Week 7 wrapup:: Site Placement, How to cook Pumpkin Leaves and Model School Prep

Oook.  So, the big news this week is my Site Placement.  The good news is that I will have EVERYTHING I wanted in my site.  I have an indoor bathroom, running water (in a SINK, Inside My House!!! What?  Is this Posh Corps?), I'll live on school grounds (Instant friends!) and my site-mate is already my friend.  How lucky am I?  Now, here's the other side of the coin:  the water only runs on Monday mornings, and it's salt water.  My site is only about an hour north of where I am now.  In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter where I'm placed--everyone is going to be far away, but right now it feels like everyone else is going to pack up and leave and I'll still be here in TrainingTown.  The good news is I'll be only a short train-ride away from the capital, and anytime the other vols have to come to the main office for whatever I'll be able to hop into town and say Hi if I want.  The bad news is that if I want to go see a new place in this country it'll be on my dime. (or, MT).

I'm not going to tell you where I'm going exactly, but I will say that from now on I'm going to call my town "Mboa-city".  This leads me into my next topic.  Mboa.  Or, Pumpkin Leaves.  My new favorite thing to eat.  Here is the recipe.  First, I'll give you the Mozambique version and then I'll follow it with what I think might work for you guys playing along at home (do you Still have pumpkins in your gardens or is it too late for this already?  I really don't have any concept of time or seasons anymore.  Sorry if you can't actually cook this delicacy...)

Mboa, or Matzao, or Folhas de Abobora

Pumpkin leaves
onions
tomatoes
garlic
powdered chicken broth 
one coconut
one cupito of peanuts, pounded into flour

Prep time: between 1 and 6 hours, depending on your ralar/pilaring skillz

Collect pumpkin leaves, leave about a foot of stem on them.  One bacia (round, plastic tub) full will do nicely.
Wash and descascar (peel the spiky parts off by folding the last ~1/2 inch of the stem-end over and gently pull the spiky veins off the whole leaf.  I'm sure this will make sense in practice)

Roll all the leaves up into a tight bunch.  Slice into really skinny strips by holding the bunch of leaves in your fist and cutting towards your delicate fingers with the dullest knife you can find (a butter knife would be a good American approximation of a Mozambique-y knife.  *file this under things PCTS never say:  "Ouch, I cut myself on this knife"**) .  Drop the sliced leaves in a bacia of water.  This is best done in front of the TV.  You should be watching Ti Ti Ti (my favorite Brazilian telenovela)

Peel the fibery-outside off a coconut and then pound it open with whatever piece of iron you can find, or smash it on the concrete floor a couple times. (the coconut will hiss when you get it open.)  If you're really good you won't spill all the water out.  Drink that and then  Ralar (grate) the coconut.

Pour some hot water over the grated coconut.  Swish it around with your hands and then dump the coconut and water through a sieve.  Repeat a few times until you think you have enough leite (milk).  I don't know...maybe a few cups?

Saute some onions, tomatoes, garlic in oil (a cup or two will do if you're trying to really make this the Mozambique way).

Squeeze the water out of the strips of mboa and add to the pan.  (remember you're cooking this in a dented aluminum pan over a small pile of charcoal.  Probably under a tree in the backyard)

Add the coconut milk and peanut flour (I guess, maybe a cup of peanut flour?)

Throw some Bennys in there for good measure (ubiquitous Mozambique seasoning, it's chicken bullion).

Cover and boil for an unspecified amount of time.  1 hour? 2 hours?  Is it 4 in the afternoon? Is dinner usually at 9pm in your house?  Go ahead and take it off the charcoal and leave it on the counter for an hour or so.

Serve with rice


Now.....here's how I think you can play along at home:

25 big pumpkin leaves (wash and peel as above)
2 plum tomatoes
2 pieces of garlic, diced fine
1 small onion, diced fine
One can light coconut milk
some chickenbroth powder, to taste
3/4 cup of peanut flour

Slice the leaves into ~1/4 inch slices.  Use a cutting board and a sharp knife.

Saute the vegetables in a little bit of olive oil.

Add the coconut milk and peanut flour (is this a thing you can buy?  I don't know...otherwise you need to get a large mortar and pestle and pound the heck out of some peanuts.  But this skill could take up a whole post by itself, so hopefully you can actually buy peanut flour).

Season.  Maybe with some salt and pepper?  Or, go whole-hog and use chicken-broth-powder

Boil until the leaves are tender.  I think this probably takes somewhere around 1/2 an hour, but like I said, it's impossible to know because I think my Mae cooks this dish from anywhere between 1 and 3 hours...)

Eat with rice! Yum!!


Now for the final topic:  Model School Prep.

Starting tomorrow we're doing "model school".  We have some volunteer students (actual Mozambique students who are on summer vacation right now, not other PC volunteers) and we're going to be teaching a mock-school for about a week.

I'm terrified.  I'm so not ready to give a whole class in Portuguese.  But, like my Mae always says, "vai passar"  It will pass.

One of the big challenges is preparing visual aids to teach with.  No powerpoint.....  So, I'm dusting off my hardcore artist skills and making some awesome diagrams of things like muscles and the digestive system.