Extreme Makeover

I finally got a haircut today.

It's been two years of boring, split-ended, one-length hair. It felt so good to get it cut and layered and styled. Here's the before and after photos:

From blah...


... to ooh la la!


(what would a before-and-after picture be without better clothes, better lighting, and makeup for the "after" photo?)

Photo tag

Thanks for the tag, AJ. Here's the 10th photo in my first folder.



This was from December 2008. I was living in Niger, and it was getting close to Tabasky, a big Muslim holiday. It's customary to kill a ram on Tabasky, roast it, eat the meat and give some to friends and the poor.

Everyone in my village liked to raise animals to sell around Tabasky because that's when the city folk pay the big bucks for animals. However, my villagers were poor and couldn't afford to slaughter their own animals, so after they sold their prize ram they'd kill a couple of chickens to eat for Tabasky.

My friend Ayuba kept telling me about his big ram and how much he was feeding it, so I went to his house to check it out. The ram was big, and white, with these cool dark spots on each ear. Ayuba fed him everything from bean leaves to dried beans to millet bran. He was a happy ram, despite being tied to a stick all the time. He couldn't go out herding with the other animals because Ayuba didn't want him to get exercise and therefore lose weight.

The ram let me pet him. He actually seemed to like it. Sometimes when you pet a ram they try to head-butt you, but this one was pretty cool and kept rubbing his head against my hand. He also didn't mind if you touched his back, his belly, his legs, whatever. That's a sign of a full, happy animal.

A few weeks later Ayuba sold him for about 9,000 Naira, which is like $90. Not bad!

Another photo of Ayuba's prized ram. Ayuba is the guy on the right (also known as "dan baki," "black one," in Hausa, because of his dark complexion):

I'll tag my sister Becky.

I don't wanna work

I've been considering this job opening with the county senior center. I'm not sure I want to start working. I really like doing things around the house and cooking dinner every night. But I'm going to apply anyway. The job market is so poor, especially in Northern Michigan, that probably a hundred people are applying for this position, and who says I'll even get an interview? If they offer me the job and I still don't want to work, I can always turn it down.

Tonight I'm making roasted turkey breast that I brined this morning (brining helps the meat stay nice and juicy). It's been an exhausting week and the weekends here are always intense, so today I "took the day off" and vegged out for a while.

My weekend goals:

• Make another genoise cake.
• Fill out job application for administrative assistant position.

This week's accomplishments

I am so excited! I finally got my Peace Corps recruiter applications in. I filled out the same application eight times to accommodate for the positions open in eight different places. It feels so nice to have that off my chest.

The county senior center is looking for an administrative assistant, so I'm going to add that to my job-seeking repertoire. I think I'd be a good AA and I love old people, so we'll see how that goes.

I've also sent in my first passport application EVER (my other two passports were government-issue), something I've been meaning to do for like five years. I ordered this cute pair of boots online and when they finally came in they didn't feel comfortable at all, so I sent them back. I guess that's what you get for ordering stuff from the internets. Someday I will go to Traverse City and see if there's any good shopping there.

The boots that didn't work for me. If you see others like this let me know. I particularly like the short but not chunky and not stiletto heel.

For food this week I've made Shepard's Pie, minestrone soup, spaghetti with meatballs, and tonight, hamburgers. I cooked the burgers in a non-teflon skillet to allow for maximum browning, but the juices burned and created a huge cloud of smoke in the house. Let's just say the fam wasn't too thrilled. Later Blackie came over and licked the splattered meat grease off the floor.

For baking I've made yummy cranberry-bran muffins, chocolate shortbread coconut bars and chocolate chip cookies. Here's the muffins:


Tomorrow's roasted turkey breast and I'm gonna try to make the genoise (foam cake) again this weekend. Wish me luck!

My Niger projects - Part 1

What did I do specifically?

Well, my village was pretty far south, about 5km from Nigeria, in a lowland area and surrounded by ridges of mesas (that cluster of green trees in the middle = my village.)


We didn't have a problem with sand dunes, desertification, or hardpan. Mostly my villagers were interested in planting trees in their yards and starting mango orchards.

Part 1. The Women's Group, Mundangwara
("we are patient")

I spent a lot of time working with the women's group established by the last volunteer. These women held weekly meetings where everyone paid a contribution to a cash box. About twice a year, each woman was given a loan from the cash box, and paid a monthly interest fee until the balance was paid off. At the end of the year the interest money was split among all the women for a little bonus to use for the holidays.

Some ladies from the women's group with their cash box.


The women's group was provided with a beautiful fenced-in garden space (the former volunteer obtained grants for materials and labor) complete with a well. They were supposed to maintain a vegetable garden during cold season (December through April), but they weren't exactly motivated. They planted peanuts during rainy season (June through September), but this year they didn't get themselves organized enough to actually harvest the peanuts and somebody beat them to it and took them all.

However, they have a space they are free to use for individual projects or as a group, and if they someday want to create a big garden, at least they have a place to do it. In the meantime, a couple of ladies grow hot peppers and moringa trees.

At the advice of my boss, I helped the women obtain loans from a microfinance bank in Konni (18 km from my village) to each purchase an animal for profit. They bought rams, sheep and goats.


I brought in a herder and a large-animal veterinarian to educate the women on how to keep their animal healthy and fatten it up as much as possible to make the most profit. Six months later they sold the animals and paid the loans back with interest.

There were a couple of problems with this project. First of all, the microfinance bank we worked with was slow. They made the women pay money to join the loan program, then didn't actually give them a loan for six months. The guy we worked with continuously tried to sexually harass me and it put me in a weird position. A couple of the women's animals died, but it was for preventable reasons. Lastly, one woman didn't even want a loan, so she gave her money to a friend. The friend gave it to a guy who needed money to travel to Nigeria. By the time loans had to be paid back, the guy hadn't yet come back from Nigeria. The women's group cannot obtain future loans if even one person defaults, so they got his elderly parents to repay the loan.

Part 2. Well improvement project

This NGO (non-governmental organization) came to my village and built a new well. It was great because the well was situated near where all the herders live, and they have hundreds of thirsty cattle to water every day during the dry season.



They were using these small, shallow metal bowls to give each cow water.


None of the wells in my village had drinking troughs and the new well didn't have a decent apron (ledge to prevent sand from blowing inside). I used some project money left by the last volunteer to build a new apron and some water troughs for the animals.





The finished product:

Standing on new well apron with 1 trough in the background.


Buddy enjoying fresh water from a trough.


We later realized the new well wasn't deep enough. The water came up muddy at best and sometimes there wasn't any water at all. Since the water was so dirty none of the nearby houses used it and the women had to walk all the way around the village to a different well when there was one right behind their property!

I organized a group of herders to improve the well, as they were its main users. I hired a couple of professionals to go down inside the well and put mud into buckets to deepen the floor of the well.

If you look closely you can see them in the bottom:



Pulling up heavy buckets of mud:




This cute kid was watching the action:


My friend Darey and I made the workers strong green tea for strength and even sent some down the well in a bucket:


Climbing out of the well:


Group photo!


After this project the well was deeper and had clear, plentiful water. Yay!

More to be continued...

Niger - what I was supposed to do

Some background:
I was a Natural Resources Management (NRM) volunteer. Most of Niger's population lives along the southern border of the country, and as you go further north you encounter the Sahel, then the Sahara desert. Due to a major drought in the '70s and poor farming and grazing practices, the Sahara desert has been spreading. Strong winds blow away precious topsoil and spread sand over fields. People cut down the few trees they have, resulting in erosion, poorer soil quality, and less animal fodder.

Technical training:
As a NRM volunteer, I learned how to use agroforestry to improve farm soil quality and prevent desertification and erosion.

We learned how to prevent sand dunes from spreading by planting rows of trees or rows of sticks to make a fence that would slow the wind down;


Planting "wind breaks" (rows of trees that would slow down the wind) around fields;


Creating "live" and "dead" fences to prevent animals from eating crops (basically a hedge of live trees or sticks);


The creation of rock "walls" to block the flow of water in gullys (and preventing further erosion of precious farmland);


Special crop planting techniques to reclaim rock-hard soil (hardpan) and to collect maximum rainwater;

Zai holes


Demi lunes


Planting, pruning, and harvesting gum arabic (sap from the gum arabic tree used in cosmetics, cola, candy, and glue);


Grafting trees such as gum arabic, mango, citrus, and desert date;


Planting moringa trees as a food source and income generation (the leaves are nutritious and taste like spinach);



And finally, showing people how to make tree nurseries so they can plant trees in their yard or field.


Stay tuned to hear what I actually ended up doing!

Successful bread and sad bread

I made "rustic European country bread" the other day, and it turned out great!



What makes it "European" and "rustic" is that it doesn't have any dairy or oil in it. Just flour (whole wheat, white, and rye), salt, sugar, and yeast. It was nice and chewy with a crispy crust.

Today I didn't have such good luck making "American" bread. My dad's been hinting at rye bread for a while, so I gave it a try. This bread had white flour and rye flour in it, as well as butter and milk. Despite leaving it in the furnace room for the entire day it turned out flat and sad-looking.



Whatevs. I may have to mess with the recipe before I get it right.

Tonight's Dinner:
Ghanaian jollof rice
Coleslaw with salad cream dressing

Black Forest Cake adventure

Last week I made a Black Forest Cherry cake. It's three layers of chocolate genoise (foam) cake brushed with brandy syrup and whipped cream and brandied cherries for the filling. I used frozen cherries from the store and, since the recipe called for 3 cups of whipped cream I decided I'd try to lighten things up by using low-fat Cool Whip. I know, Cool Whip is full of chemicals and is not as yummy as the real stuff, but I figured it's a little less dangerous for the waistline.

The most difficult part was the chocolate genoise. That damn cake is the bane of my existence! Despite reading various recipes and watching internet videos (thanks for the Martha tip, Alanna!) the first two cakes I made fell flat. I kind of blame it on Cook's Illustrated, because I was following their recipe and they specifically instructed using the paddle attachment to whip the eggs. When I used the paddle attachment the cake fell when I added the flour, so I figured I wasn't whipping the eggs enough. Sure enough, when I switched to the whisk attachment, the eggs got more voluminous and the cake didn't fall when I added the flour. But there's more to bitch about. Even with the successful third cake, the flour didn't incorporate fully into the batter and there were little flour chunks in the bottom. The cake lady, Rose Levy Beranbaum, said in her book this always happens and you just have to pick the flour chunks out with a toothpick, but to me that seems redundant and there's got to be a better way. I emailed the folks from Cook's Illustrated to ask for help with the flour chunking problem, so we'll see if they get back to me.

Each cake required 6 eggs, by the way, so my dad kept going to the store to buy me more eggs. He's such a sweetie.

To make a genoise, you have to have some foresight so that your ingredients are ready.

• Two types of flour, sifted onto wax paper.
• 6 eggs, at room temperature.
• Melted butter, at room temperature.
• Cocoa and boiling water mixed into a paste.
• Pan greased and papered (but don't flour it like I did).
  

All the preparation and baking failures were worth it when I finally finished it:


I took it to my aunt's house and we all devoured it. It was delicious!

Mornings with Gilad

Every morning I get up around 9:30 and do aerobics with Gilad at 10. He is this dark-haired, muscular, sexy-accented aerobics instructor on Fit TV, and he is helping me get into shape.

He has two programs, one at 10:00 and the other at 10:30. The 10:00 one is straight out of the 80’s with ladies in high-cut, shiny leotards and scrunchy socks. The later show is more modern, but I prefer the earlier show because Gilad is younger (and therefore sexier) and I find the outfits more entertaining.

I should mention my accompanying diet to go with this new fitness program. I can only have a sweet twice a day, so this means I can’t have a cookie every time I pass through the kitchen. I’m also trying to lower my alcohol consumption, not that I drink a lot anyway, but just trying not to make that second glass of wine a habit.

Since we don’t have a scale I can’t track my weight, but I already noticed my stomach looks trimmer and I feel better about my body in general. I noticed I’m a little crabbier than usual, which may be because I’m tired from the exercise and missing my sugar, but hopefully that won’t be a permanent thing.

Schisto-so-my-ass

I got a letter from Peace Corps the other day.

Dear Ms. P:

The results of your close of service (COS) schistosomiasis antibody test has been received by the Office of Medical Services (OMS), Peace Corps/Washington. The results are inconclusive and may indicate an early infection with the schistosome parasite. A retest is advised to confirm or rule out this possible infection.

Oh my god, creepy!

So I bet you're wondering what schistosomiasis is. I got some info from Google Health:

Overview

Schistosomiasis is infection with a type of Schistosoma parasite.

Symptoms

Symptoms vary with the species of worm and the phase of infection.

• Heavy infestation (many parasites) may cause fever, chills, lymph node enlargement, and liver and spleen enlargement.
• Initial invasion of the skin may cause itching and a rash (swimmer's itch). In this condition, the schistosome is destroyed within the skin.
• Intestinal symptoms include abdominal pain and diarrhea (which may be bloody).
• Urinary symptoms may include frequent urination, painful urination (dysuria), and blood in the urine (hematuria).

Treatment

This infection is usually treated with the drug Praziquantel. If the infection is severe or involves the brain, corticosteroids may be given.

Causes

You get a schistosoma infection through contact with contaminated water. The parasite in its infective stages is called a cercaria. It swims freely in open bodies of water.

On contact with humans, the parasite burrows into the skin, matures into another larval stage (schistosomula), then migrates to the lungs and liver, where it matures into the adult form.

The adult worm then migrates to its preferred body part, depending on its species. These areas include the bladder, rectum, intestines, liver, portal venous system (the veins that carry blood from the intestines to liver), spleen, and lungs.

Schistosomiasis is not usually seen in the United States. It is common in many tropical and subtropical areas worldwide, where it affects more than 200 million people.

I've been thinking about my last months in Niger, trying to figure out what I might have done to expose myself to water-borne parasites that burrow into your skin.

Last January I went swimming in a muddy Niger lake. I went on vacation in Ghana in late September, but I don't recall going in any freshwater lakes. In November I went to Gerewol and walked around the perimeter of a muddy, freshwater lake, though I don't remember making contact with the lake water.

I'm gonna get re-tested and we'll see what happens.

Current projects

I thought when I came back to America I'd be sitting around the house bored out of my gourd, but that's not the case. I was so busy cooking for the holidays, and now that Christmas is over I'm doing other things.

• Cleaning the upstairs closets. My bedroom is upstairs, and the closets are filled with random stuff (mine, Joe's and my mom's) so it's my job to organize them, put things in storage, and clean the closets so I have a place to hang my clothes. This included wiping off over a hundred wire hangars that were covered in dust from a drywall project a few years ago.
  
• Putting all my parents photos in new albums. The albums are falling apart and pictures keep falling out.
• Scanning my parents' photos onto the computer.
  
• Working on my baking skillz. Tonight I made lime-meringue pie. The meringue was a huge pain in the butt (fussy!) but it was worth it. The next two days I'm making black forest cake, at Tom's request - chocolate genoise layers filled with brandied cherries and whipped cream. Yummmm.
  
• Oh, and then there's that Peace Corps application I kind of ditched during the holidays.

I'm thinking of starting culinary school this summer. There's a community college nearby and I'd be doing something I love.

Here's two pictures of the cat. He cracks us up.

Rudulph the red-nosed reindeer:


Snaggle-tooth! He's missing his top left fang so sometimes his lip catches on the bottom one. It's freaky.


Tonight's dinner:
Goulash - rotini with a paprika-thyme hamburger-tomato sauce.

Yesterday's dinner:
Split pea soup with yellow split peas (the green ones freak mom out) with cajun-spiced roasted sweet potatoes (they were awesome). Weird combo, but I needed something to go with the soup and the taters sounded good.

Holidays

For Christmas we had a great celebration.

Djam came to visit wednesday through saturday. He's like a member of the family, as even Blackie loves him! We cooked African food (rice and beans) with Ghanaian sauce (fish and tomato sauce) and Niger sauce (fried onions with oil). We went to church for the Christmas Eve mass. My parents' church has two priests who actually work at four churches and rotate between them. This week was Father Peter, who is from Nigeria, so Djam and I brought him some leftover African food. We thought it would be a nice reminder of his homeland.

For Christmas I got cute earrings and leather gloves from my dad, a jewelry box to hold all my new African jewelry, a Persian ambassador hat from my mom, two wonderful books from Tom (The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Baranbaum and Baking By Flavor by Lisa Yockelson), slippers and a t-shirt from Djam, and a hat, gloves, scarf and slipper socks from Joe and Mary.

Persian Ambassador Hat

I baked stollen using this recipe and it turned out really well. My mom requested these Swedish almond butter cookies, so I made those too, as well as gingerbread people and rum balls. Combined with Mary's delicious candies and fudge, we really had no shortage of sweets around here.

I also tried the Cook's Illustrated recipe for low-fat chicken parmesan. It was amazing. I defrosted frozen chicken tenders and coated them with flour, then egg whites, then a mixture of toasted Panko crumbs and parmesan cheese. They were baked at a high heat to produce a crispy crust, and served with spaghetti with marinara sauce. It was pretty delicious and no frying involved.

For Christmas dinner my mom made roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy, and reheated green bean casserole leftover from a funeral. NO potatoes, NO stuffing. But that was okay because Djam and I supplemented with a Ghanaian dish called Red-Red. It consists of fried plantains with spicy red beans. It was sooo yummy. Here's a decent-looking recipe in case you want to try it yourself.

Okay, new subject. Djam. When I left for the Peace Corps in 2008 Djam and I were somewhat together. Then, while I was in Niger, we broke up due to communication issues. I went to Ghana for vacation late September of this year, and since he's from Ghana I went to his village and hung out with some of his people (although he did not go, he was in the u.s.). This kind of brought us back in contact with each other and I started wondering if we could get back together. When I came back to the u.s. we called each other, and he came for Christmas. I was curious to see if we'd have a spark, or if I'd have feelings for him, or whatever. Djam came and.. nothing. We didn't mesh well and I don't see us having a romantic future together. It's sad because Djam would make a great partner - he's considerate, generous, talented, polite, and shares my religious and political views. However, I don't want to make the same mistake I made with Zach and start something I'm not into 100%.

So yeah, that was my holidays. Lots of food and a little romantic excitement.

My Niger cat Moose trying out my Zeina stocking (Zeina was my Niger name). There's Buddy in the background trying to be in the picture. What a photo hog!


Tonight's Dinner:
Homemade pizza with pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, onion and banana pepper rings

Hello, lover

I love this Michael Kors Uptown Astor bag.



Problem is so far I can't find it for less than $298.

Edit: I like this one more, and it's cheaper. Now hopefully I'll win the auction. :)

Shhh! Don't tell Tom

Don't tell my brother Tom, but.. I give the cat treats.

Last night I gave him a little piece of ham. Today I gave him part of my egg yolk. Last week I gave him a piece of boiled bacon I was using for a recipe.

Tom pays very careful attention to Blackie's diet and is concerned about him developing kidney stones and getting fat and who knows what else. But I say, the cat is old (15 years). Let him live a little!