Happy New Year

The pops and bangs of fireworks are gradually giving way to the quiet of evening. Last night the barrage lasted for several hours with extensive noise around midnight. I confess to contributing a buck’s worth of bang earlier in the evening. The overhang on my apartment and the surrounding compound wall made for a most satisfactory noise.

Tuesday saw us in the back of a pickup truck with three new medicine boxes for three of the locations where CPI has set up a first aid centre for a village. The carpenter did a superb job on the boxes and they look like furniture. Everyone was most pleased to get the new box with more storage space and something that looks attractive in the living room. At each stop we took a picture of the first aid lady with her new box. If only we had twelve ... we could make up a calendar.

At lunch we discussed with everyone some of the nutritive and fuelwood benefits of Leuceana. There was a lovely tree growing by the house we were eating lunch at. I nicked some seeds with a pair of nail clippers and they are soaking in a glass as I write. Hopefully that method of seed preparation will work and they will be ready to plant tomorrow. The other way is to use almost boiling water. For a small spoonful I didn’t want to go to that trouble. Leuceana has high protein leaves for birds, fish and animals. The seeds can be ground to provide a high protein flour that can be mixed into tortillas, ugali and other dishes. The green seed pods can be added to soups for a protein boost. They taste awful raw but when cooked with something else aren’t noticeable. Who cares if it is free protein?

On our way home, we took three buses to travel 30 km. The first bus stop was by a small truck selling pineapples so I snagged a couple for two suppers. The next bus was only headed 10 km but it waited until it was well filled before leaving. The funny thing about some of the buses is that they wait and wait and then, whenever that magic moment arrives, they are in the most enormous rush to get moving. My ‘magic moment’ sensors haven’t figured out when it arrives yet.

On the way, a little boy came back to say hello to me. He and his father were visiting family in Honduras. He was from Indianapolis. His dad came back to say hi as well and, I suspect, to show off to former neighbours how well he could communicate in English with foreigners. He has lived in the States for 13 years but his English is rather sketchy. Obviously, the crew he works and lives with is Hispanic so there is very little need to speak English. The second generation will change that.

While delivering boxes, a young man came and planted a plantain circle. Five young shoots are settled in their new home. Will see how well he did. I hope he trimmed the bottom of them well enough that they manage. Not being here to check is not the most helpful. Will have to add some more mulch to the compost heap in the center of the circle. Once the rains hit the compost pile and the bacteria begin to work, it settles very quickly.

Yesterday was another day to visit the bank. The line up was over 45 people when I arrived an hour before opening. It went moderately quickly once the doors opened. About ten to fifteen people were wanded for weapons and had their cell phones checked to make sure they were off before being let in to stand in line in air conditioned comfort. Once they were almost finished, the next group was readied and let in. While standing in line, I always try and figure out how many minutes it will take to get to the end. I average the number of minutes and divide by the number of tellers, etc. In the banks here, there is a special line for pregnant women and the elderly. When there are no customers in those categories, the teller serves the ones in the regular line. So, you are looking at the clock and counting the number of people left in the line when another special customer is waved into place. This happened about four times when I was in the final lap. Made it through in good time though. The teller had run out of $25.00 (equivalent) bills so I had to get $250.00 in $2.50 bills. It made a rather big lump in my pocket. I found a quiet corner in the bus depot by a cleaning crew storage room to transfer the money to a pocket in my bag. One hears that there are people who make a habit of watching folks come out of the bank and then come up with different methods of sharing the wealth. In the bus depot there are lots of armed guards watching things so maybe these sorts don’t have as much chance as on the regular streets. One can always hope that is the case.

Today, while working on office stuff (bookkeeping – yuck), Julia brought me two tamales. New Year’s and Christmas are special tamale events. These ones had rice and fried pork in them. They were well cooked and very enjoyable. On Tuesday I watched several ladies making a huge pot of them in assembly line fashion for New Year’s Eve festivities. Raisins, olives, rice, shredded chicken were all part of the mix put in with the corn meal mush and then wrapped into MacDonald turnover shaped bundles using fresh banana leaves. The tamales are then steamed until the mush sets and is almost like a polenta. The pleasant thing about tamales is that they are served in a lovely, sterile, biodegradable serving dish. Very handy.

The first Moringa shoots are peeping up. Hurrah. Will see what percentage of the seed makes it. So far it is looking rather sparse but a couple more days might see a change in that. As long as we get twenty or thirty seedlings that survive transplanting, we will be happy.

Time to run. Darkness is falling and I need to buy some things for supper.

Bryan