Yummy Vincentian food!

From Friday until Sunday morning, we have been busy carrying out maintenance of the school building and the grounds – fixing leaks, repainting, mowing grass, cleaning out sheds etc – basically a kind of major spring cleaning. It works very well when you work with many people. We were divided into teams and guess which team I was in? The catering crew – Yey! So in the kitchen again, but this time with 5 ‘meals’ to prepare – including the morning and evening breaks. It was really fun actually as we baked a lot and made some creative dishes for the team to enjoy. We even made pizza! Was a very nice treat! I’m learning lots of new recipes here – and those who know me know that I can’t really cook and I don’t really enjoy it, but it’s been fun here so far – let’s see what I’ll be saying after 6 months ;) Let’s also see if I’ll remember all the recipes later!
On Saturday we had Vincentian food for dinner as it was the official welcome dinner for our team, also known as the March Team as we stared the program in March. So we were welcomed very nicely with this meal made by a lovely Vincentian lady and with some activities prepared by the former students and the teachers.
So I’m learning lots of new vegetables and fruit from this region. For example, the meal that was prepared on Saturday included calaloo (a leaf veggie that can probably best be compared to spinach) and breadfruit which I cannot really describe but is really interesting as it’s not your typical sweet juicy fruit, but instead is potatoey or doughey when cooked and is eaten with warm food – in our case, a dish of salted fish (I’m not such a fan of fish, but I tried it anyway and it was good! But still not fish fan!). There were also coconut dumplings in the main stew and bananas and yam as well. I’m looking forward to trying lots more ;)
Luckily we had the Sunday afternoon off. And of course we went to the beach! We have a very nice spot that is usually not busy, but today some tourists came to snorkel at ‘our spot’ – it seems that it is quite popular for snorkeling. I haven’t tried it yet as we don’t have the gear, but we’ll find some somewhere and I’ll let you know how it looks!
Looking forward to the coming week with lots more to do, including studies – we are also going to be doing regular computer work too so don’t worry! But luckily it’s not all day ;). Also, most of the remaining students will arrive next week so we’ll be welcoming more nationalities yey!
The days are already flying and it’s difficult to keep you guys posted, but I’ll keep trying and if you have any questions, please do let me know. Thanks for all your comments so far – I really appreciate all your great support!
Ciao