Dancing On The Ceiling

Publically endorsing Ev as my personal man friend and sidekick has altered the flavor of my life in this little place. There is now an entire entourage of men who have his, and therefore my, back. Who treat me like a sister, or dare I even say, a friend. Up the hill past taxi time? No worries, I now have a personal escort down the steep, dark and lonely road should I require him. A direct result of this is that I have sat out past 9pm watching more domino games than I have since training, I’ve had more conversations with people I only sort of knew before, and I get to go out to parties. And this leads me to my latest experience.
Back home, I am the girl who goes dancing at a club maybe twice a year. If you know me, you know that I prefer the socialization of an organized camping trip or the local “townie” bar to anything loud and showy. That, however, is not how Jamaican’s roll. So this weekend, sensing that Ev and I needed a change of pace, I readily agreed to join him at a dance walking distance from my house. The great thing about most events in Jamaica is that they are held outside, and my social claustrophobia big ups that one. The dance was held in the yard of a small bar with a cook shop hut in the opposite corner serving soup and chicken. Local dogs slunk around avoiding people but scarfing down chicken bones. The yard had the sound system set up on three sides of the yard with the DJ outside the bar, under the tin roof awning. When this bar has dances that I don’t attend, I can hear the music from my house…so it was pretty loud.
Initially, the dancing was mostly swaying and slow winding as men played domino and women slowly trickled in, standing along the roadside to pree the party potential, dressed in the customary party garb: on the bottom, batti riders or just leggings, on top a sheer shirt and matching bra, a marina or a belly shirt, a bright neon color belt (not buckled though), flat sandals or bright, clean sneakers and bold jewelry or hair accessories, either brightly colored or sparkly.
Now ladies, if you want to feel particularly self conscious in Jamaica, going to a dance with your boyfriend who is a particularly adept dancer is probably the way to go. I was content at first to arbitrarily wind with my man along to late 90’s pop and rap, and even tried a little harder once the music became the reggae/dancehall mix. And then the music picked up and the dancing got serious.
Not sure if I’ve mentioned yet just how sexual Jamaican dance is, but even the most cultural and historic dances are pretty obvious about it. Dancehall has taken these cultural dances of strong hip movement and polite distances to a whole new level. I mean, these women would put an accomplished yogi master to shame with the undulating contortions going on in the yard. Bent in half, peering between spread legs as her ass somehow manages to vibrate; in a split to the ground, bouncing up and down to the beat; moving nothing but the ass, as though an extra vertebrae has been specially created to pivot in all directions. I knew these dance moves existed- had often witnessed them with fellow PCV’s or at small dances in the community, but this very provocative display of athleticism, grace and contortion put me pretty far out of my element. To an American, watching Jamaicans dance (esp. dancehall) is a lot like watching people dry hump, or like watching women display their sexual prowess in public (but it’s also captivating, like watching cirque dis ole). To a Jamaican it’s just dancing- like doing the Funky Chicken or a box step.
When a dancehall song began frantically demanding “Bend over, bend over, bend over!!!” and the ladies happily complied while their dance partners wound all round behind them, I became an anthropologist. The extreme homophobia present in Jamaica just doesn’t mesh with these very caboose-focused dance moves. Another piece of advice to future PCV’s, don’t overthink these things in the moment- let it be what it is and pontificate later. I began to shut down around this point as far as my comfort zone threshold went because I stopped being and started overthinking.
And then, a couple climbed up on a domino table, winding skillfully against each other and holding the beams of the veranda roof until, suddenly, they were both suspended, with hands and feet gripping the beams, still winding with each other.
I stuck around maybe an hour after that, not being able to stop watching the spectacle in front of me, or being too stubborn to walk away but regardless, around 3am I decided I was ready to walk back to my comfort zone.
So, what did I learn from this experience that I can pass on to others?
1) Jamaican dance may be provocative to us as Americans, but to Jamaicans, like my boyfriend, it’s just dancing and it doesn’t mean any more or less than that (just imagine how insecure one could feel in that situation if they didn’t know this interesting fact).  
2) When out of your element, stay in the moment, or confide in someone who gets you- freezing up and getting in your head will make it so much harder to rebound.
3) When assimilating, don’t forget that you are not an actual citizen of that culture, and that’s ok. No one expects you to be. And chances are, they’re all looking at YOU with envy too.
I think it’s important to point out as well that I did not come to these conclusions completely on my own, that my other half (the yin to my yang, if you will ) played a large role in getting me to these realizations. Big ups to him! Mi wan lucky gyal fi true.

Quick Glossary Review:
Batti Riders: “Batti” = butt, so a “batti bwoi” is a derogatory term for a gay man, while “batti riders” are shorts that just cover a woman’s ass.
Pree: to stand aside and watch, to check out, to judge. Also one can ask “why yuh pree?” or “why pree?” meaning loosely, “whatcha doin?”

Rumor Has It…

Sometimes I think, “Poor Jamaica, her reputation precedes her and it’s not always a good one”. In my last entry I wrote briefly about how I see tourists and I’d like to make a small disclaimer. Tourists are told things about Jamaica that are generalizations meant to keep them “safe”, but we as Peace Corps Volunteers, particularly as women, were told similar things coming into the country.

Tourists though, do not have the benefit of realizing what is true and what is a generalization, for they are here for only a short while and are rarely without a chaperone or beyond the “safe” part of town. We as PCV’s get a unique opportunity to quell the rumors, big up the reputation and truly understand the method behind the madness that is Jamaica.

When I came to Jamaica I wasn’t sure I’d make friends, I was sure everyone would see me as a child, that I was in for a lonely next two years. Sometimes I still think that, with one exception.

I remember in training the women would get heaps and heaps of advice regarding how to handle men. The general consensus in these conversations went something like “men are dogs, handle with humor”. I was sure I’d never be able to trust a single one enough to be friends, let alone date. The girls from previous groups with Jamaican boyfriends would nod fervently to the advice while giving their own, always with a quick “most of them” thrown in. Now I get it.

If you read this as often as I write it, you’ll remember that my “welcome to Beeston Spring” party involved a one man welcome and pledge for my safety on behalf of the football team. And “pleasant conversation” afterwards. 7 months later, that same man calls me at night for things like:

“baby are you asleep? I don’t have much credit but look out the window, there’s a rainbow around the moon”

I’m not saying that all or even most men in this country are to be trusted. It’s true that most men will cheat on their women, many will want to “spread their seed” and so will jump at the opportunity to get with a white woman, many don’t know how to talk to a woman like a person, most don’t know how to even approach a white (American) woman appropriately, most will cat-call and act a fool, especially around their friends, and the male machismo is stronger than any American frat house could achieve, but most of all, very few believe in “the complete package” and I think that is the fundamental difference between the American ideal of love and the view of love in Jamaica.

Not to make a generalization about American ideals- they are so very diverse- but simply to say that most Americans value having one partner at a time. Whether that partner is for life or simply fits right now doesn’t matter at a young age- that person is a lover, friend and confidant, and free time is spent with that person in either a social or personal setting, because you are enough for your partner, and vice versa.

The complete package is hard to find in rural Jamaica. Like, very, very hard to find. Add the prevalence of the whole teen pregnancy, “baby daddy” and “baby momma” connection, the low graduation rate from high schools and the propensity for rural students to struggle in school, especially in English subjects and it’s almost impossible to widen a worldview enough to accept the idea of “the complete package”, or for people to respect themselves enough to be one. In America, Love IS finding one’s complete package, Jamaicans tend to “love” the woman or man they go home to but have their sexual or intimate desires fulfilled by someone else.

A few months ago I asked a trusted female friend how she knows when a man is safe to date. She gave me a quiet smile and waved her phone by her head. “Talk only, and if they are still interested after a few months, they are probably for real.” Mek sense enough fi mi!

So how did I end up finding a complete package in my rural community choc’ full o’ “typical Jamaican men”? A lot of luck, even more patience (I’m sure none of you ladies have gone on 6 months worth of “dates” with a man before calling him your boyfriend or holding his hand in public), vigilance, self assurance and a little detective work (‘10 out of 10 people surveyed answered “yes” to “is he a good person?”’…in a small community stuff like that is notable) and also, did I mention luck?

And now is the point where I knock on wood before I swallow my words.

ps- meet Poppy Seed, so named for her reddish tint and tiny stature:

Traveling About

Wuh yuh seh friends? I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, traditional or not.

My Thanksgiving was a mixture of both. I traveled to Kingston to the All Volunteer Meeting the weekend of Thanksgiving and stayed with our Country Director for one of the nights (hot water, air conditioning, internet and a pool, yes please!). There was turkey and stuffing and even cranberry sauce, pumpkin soup and spinach (which is very rare here). The gathering was about 15 people smaller than I’m used to for Thanksgiving, but a Skype session to home brought me those familiar faces. I’m sure I sounded insane with my high pitched excited voice, closed off in the guest bedroom by myself.

The meeting was a great way to give volunteers the opportunity to share their volunteer experiences- what works, what doesn’t, how to handle kids, teach about the environment, make recycled crafts, teach HIV awareness, plan events and all sorts of other fun stuff. It also offered groups 82 and 83 an opportunity to spend time with each other which I appreciated since my Parish has the largest influx of group 83 volunteers, I spend most of my free time with them.

After that two of us joined J in St. Thomas for the next two days. Autumn hadn’t seen her site and I had not seen it since she moved to a new apartment and got a puppy.

On Sunday we walked about 3 miles into a town called Bath, aptly named for it’s healing hot springs. Turning off the main road, we followed an uphill, twisty, turny and very bushy road until we came to the end- a shabby looking hotel with a dirt path branching off before the gate, over a bridge and on the opposite side of a stream (what they call a river). We followed a well traveled but narrow dirt path past shacks selling snacks, jerk and home made pimento massage oil. The Fountain as it’s called is known for it’s healing power, many rasta can be seen there and if you’re into it, you can allow a strange Jamaican man to massage you with the oil on a rock by the stream. Classy place.

When we arrived to the stream we found many more Jamaicans there than we expected and, being the only whitey’s, we wished we’d thought to wear less skimpy bathing attire. Regardless, we made our way up stream to a spot that was not as crowded and made camp. The hot springs seep from the rocky walls above the stream, some springs just trickle down, others are diverted by bamboo acting as pipes which are strung to the trees above. This creates little showers of hot water within the stream. It was quite enjoyable and no one paid us much mind once we walked by them all to get to our spot. I will certainly be going back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past weekend I went to the annual Reggae Marathon in Negril to volunteer and cheer on PC runners. Most volunteers ran the 10k or the half marathon, one good friend actually ran his first full marathon, we were so proud! I can’t think of anything I’d want to do less than run 26 miles straight in the tropical land of Jamaica. Thankfully the race started at 5:15am so about half of our volunteering was nice and cool (although we didn’t have the opportunity for coffee until the sun was well up, around 9am- not worth it at that point). I was instantly brought back to Mom’s old Marathon-ing days, wrapped in blankets and cheering like crazy people at every check point. This time we manned one station and handed out water, bananas and Gu (remember that stuff Mommy??) And I started everyone out with the cheering, the veteran that I am at this stuff (ha, haha).

 

 

Cheering and Supporting Our Man in the distance

 

 

 

 

The crowd of runners were the most diverse group of people I’ve been among since I got to the Island, and I was immediately aware of a few things while at the festive pasta dinner. 1) People watching is much more interesting once you’ve lived among Jamaicans for 7 months. 2) I am miserably out of the fashion loop. 3) One of our PCV’s has an exact replica of himself wandering around. 4) I am still not used to being treated like a tourist, and I’ve ceased recognizing myself as “A White Person”.

I’d like to address point number 1 because there are a number of reasons for this statement. While the motto of for Jamaica is “Out of many, one people”, it doesn’t stop the fact that most people I am surrounded by on a daily basis range from light brown to black skin, I am always the proverbial “black sheep. Obviously not the case at the marathon. Additionally, Jamaicans are very blunt about appearance, as I’m sure I’ve described already, and in my assimilation process I’ve become significantly less creative in choosing descriptors. I am especially aware of this when blogging for if I allowed the words in my head to spill out they would be very NOT politically correct, which is a highly esteemed behavior by Americans. That kind of goes along with point number 4. While I know I’m white because, well, I AM, I have stopped feeling painfully self conscious of it, and I see beyond it. This often prompts strange comments on my part when a van of tourists drives through my community: “What’s with all the white people?!” My fellow PCV’s do not carry that title in my mind, they too are locals in their own right but tourists, those who are just visiting, who believe the rumors about Jamaica and Jamaicans they are told, are in my mind…White People.

Derogatory? probably. Generalization? maybe. The very stereotype we all fought against, and still will for months and months? Yes, definitely. But as I’m not quite there yet, let’s not mince apart the moral or cultural implications of this realization in this entry, mmkay?

Sorrel Juice

So I kind of apologize for my recent fascination with “how to” posts, especially because many of you will never actually see a real breadfruit so what’s the use?? But while many of you read this from the frosty north, it is also available for other PC Jamaica volunteers and staff to read. My close family and friends know that I love to be…instructional…and I like to write. So I guess this is how those two personality traits have manifested themselves.

Tomorrow, I leave for Kingston for an All Volunteer Conference, and I will be sharing Thanksgiving with PCJ staff and other volunteers. Friday we are having a potluck, and with the amount of sorrel coming from the demonstration plot lately, I took the advice of a friend and made Sorrel Juice.

Fun Facts About Sorrel

• Sorrel will grow in the US during the summer!
• It’s really really good for you, super high in antioxidants and other lovely things.
• You can eat it raw, but it’s very bitter (Jamaicans make funny faces when I do it)
• It’s super easy to grow organically! Sorrel must be “plucked” of it’s seed pods, which are then dried and replanted- people here never buy sorrel seeds from the feed store. Wasps love sorrel plants and deter most dangerous insects and smaller birds from getting too friendly with it.
• Sorrel can make juice, tea, jam, liquor, candy and other things not massively produced yet.

Preparing Sorrel

I know I post lots of pictures of sorrel, but I think it’s a really awesome and pretty looking plant. So in case you forgot, this is a sorrel bud- the edible part:

That dense part in the middle is the seed pod. That needs to be “plucked”. Methods vary: You have the “pull apart” method where you simply tear the pod out from the center of the bud, some use a knife and cut a hole in the bottom of the bud to force the pod out and some, like my supervisor, find old umbrella poles and use them to pop the pods out of the sorrel. I prefer option 1 and 3… I’ve cut myself with option 2.

Seed pods look like this:

 

Sorrel without the pod looks like this:

To get the seeds from the pod just lay them out in the sun and the pod will open, expelling the seeds. The pods are heavier than the sorrel so always weigh sorrel after they’ve been plucked if you’re going to sell them.

Extracting the Juice

Like most other things here, I have no exact measurements, but 3-5 lbs of sorrel makes a whole lot of juice.

Rinse the sorrel first and then put it in a large pot of water, cover it and heat it to boil. Once it boils, turn off the heat and make it sit for a few hours. Basically it steeps just like a tea, the longer it seeps the darker the tea… and the stronger (more bitter) the juice. I let mine sit about 2 hours.

When it has steeped long enough, strain the sorrel out however is easiest. I started with a spoon and decided a large strainer would go faster.

Traditional sorrel juice is flavored with sugar and ginger. The ginger is grated and seeped in the warm juice- I don’t know the proportions. I made my sorrel with sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon to add a more American Thanksgiving flavor to it. Also sometimes the ginger is a bit overwhelming.

In Jamaica it’s easy to find whole nutmeg so I ground up 3 of them and then doused the pot with ground cinnamon since I didn’t have sticks.

 

Add about 4 or 5 big spoons of sugar to the pot. It does a lot to alleviate the bitterness.

 

 

 

 

 

Whole nutmeg looks like this, I think it looks cool. Take off the light part and then crack the shell- the nutmeg is inside.

This is about how much cinnamon I added.

Finally warm up the pot again to dissolve everything into the juice and stir- strain it again and refrigerate!

The Great Breadfruit Flour Adventure!

I mentioned in the last post that the Farmer’s Group had agreed to make breadfruit flour in a workshop last week. Well, the turnout ended up being me, my supervisor and one other female farmer from the community. We don’t have a finished product and the timeline for the production of what we DO have is far from efficient. But I still feel successful, it is liberating creating something through trial and error, without someone whispering in your ear “you’re doing that wrong”, even if they’ve never done it before. This is a common statement among skilled persons here, understandably I suppose. Rural Jamaicans are a very resourceful and thrifty bunch, they work physically very hard for very little and they see Americans as people who do the opposite. So it makes sense that watching me learn to peel a green breadfruit on my own would be frustrating to someone who has been doing so for decades. My stubborn refusal to let people step in and do it for me prompts responses like “gyal yuh nuh easy!” and even the other day, “gyal if yuh was mah sister I’d beat yuh!” But I learn by doing- even if (or especially if) what I’m doing is wrong.

Anyway, here’s an account of the breadfruit flour making process. Persons in FL, Hawaii or other breadfruit yielding lands might find it useful. “Glutards” ie: those of a gluten free lifestyle will be pleased to know that breadfruit flour does NOT contain gluten. If you are none of the above, maybe it’s too cold to go outside and you could use some entertainment, so enjoy…

Basics For Breadfruit Beginners

 

 

This is what a breadfruit looks like (look up a pic of a tree, I don’t have one but they’re cool lookin). This one is small, they can get huge. This one is a few days picked, flour-making breadfruit should be freshly picked and drained, ie: a “Green” breadfruit. To drain it tear off the stem and let the white fluid seep out until it stops. This is important just take my word for it.

 

 

Once the breadfruit becomes soft (like most ripe fruit) it can be roasted over an open flame. Once the entire outside is charred, peel it and the inside can be very sweet and tasty. This is my favorite way to eat breadfruit.

 

 

Step One: Prepare

You’ll need probably 4 medium breadfruit to make 2 cups of flour- I have yet to figure out the math though. The breadfruit should be firm and green. Cut it into quarters from stem to navel. The inside should be pale, not yellow- yellow means ripe and sweet- it won’t slice easily because it’s soft and it doesn’t dry as readily. I know this from experience.

Peel the skin from the breadfruit with a sharp, smooth blade knife and cut out the center of seeds.

Now, the slicing of the breadfruit is debated and probably the most heavily trial-and-errored. At first I sliced very thin from the tip of each wedge:

For some reason I felt this process getting long, so I tried slicing along the wedge:

Either way you slice it (pun intended), the idea is a lot like slicing cheese- the thinner and more even the better.

At the workshop, my supervisor had cut hers into very tiny chunks but they took long to dry. The other farmer cut hers a little thick, and I think they actually ripened in the sun- they began to get musty and we can’t use them now.

Step Two: Dry

My perceptions of dry breadfruit drastically changed before and after the flour making process. While the majority of my breadfruit WAS dry, there were some pieces that were not and they caused problems in the process.

I hope you can see the difference in color here, the white slices are “dry” and the yellowish ones are not, yet. What I learned however is my most recent revelation. dry breadfruit is a lot like dry plaster of Paris. It should be white and brittle and you should be able to snap the pieces smaller, in sound and feeling. If the piece feels spongy or breaks without that satisfying pop, leave it out in the sun longer.

 

 

This is my first batch dried before the workshop. See how white and pretty?

 

 

For my next trial, I am going to use the large side of the cheese grater. Small pieces are easier to dry and to mill. Thin pieces in direct sunlight should take 3-5 hours to dry completely- beware of wind- it can be helpful but secure your space or you’ll have breadfruit flying everywhere.

The drying surface should be breathable and clean- I used newspaper and my old broken hammock cloth. Zinc was also recommended as well as shade cloth strung between two trees to allow moisture to escape from all sides.

Step 3: Workshop (Or, An Attempt to Mill)

We convened at the CDC container on the day of the workshop to find that the mill that had been donated to us by Trees that Feed (look them up, I can’t hyperlink without internet) was put together for the sake of keeping parts together, not because it was done correctly. So us three women spent the better part of an hour and a half screwing, unscrewing, trying and failing and finally succeeding at building the mill properly. I was enthusiastic and glad there were no men around to stifle our creative flow (“Yuh doin it wrong gyal, top ee, lemme do ee”, “Nuh man dat nuh right!” etc etc). I don’t know what this says about me but, while I have no patience with puzzles, give me a knot to untie and I’ll sit for hours. This was more like a knot than a puzzle.

 

 

We finally figured it out!

 

 

 

 

I now know the inner workings of this mill better than anyone- except maybe the engineers themselves.

 

Finely milled breadfruit, this is what you should be aiming for. Properly dried breadfruit will turn out like this.

You’ll know that the breadfruit is not properly dried because it will get chunky and those chunks get stuck in the gears. Like I said above, moist breadfruit is spongy, so when it goes through the grinder in the mill it just compresses instead of breaking apart into a powder. We decided to leave this first batch in the sun to dry and re-mill it this coming week. The good thing about breadfruit is that, if it doesn’t turn and get musty, it can always dry more, and after that nothing needs to be done except keep it in a cool dry place until a use is found. I plan to sift this flour tonight and try making dumplings with the good part.

Anything you make with wheat flour, you can make with breadfruit flour. Apparently.

Thanks for sticking with me- I’ll be reporting on more small successes as they come on this front.

All my love from the tropics, and Happy Thanksgiving to my family a friends- I will be there in spirit, making you breadfruit flour bread or biscuits or something infused with a little Jamaica. Blessings! <3

Christmas Breeze and Tings Fi Do

After a relatively inactive past week in terms of projects, this week is looking to be quite busy. Lately, I’ve started teaching “Applied Agriculture” to the Junior High Students. The plan was to teach every other Friday but I’m learning that school can be one of the more unpredictable parts of my schedule due to sick and sometimes forgetful teachers and students. Two weeks ago I introduced the the two questions you should always ask yourself before you plant something: What will this plant do for the ecosystem, and, What will this plant do for me? Then we talked about trees in this context. Today (Monday), the extension officer from the National Environmental Planning Agency (NEPA) came to the school and we planted 5 ornamental trees and 2 breadfruit trees. This Friday I plan to talk about soil and follow that with building a compost pile. The school already has chickens so we will be able to use chicken manure along with composted kitchen scraps. The kids will also start a log book for the trees, measuring them once a month and watering them twice a day.

A class like this is important for these students because they have not passed the standardized test that places them in a nearby (or faraway in some cases) high school. This means that many of them don’t read or spell well at all, and tangible lessons are more effective for them than sitting and copying notes. I hope to teach them about Agro Business so that they have something to fall back on if high school is not in their future. I’ve also recently come to appreciate the incredible amount of dedication it takes some of these kids to get to high school. Minimum wage in Jamaica is $5,000 a week, $1,000 a day and most parents don’t have steady jobs, they find work here and there. On average, it costs $700 A DAY to send a child to high school for taxi fare and meals, not to mention the $6,000 a semester school fees, books and supplies. At that rate, it’s hard to blame a kid for missing a few days of school a week, and with the job market, it’s hard to blame the parent either.

In addition to teaching the kids, the demonstration plot sorrel has taken off and is ready to be reaped. In three hours we can harvest roughly 22lbs of sorrel with two people and we’ve done this three days so far. People in Beeston Spring are gladly buying pounds of it as the cool “Christmas Breeze” reminds them to start making plenty of sorrel juice, traditionally a Christmas season drink with ginger. As a result, the Farmer’s Group is actually making money, and we are attempting to mill breadfruit into flour this Thursday as a result of a small (as usual) but productive (as UNusual) farmers meeting last week. Success story, hopefully, to follow.

Also, we have a bunch of pap-chow (bok-choy) coming in and I now have far to much of it to eat by the end of this week. It’s surprisingly delicious with turned (sweet) breadfruit though.

Finally, today after a long day of one thing after the other, I came home jonesing for a shower to find my bedroom door…locked? A turn of the key proved that no, it’s not locked, the forcefully cool, wonderfully revitalizing, spring-like Christmas Breeze had slammed my door closed with such force that the lock mechanism jammed and refused to spring back when I turned the key. So, the housekeeper and I spend 45 minutes prying the doorknob off the door with a large kitchen knife, then, when the problem didn’t fix itself from there, hammered and chiseled the inner mechanism away from the wooden door, resulting in a neat pile of wood chips and metal bits at our feet by the time the entire thing popped out of the door and it swung open. It was the most ridiculous thing I’ve done thus far, maybe, and now I have no doorknob. Hahaha, ohhh Jamaica- I still want to marry your “Christmas Breeze” mostly because it’s a “breeze” and not a “blizzard” and I find that simply adorable.

Pictures of the above activities here:

Sorrel, Kids and Broken Doors VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Turning Packie Into Calabash

The Rasta culture in Jamaica is prominent and diverse, ranging from the knot haired, toothless bushman to the bible quoting, hat wearing preacher. Most who wear locks are vegetarian but not all eat ital, which is essentially extreme veganism: no meat, dairy, salt or processed food. This also goes for plates and bowls, which is fortunate because the Packie Tree grows in abundance here. Packie is a hard shelled, gourd-like fruit (that you can’t eat) that rasta turn into plates, bowls, instruments, boxes and all sorts of fun things. Packie ranges in size so extremely that they can make cups and they can make serving plates. Once dried for its intended purpose, “Packie” becomes “Calabash”, and is recognized Island Wide as a symbol of Jamaican culture. Every year “Calabash”, the largest literary festival in Jamaica takes place in Treasure Beach and features some of Jamaicas most famous quick patois chatting poets and musicians.
Anyway, I’ve wanted to try my hand at making a Calabash bowl since I ate out of one at Zionites Farm during training. Here’s what I did:
First Pick yo Packie. A fruit that is green turning brown is ready to pick, like the one below. Next saw it (don’t machete it or it’ll crack in undesired places) in half depending on what you want to make. I chose to make two shallow bowls so I sawed it from stem to navel. For a cup you might choose to saw off the top piece- be creative and look around Jamaica for ideas, people do all sorts of things with these useful fruits.

I sawed my packie with a seraded kitchen knife, but make sure it’s sharp and carry a washcloth or towel with you- once you break through the shell, the insides make grip difficult. I wished I had a vice but I imagine that would scar the outside and it wouldn’t look so neat. The inside smells kind of like an American Apple. DON’T eat it, rumor is that it’s poisonous, plus, it doesn’t look super tasty.


Once you have the gourd sawed in half, use a spoon to gut the inside. Here is where I made a mistake.
Once the pulp comes out there’s still a white layer in there that needs to be scraped out too, it has the consistency of the white skin on an orange or grapefruit.

If you don’t scrape it out and go on to dry it, this is what you get:

A well scraped (and dried) gourd looks like this:

Once it’s scraped, leave it out in the sun until it dries. Dry it facing down, so the shell is on the outside. Once it turns brown, you can take it in, usually it only takes a day. I decided to wash mine thoroughly with the rough side of a sponge, due to my previous mistake, but they dry quick. So I promptly made my first meal and ate out of it!
YUM.