PG cuisine....such as it is

I just realized I have not written in almost month! There's a couple of reasons for that - school started this month so I've been busier than I was in August, and also because it was a rough month personally and so I haven't really felt like writing about living here.

I'm a little over half-way through my time in Toledo, and I am definitely burnt out. As I think I've mentioned before, this is a very different field experience for me, which has taken some getting used to. I'm usually with a group of like-minded American or European archaeologists, so there's built-in friendships (or potential ones at least), some sort of support network, and professors or at least more advanced grad students to bounce ideas off of at dinner. This time around, I'm much more on my own. Depending on the day and my mood, I would describe my situation as either "independent" or "lonely"; this attitude can change in only a matter of hours! So it's been a weird month - I'm not used to my mood changing that drastically all the time. I have made some friends in town, but people are in and out of town a lot doing research trips so they're not always around. And yes, have made local friends too! But if you're a woman and you're my age in PG, you're married and have three kids.

Before you start thinking that things are truly terrible down here, I'll tell you about some of the good things about living in PG! There is a great market in town several times a week, and I've been wanting to post pictures of it. If you've traveled with me, you know that I'm a bit obsessed with markets. I think they are fascinating places to get lost in, especially in Latin America. They are so beautiful and grotesque at the same time - flowers, vegetables, spices, grains, and then all of a sudden you turn the corner and there's half a dozen severed pigs heads staring you down. Another aisle brings the salty stink of fish. Eek! I love it! The PG market is not very big, but it's worth a few pictures.

PG central park

Mmmmm calaloo

Market corner...I like this one because the Maya lady is talking on her cell phone!

Fish market alley

Fresh fish coming straight to the market

This pink building is my new hair salon!

Market scene...the rasta guy in the background is Gomier - he runs an excellent vegetarian restaurant in town. He makes his own tofu, tofu ice cream, pizza, veggie burgers, and bread. He's a life saver!

Buses waiting to take people back to the villages

This is the road by my house that I run on sometimes

So a couple weeks ago after I got back from the market I was so impressed with my produce that I thought I would take pictures of it to show you! I can also take a minute and tell you about food down here, in case you're interested. Basically, if you take advantage of the market and local staples you can eat pretty well. But it is repetitive, and that's when you go to the several restaurants in town. Anyways, so in these pictures I have black beans and split peas to make into soup, calaloo, a spinach-like green that is awesome in everything, beautiful tomatoes, onions, avocadoes, mangoes and bananas. The pine-cone shaped green things are interesting - lately if I see something at the market but I don't know what it is (I ask the women there, but they alwasy tell me to put it in caldo, which is a bigger undertaking than I'm willing to do for one person), I bring it home and ask my roommate what it is and what to do with it. She thinks this is hilarious for some reason. So these things are called ch'i' kai in Q'eqchi' Maya, and apparently are part of the ginger plant?? But that's not what they taste like. They add a really strong lemon-y flavor....random, but delicious. There's also a picture of the best yogurt in the universe...this Mennonite woman makes it from scratch in all different flavors - coconut is my favorite. It's amazing.

Ch'i' kai

Best yogurt ever

Split peas and black beans

Produce!

Calaloo

Delicious spice (can't remember the name)

Group photo!

When I don't feel like cooking I usually go around the corner to the little shop that sells fresh tortillas and get some of those to have with eggs and tomatoes and the best canned refried beans ever. So all in all I've been eating pretty well -not always healthily, but definitely tastily! Lately I've been teaching myself to make curry. There is a strong east Indian community here, as well as a sizable Chinese population as well (ah, British colonialism!) so the grocery stores carry Chinese staples and curries and things. PG is one of the most diverse places I've ever been - Maya, Garifuna, east Indian, Chinese, Taiwanese, and a smattering of ex-pats and seasonal researchers. But everybody loves to party and eat barbeque on Saturdays, so it's a delightful culinary experience without pretense.

I also joined the local gym this month with a group of Cristina's friends, which has been great. It's a total "guy's gym" if you know what I mean. It's a musty cement room with loud music, a couple treadmills and the most odd assemblage of weight machines. I think it's where TV mail-order gyms go when their owners never use them. The owner's name is Pooh Bear (it's a nick-name, obviously, but I don't know his real name), he's this short, barrel-chested Creole guy who also teaches at the local high school. He's become our trainer of sorts. I already know my way around a gym, but he agreed to help train the other girls so I tag along. It's nice to be told what to do instead of having to motivate yourself on your own.

That's all for now. I'll write more about how work is going soon.

Snorkeling!

I've been reading the paper online for the last hour, trying to keep it together and not yell at the screen in the middle of this restaurant. Yes, I'm reading the analyses of the RNC and Palin's speech. I'm so appalled and even offended that even if I were to write a political tirade right now I wouldn't know where to start. You'll here about it eventually though, since I'm out of the country during an election year and will undoubtedly need an outlet for my thoughts! So I'll open that can of worms at a later date, but right now I'd like to post some pretty pictures of my first snorkeling trip to Belize's world-famous reef!

A few weeks ago Cristina introduced me to her friend Wil, who is a local political figure and ex-director of TIDE, a local NGO that does marine and coastal conservation. I mentioned that I still hadn't been out to the Toledo Cayes, and I hadn't been snorkeling either. He goes out periodically with the TIDE rangers who patrol the protected areas so he said I could tag along some weekends if I was free. So he's called me a couple times since then, the first trip was a quick morning boat ride around some of the small mangrove islands close to shore that were used for fishing camps. Then last weekend he was doing a trip to Nicholas Caye, which is in the Sapodilla range out on the reef. I was very excited because it's sort of difficult to get out to these southern cayes unless you own a boat or go on a long-term resort trip. So I got to tag along while they did some work cleaning the island. The reef is right along the north-south shipping lanes from Puerto Barrios in Guatemala and Puerto Cortes in Honduras, so these massive ships tend to dump their garbage somewhere along Belize's reef. There are a lot of pieces of plastic, bottles, and other miscellaneous crap littering the beaches. It's kind of gross, but good that there are protected areas and resources to keep the islands clean. Anyways, while the guys cleaned the beaches, I got to go snorkeling! Lucky me! I have an underwater camera, so I got some pretty good shots.

The first one is in the boat heading out of the dock, the second is the sunrise during the boat ride, and the third is the beach at Nicholas Caye. The next one is self-explanatory, and the rest are pretty coral and fish - don't ask me what kinds, because I don't know!