Thursday, October 15, 2015
This morning, we had a more traditional Jamaican breakfast. The papaya, orange halves, starfruit, and toast with guava jelly were not too far out of the ordinary, but the salted fish, ackee, and festival were new to us. The salted fish was cooked fish and vegetables all chopped up and mixed together. Ackee is a native fruit which hadn’t been eaten until after the abolition of slavery when many former slaves didn’t have land to grow on or money to buy food with. It is now a staple in Jamaican cuisine. Festival looks like doughnut holes, but they are more like a dense bread and not sweet.
After breakfast, we went back down the hill to plant the rest of the avocado trees. We only had about 30 left, so with each of us carrying three or four, we only had to make one trip down and finished in about 20 minutes. As we were finishing, Brooklyn grabbed Layna to take a selfie; while doing this, they both ran into a patch of cow itch and both got the stinging rash. The avocados down here are so good; they have a lighter taste. They are twice as big as avocados in the states and cost half as much.
We didn’t have anything else planned for several hours, so we took our time getting cleaned up before lunch. This was another meal similar to what we would have at home – fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, mixed (sauteed?) vegetables, sliced avocado, and rice and beans. After lunch we had about an hour and a half of down time to relax.
We headed back to Wesley Methodist Church again from 5-7pm this evening for the second session of the conference. We had about the same number of participants, but some from last night weren’t able to make it back, and we had some new folks in attendance. We all sang a song together before breaking into the two groups – musicians and singers – to rehearse again. When we came back together to run through three of the songs we had been practicing, it was a beautiful time of worship. Particularly on the song “How Great is Our God.” After the official session was over, the local keyboard player, Bill, a local drummer, and Lance had a jam session. The Jamaicans tried to teach Lance how to play a reggae groove on the keyboard, and then they played several other songs. We all ended the evening singing “Lean On Me” together.
Once we got back to the manse, dinner was waiting. We had grilled cheese and veggie sandwiches and chocolate cake. All in all, it was a good day.
Posted by Angela
