Some daily 'habits'

A friend asked for some insights into 'daily living' here; habits or activities that may be unusual for us. After living here for 5 months now and 'going through some of the motions' for several weeks now, I admit I had to think on it for a second! (Or rather, a few weeks :) Some small things:

Veggie soak. Bleaching or soaking our veggies in vinegar water before eating them raw or cooking them. This isn't that bad, but just a regular precaution. It has taken some getting used to. And I admit I'm still not sure about what does and doesn't 'need' to be soaked.

On October 10, we actually had a dear friend come and visit us for one week. Ama grew up in West Africa, and she is accustomed to many of these food preparation practices. Her visit 1) got me digging into our Mennonite cookbooks more intentionally, to make sure we were providing some well-rounded meals while she was here! and 2) helped me gain confidence cooking with a lot of produce and also experimenting with new recipes, given the 'raw materials' on hand.

I would say that, overall, our seeming limitations when it comes to cooking (i.e. also not having different strengths on our oven burners - high heat, or, high heat!) have actually helped me to experiment and make some healthier, yummier meals overall (can't rely on those delicious premade sauces and other wonders at Trader Joe's or Aldi! )

Our friend Ama. I really like this picture, but you can actually see her face below.

Goats. What do you do when the weeds are taking over your yard? Why, borrow your boss's goats to eat the weeds, of course! But when one is pregnant and whiny the whole time, they don't focus as much on eating, and the progress may not be as impressive as you would have thought. It was worth a shot, though! And not uncommon practice in Haiti apparently. I like the idea -- a goat-borrowing system for all your pressing yard-care needs.

Yard burning. I am not accustomed to setting a fire in our yard multiple times per week, but it's what you gotta do here! Burning yard waste and kitchen waste is a regular necessity, because it's too much trouble to try fitting it all into our little trash bin I guess. The smell of smoke from neighbors' fires wafts into our room some nights. It's not too bad -- except when there's more than leaves and paper products being burned... yuck!