fried and not a lot of protein, but still I was pretty pleased. I made taia weed (big leafy green that looks like rhubarb if you are color blind and don't really know what rhubarb looks like) and okra - both cut up small and cooked down until soft with some oil, maggie (bouilloun and salt), and water - so sort of a stir fry? I also stir fried eggplant and cooked kosebanti.

I have so much kosebanti (the local long green beans) right now - I've eaten them every day this week. Fortunately, I'm decent at cooking these! Same recipe as above, but keep it covered and you end up with lightly stir-fried/steamed green beans that taste awesome. Good with anything - I had them with Pasta and Tomatos, in Ramen, and with rice last night. Unfortunately, I'm still pretty bad at cooking rice. Odd that rice is being the toughest, and least tasty, part of my cooking. I guess? I'll figure it out, hopefully.

This is running long, so I'll end it here and do a separate post on the Brooko di Dea - that warrants being available for a quick read. Later!