My last days at ECHO

So my time at ECHO is over. I am finally able to wake up at times later that 6:45am and I get to lounge around all day "working." It's amazing how different a lifestyle one leads at ECHO compared to normal. After spending a week at home, I am heading to the New Wilmington Mission Conference (NWMCmission.org) for a week and a half. This will be my fourth year, I believe, and I know it will be a great time.

Now I'll back up to my last few days at ECHO. On Wednesday, I spent the morning picking a a red mombin tree. The tree was about 20 ft high (I didn't get the ones up there). I had a big tripod ladder to pick the red mombins off the tree from. Several ECHO volunteers then spend the afternoon making red mombin jelly! Here are a couple pictures of me and the red mombin tree. See my big red "pickin' sack"?


Friday was my last day, and I asked my hosts if we could do a Kenyan meal, since they spent 14 years as missionaries in Kenya. We had beef stew, sakuma wiki (which means literally, "weak push" or stretching the food by using cheap food--collard greens!), chipates, and chai. Those of you familiar with Indian cuisine should be familiar with these foods because all of these foods originate from India, I think. The sakuma wiki and soup were flavored with Indian spices (no curry), and the tea was flavored with different spices, similar to garum masala. Everything was delicious. I helped make the sakuma wiki. It is made with onion, garlic, tomatoes, collard greens, and a mixture of spices from Kenya.

I also helped roll out the chipates which are sort of like tortillas except that they contain no oil, but are instead fried in oil. Quite tasty!


Here is the line-up of food--Are you hungry yet?

The dinner was a great end to a great trip to ECHO. This has been such a wonderful experience.

Even though I made this blog to keep up with everyone at ECHO, I plan to keep posting--so keep checking back! After the conference is over, I'll give you a description of what I've been up to and where I'm off to next!

My last week!

Well, I'm beginning my last week at ECHO. It's crazy to think that I've been here for a month and a half. I've thoroughly enjoyed myself and have gotten an impressive farmer's tan. I'll be heading home Saturday, hopefully with some goodies from the ECHO bookstore and nursery (maybe a mango tree?). We wrapped up the tomato variety trials last thursday--they were pretty much dead anyway. I'll have one more round with the cowpea variety trial before they call it quits. They're cutting off the trial on July 15, because they planted the cowpea plants four months ago that day--and most farmers are not going to keep a crop around that long (this is what they tell me) and because the intern who is in charge of the trial is no longer an intern.

I've enjoyed hanging out with the interns and staff at ECHO. On the fourth of July we went to two volunteers' house to have a pool party, complete with hotdogs, coleslaw, and an american flag cake decorated with strawberry-stripes and blueberries in the corner for the flag design. In the evening we watched fireworks from the edge of the Caloosahatchee (it's a river, but we think "hatchee" means river, so saying "Caloosahatchee River" would be redundant, although admittedly helpful in describing it). They were quite nice, although I am not a fireworks expert--usually we go to the beach and watch all of the people set off fireworks on their own.

Then, on Saturday night, Rhoda came over and we watched the second half of the six-hour A&E channel Pride and Prejudice movie. But before we watched a movie, Rhoda sat down at the piano and began to teach me a song, except that I already knew it. The song is called Niska Banja, which is a Serbian dance song. Both of us sang it in high school, and know the harmony parts, so we sang in harmony. While searching the web for forgotten lyrics, we discovered dance instructions. A half an hour later we were dancing and singing! The dance was very much like Greek dancing and like Israeli dancing (Sarah H will know). First we grapevined holding hands in a circle. Then, we stepped forward and back, with claps at various points. It was really cool! Now imagine us doing this all while singing (in harmony no less) a capella. We had a great time. If you want to learn, I will teach you!

Last year at the New Wilmington Mission Conference, the highlight of the week for me was learning Israeli dancing with a missionary family from Pakistan (the father of which spent a year in Israel). Dancing to Niska Banja brought back great memories of those dances.

This past week I've been living by myself again, because my hosts are visiting family. Because of this, I've been cooking for myself and have come up with some neat meal solutions (besides mooching off the interns). Before my hosts left, I (with guidance) sauteed eggplant from the farm with mushrooms, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, etc. I've never cooked (or possibly eaten) eggplant before and I have to say it's not my favorite, but it's alright. The fact that I made it, combined with the knowledge that no one else was there to eat it or cook something else raised my opinion of it, however, and it has made several meals for me. In addition, I made fried rice and stir-fried pork, cabbage, mushrooms, onions, peppers, etc to make an excellent (though dubiously named) Chinese meal. I've had fun experimenting in the kitchen! Although my home-made texas cheese toast didn't turn out (probably not enough butter--you can never have too much, right?!).

Now that I've thoroughly bored you with my social calendar this week, I hope you will all have happy dreams tonight about Serbian dances, fireworks, and Chinese food. I know I will.