SO MANY EMOTIONS

I owe you all an update. But until I can find time (the new school year just started, and im behind with the things I wanted to accomplish over the summer break) I will tease you with the title...


lets just attribute my new found emotional instability to peace corps life.

Did You Know That Its Mango Season?

         Since I found out that I was no longer going to Lesotho, I officially stopped eating meat.  I never really ate meat before that, only on occasion when I ate out at a restaurant, and then only chicken.  I never bought or cooked it myself, that’s for sure.

        Even if I ate meat, I certainly would not have been eating meat once coming to SVG. Meat has always grossed me out, and the fact that here it comes in bags with its skin, bones, etc still attached and bloody, grosses me out.  Not to mention, you cant really find chicken breasts, and if you could its really expensive (so I hear).  The most common chicken parts eaten here are wings, legs, and then they sell chicken backs with guts in tact and chicken necks.  I’m not actually sure if people eat these, but I feed them to my doggie Frangipani.

   My diet has mainly consisted of tomatoes, onions, green peppers in every combination/preparation possible; chunks (soy protein, like tofu kinda); pasta on occasion; fruits (pineapple, mangoes, guavas, limes, oranges, bananas, etc); potatoes/sweet potatoes; rice; cabbage/carrots; cereal; bread.  Every once in a while I will buy cheese and yogurt, but for the most part I live a pretty vegan life.  I drink powdered soymilk and the butter is actually a vegetable oil blend, something similar to I Cant Believe Its Not Butter.

            My already mostly vegan diet turned extreme when my gas tank ran out.  Most of the local shops carry the gas tanks, and you can just bring your empty tank and purchase a full one.  Additionally, typically, gas tank trucks drive through the village 3 times a week.  However, when my tank decided to terminate mid-meal, it wasn’t so simple to get a new tank this time.  Normally my neighbor helps me by flagging down the gas tank truck, which usually comes by when I am at school.  So, like before I gave her my empty tank and the money.  However this time, when I got home from work, she explained to me that the truck didn’t come buy.  This went on for three weeks.  Every time I returned home, my neighbor said the same thing “no truck.” She often tried to explained to me what was going on, which usually resulted in me saying “ohhh, okay, well no big deal, tomorrows a new day”, but really I had no idea what was going on.  I didn’t quite understand, until after I talked to a few different people about the situation.  My host sister’s boyfriend works for the one of the oil company’s here.  She explained to me that there was a problem with the supplier.  But what I couldn’t understand was, why did I need a blue tank, couldn’t I just switch my blue tank for the white tank (which seemed to be in abundance).  Later, after speaking with my neighbor’s son, he explained that each supplier (different colored tanks) have different nozzles that connect to your oven/stove.  Man, they (oil companies) make every thing difficult don’t they? 

So what did I eat for the time being with no gas?  I ate ALOT of fruit and ALOT of veggie sandwiches.  I had mango smoothies for breakfast and tomato, lettuce, cucumber sandwiches for lunch, and then another smoothie for dinner.  I ate some tuna every once in a while and a bowl of cereal here and there. I made mango salsa and guacamole.  But mostly, I lived on mangoes.  Did I mention it’s the mango season?  I love mangoes, but I don’t think I can eat another mango for quite some time now. My other neighbor was very nice, and offered to make some Pelau for me.  She even told me I could come over and cook. J  My neighbors are great and really look out for me.

So after a few weeks of no gas, when I had given up all hope of ever getting a gas tank in the next month, I was awoken on a sunny Sunday morning by my neighbor telling me the truck just passed. I couldn’t believe it, since I had just heard on the news that the supplier to the company of gas tanks that I have, lost a lawsuit and would not be selling to the company anymore. Oh well, I now have gas.  But I still maintain my mostly vegan diet. Pictures of all my new vegan/raw concoctions coming soon.