31 Years of Creation and Beauty

My best friend will be turning 31 soon, and as he says, officially entering his 30's. And as his best friend I can attest to his staggering genious and earthshattering beauty (no im not as creative with my words as he, so I borrowed those and mixed them up.) Kory has been blessed by a drive to create meticulously refined peices of work of many mediums, favoring the watercolor and word medium. I have been blessed to be his partner of 5 years, and his siamese twin for the last 1 1/2 years here where we are nearly inseperable. How do you celebrate such quiet and intense beauty as he? I am not sure. Besides to give him these words in this small and huge semi private/public forum.

Whether he is framed in mamoth snow storms, fog, a garden, a computer, a gaggle of fluckigers, a jungle or a mosquito net, he is still the most lovely person I have known.

Kory, congratulations on another year of living, and learning. As the aboriginies would say, "what have you learned? Do you desearve a birthday?" As his official twin, I would definatly say yes.

We love you kory. We are blessed by you. Happy birthday.

Breakfast of Champions

I am sure that many of you have been wondering how Heather and I stay in such great shape in the Third World. Especially as vegetarians in the second poorest country in the hemisphere (yes, that means this half of the planet Earth). First of all, being vegetarian is cheaper and healthier than eating meat here and all Nicaraguans could benefit from a little less cerdo and a little more repollo. However, the real secret lies in this simple new recipe happened upon by Heather. Banana Maple Chocolate Tacos. Here´s how it works.

What you need:
Bananas
Chocolate pancakes (pancakes, cocoa)
Homemade maple syrup (as if there were other kinds)

mmmmmmmmmm.

The First 5 Years of Us

Yesterday we completed our fifth trip around the sun as married people.
We have decided that we sort of like it, being married and travelling around the sun on this blue rock. I won´t bore anyone with an account of all of the things that we have learned and how happy we are etc. because it is obvious from our glowing faces above. (Incidentally, the bottom of the totem pole is always the most important, being at eye level, and is always carved by the chief. The top is harder to see and left to lesser artisans. At least I read that somewhere. Obviously a lie. Which is why I like to call this photo "Tall Cheif.") Rather, I thought I would post some of these images that we shot of each other and ourselves yesterday. We decided that as an anniversary activity we would shoot some portraits of each other. They look much darker here than they should be, but I hope it is just this monitor. It was a fabulous activity and I highly recomend it to any couple. It is a great way to study each other and remember that wrinkle in that one spot that you thought about for days after the first, and haven´t thought much about since.

So with no further ado, I give you the us, acording to us.











Happy June days!

Soya

It’s 4 am and kory just left on the bus for Managua. I miss him when he is gone and decided to write a blog entry. Besides seeing my first live snake here, the only other exciting things we have done is attend an “In-Service Training” with our Nicaraguan colleagues.
(I know I look terrible in this picture.. no im not pregnant, just pansona.)
Kory took a 14 year old from our radio group and besides a possible scandal with her and a young doctor that was there, all went very well. It was the first time she had stayed in a hotel. One of the most exciting things we did was learn that the US government has set aside funds for HIV-AIDS trainings, which are to be done by peace corps volunteers. So we were divided into groups by region and started planning. We chose to focus on youth ages 15-20. Was that suicide or what! It will take place in October so there will be more to say about that later.

Since I have become a master at cooking with soy during my time here, and because we also had a session from Soynica, an NGO that promotes the use of soy, I thought I would put some instructions on here.
Soy is an amazing crop that has soooooo many endless wonders that its like trying to imagine where space ends. Ok, not quite that much. BUT, its extremely healthy and its even better it your not buying pre-processed stuff but actually making it yourself. Its also a lot more cost effective. So here it is, I hope you try it:

Buy the soybeans. They are a pale color and perfectly round. I don’t now how they get like that, but they happily change to regular been shape once they are “inflated”.

Now, I had been following a recipe that had you soak the beans in water overnight. But Soynica says to use the following recipe that does NOT include soaking them overnight. They say that it lessens the weird bean taste that you get when soak them all night. Becky can attest that I HATE this been taste and that it made the soymilk intolerable for me, so hopefully this helps. I haven’t tried it yet, except at the training and I thought it was still there somewhat, but hey… remember you are not buy Silk soymilk, you are making your own! And that’s just beautiful in itself.

1 pound of dried soybeans

• Take the beans and clean them, that is, make sure there are no rocks or grass etc, which all of ya’ll in north America, probably won’t find too many, but we do.
• Put them in a pan with enough water to cover them and bring them to a boil for 20 mins.
• Wash the “precooked” beans (that is what you call them at this stage because they still require more cooking) 4 times without trying to remove all the skins.
• Now you need to grind them. If your suuuuper cool and have a mill that grinds, say, wheat, this is perfect. If not you can use a blender, food processor or hand mill. You want them to be ground pretty fine unless you plan on using them for hamburgers. I like a little texture in my burgers so I leave a part of the beans ground roughly.

Now you have what is called soy payana, or meat. *The payana still needs more cooking which is to be done in whatever recipe you use.

Now what do you do with the payana you ask?
You can make soy milk or tofu with the liquid (see below) or you can use the “meat” to make a billion things, like meat balls, hamburgers, taco meat, fritters, enriched rice or pasta etc etc. Here are a few recipes.

Soy milk

Payana from 1 pound of dried beans
1-2 liters of water
A little vanilla
sugar to taste
Some put a little lemon juice in or lemon peal
and any fruit you want

• Put the payana and the water in a pan and mix them together.
• Cook them until it boils then turn it off.
• When it cools you will need to strain the payana through a cloth, squeezing it to get all the milk out.
• Put the payana aside and use in another recipe.
• To the milk add sugar or honey to taste and the vanilla.
• Allow to cool and enjoy.
• If you want to make a fruit smoothy.. mmm. You will like it. Just blend with fruit and ice.

Tofu/ Bean Curd

• When you get the meat and water boiling, strain the out the meat while hot.
• In the milk add half of the following mixture while stirring a little and then leave it covered for five minutes.
¼ cup vinegar or lemon juice with 1 cup water.
• If after 5 mins, it has not curdled, put the rest of the above mixture in and leave it another five mins.
• When you see that the white part has curdled and separated from the whey or yellow liquid, it is ready to strain in a cloth. The more liquid you strain out the firmer your tofu will be. You can also leave it in the cloth and press it for a while with something heavy to make it firmer. Now, I will be honest, I haven’t ever really gotten a nice firm, square piece of tofu like you buy in the store. But if you have access to buy a tofu mold for pressing, it might help.
• Remember that the payana you have left over is of LESS nutrient value than the payana you get if you don’t make the milk, just so long as you drink the milk you will get it all. If you don’t make milk, you can just use the payana to make stuff.
• I like to curdle the tofu while the payana is still in it and then I just strain it with a cloth like normal and throw out the whey. It makes a neato texture that was the catalyst to my first “Chik Patty”.

Soy “meats”

“Chik Patties”

Payana from 1 pound of dried beans
1-2 vegetarian bullion or chicken bullion
1- 1 ½ cups white flour for every pound of dried beans
Crushed up corn flakes

• Dissolve the bullion in about ¼ cup hot water and then add the payana.
• Add the flour and mix well. It should form nicely into firm patties. If it doesn’t, keep adding flour. (also if when you cook them they fall apart its because you haven’t put in enough flour to make it stick. So add more.)
• Press each patty into the corn flakes
• Fry in a little bit of oil in a frying pan and enjoy.
Meatballs

Payana from 1 pound of dried beans
1-2 vegetarian bullion or chicken bullion (optional, but if you don’t add this, you must add some salt)
1- 1 ½ cups white flour for every pound of dried beans

• Dissolve the bullion in about ¼ cup hot water and then add the payana.
• Add the flour and mix well. (if when you cook them they fall apart its because you haven’t put in enough flour to make it stick. So add more.)
• Form into 1 inch balls
• Deep fry.

Hamburgers

Payana
1-2 cups of flour
1-2 tablespoons of salt
Whatever kind of vegetables you like, chopped very finely. Could be ANYTHING, but especially onions and garlic. Also green leafy vegetables add even more nutrients. I have learned to REALLY appreciate carrot leaves since I’ve been here and recommend that you put some in. I NEVER throw those guys away now. They have a great taste. You can also eat the leaves from any kind of squash.

• Mix the veggies with the payana and salt (and pepper if you want)
• Mix in 1 cup of flour, if you need more, add more.
• Shape into patties and fry with a little bit of oil. If they fall apart you didn’t use enough flour.


This might seem overwhelming, but it can be frozen in any of its forms. I make the payana and freeze half of it until im ready to cook It into something. You could even make a million hamburgers and freeze them, all ready for the grill at any time, saving tons of money and nutrients.

Well dearies, I bet your fed up with recipes and What a long blog!
If you have any recipe requests, let me know and I will oblige.

of Birth and Death

I suppose it’s time for an update. I would like to change the tone a little bit and get off of the contaminated water subject before unleashing the wrath of the most unconditionally dedicated sister/sister-in-law on the planet.

Before reporting on our project, I would like to take a moment to remember my Grandma Fluckiger, who passed away yesterday morning. She passed with all of her children present at her bedside. I am sorry that I am unable to attend the funeral but would like my family to know that I am with them in spirit. There is something to be said for Fluckiger funerals. Not that any funeral is a good time, but Fluckiger funerals are a great celebration of life as well as mourning the dead. They are painfully honest and candid. There is no pretense. No obligation to "look sad." People still laugh if something is funny and freely alternate between tears and laughter without the guilt of not keeping up appearances. I will miss it. I wish I could be there with everybody telling funny stories about grandma, of which there is no shortage, and remembering that she was simultaneously one of the most quirky and most classy ladies I have had the pleasure of coming to know in my short 31 years. That said, to the family members who are grieving, you have my sympathy as you would my shoulder. To those who are laughing, know that I share in those memories with delight and fond rememberance.

There is really not too much to report on right now other than further progress with our project: “Familias Mejoradas con charlas listas.” I thought that I would place a sample of some of the work we are doing for this project. Let me explain a few things, that you might more fully grasp the reality and scope of this project. It, as we have said before, is a series of 11 lessons around maternal and child health before, during, and after pregnancy. In these “charlas” we cover the following themes:
Órganos Reproductivos (reproductive organs)
El Embarazo (pregnancy)
El Parto y el Puerperio (birth and the first 40 days after)
Planificación Familiar (family planning, or birth control methods)
Mortalidad Materna (maternal mortality)
Lactancia Materna (breast feeding)
Infecciones de Transmisión Sexual—ITS (STD’s including HIV/AIDS)
Violencia Intrafamiliar (family violence)
Nutricón (Nutrition)
Higiene Personal (personal hygiene)
Casas Maternas (maternity houses, for promotional purposes)

Each of these 11 charlas are designed to be printed 1 meter by 1½ meters on vinyl banners which will hang on the walls of every Casa Materna in the country (about 70 now with 14 more planned). Each one is designed to be understood by “campesinas” (or women from the sticks) who can’t read or by the midwives who can’t read. Thus, practically every individual sentence is illustrated. And not just illustrated to accompany text, but rather, illustrated to stand on its own. To speak for itself. This obviously carries its own challenges considering the cultural differences which carry over into visual aid recognition, or symbolism. (For example, does a thumbs up sign imply something good here or does it mean diarrhea? We have to consider these things.)

Since each banner is not just a poster of a theme, but a complete lesson on that theme, each has between twenty-five and eighty individual illustrations. This may sound insignificant if imagining gathering eighty illustrations to represent something. However, to avoid involving international copyright laws (or a pronounced lack thereof) we decided to create each illustration originally, so that we own all of the images. That means that after days of writing the charla, then meeting with a team that we have assembled of doctors, nurses, midwife trainers, maternal health specialists and other health professionals to comb over each and every letter for accuracy and currency in both language and information—(not to mention cultural appropriateness)—that we have to sit down and plan each image. Then draw and paint each illustration on the computer at a high enough resolution to print at 1 x 1½ meters. We have finished 5 of them. We are halfway through the sixth one now and hope to be done with the design phase by the end of July. Each charla has about 150 hours of design work involved. Then we go through another review process with the team.

After they are printed, comes the second stage of the project: training. We will have a training for one person from every Casa Materna in the country to learn to use the materials, learn to teach how to use the materials, and to take them back to their respective Casa Materna. All of that being said, I would like to share with you some of the original illustrations we have created for this project as well as a couple of (low resolution) overviews of the some of the finished charlas.

Here we see the completed Pregnancy charla. Keep in mind that these will be 1 by 1 1/2 meters so naturally you won´t be able to read any of it. I am not sure which other charlas I can place on here because they may be a bit too graphic. Maybe just a detail picture from one.


This is an image from the Parto Y Puerperio charla. The image depicts a woman breathing deeply to relieve some of the pain associated with contractions. It also shows that she is breathing for two.


I hope this message finds you all well and enjoying the coming of Summer as we dip into the blasted rainy season, which will last almost till the end of our service. 10 months to go!