An American Sherpa Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  I love the opportunity to spend time with family and friends, eat delicious food, and give thanks to God for how amazing he is to us (and watch a bit of football).  I have been away from the states for more than 7 months now, so with Thanksgiving approaching, I really wanted to try to recreate at least a taste of it over here.  Thus I determined that we were going to have our own American, Sherpa Thanksgiving here in Sikkim.

First I wrote a menu that I thought we would be able to pull off over here.  I searched the internet for recipes and had to consider the limited availability of ingredients as well as the fact that we wouldn’t have an oven to cook in.

Our Thanksgiving Menu

   Roasted Chicken

Mashed Potatoes

Green Beans

Stuffing

Rolls with butter

 Fruit Salad

 Pumpkin Pie

Apple Pie

 Whipped Cream

At least a week beforehand I started gathering ingredients.  I could never have pulled this off without Passang.  He talked with neighbors and local family members to try to source all of the ingredients.  He tried to get us a turkey, but when we found out that it would cost about $120 US for one turkey we decided that chicken would suffice.  Passang bought the chickens from a local farm.  Our house raised chickens tend to be much smaller than the farm-raised ones since we don’t give them hormones.  We went with the drugged up variety for this event to make sure we had enough meat for everyone.

Here is before picture of our thanksgiving ‘turkey’

One of our cousins had some pumpkins left over from their crop this year and gave one to us.  I was so amazed at how sweet this pumpkin was when it was when I cooked the flesh.  I would eat this thing just by itself, it was really good! 

Most of the spices I found in whole form from local vendors.  The local cardamom was donated by my mother-in-law.

The before picture of our pumpkin pie

My amazing cousin made us fresh butter to use for our meal.  Most of it went into my pie crusts which were surprisingly good.

Our Butter

My mother-in-law has a cow that is producing milk right now (we have a cow too, but right now it’s not producing) so I got milk from her.  I ended up getting about 3 or 4 litters of milk.  I put it in the fridge overnight so that the cream would separate and then skimmed the cream off in the morning.  I used the cream for whipped cream and in the pumpkin pie.

Skimming cream off of milk

I made the dough for the rolls a couple days beforehand and just kept it in the fridge.  The day before I made my pie crusts, cooked the pumpkin and scooped out the flesh, and did a trial run on baking the rolls.  Since we don’t have an oven, the baking processes proved to be a big challenge.  Passang got a couple of pans from our neighbor.  I think they are cast iron, but they are quite shallow and don’t have any lids to go with them.  We used one of the pans on top of some coals with an aluminum lid and more coals on top.  The trial run went ok with just a little bit of burning on the bottom of the rolls.  Not too bad for a first try.

Thanksgiving Day started out great.  After I was done teaching my tuition class in the morning, Passang and I got to work.  He started out by grinding all of the spices by hand.  We use a flat rock and a round rock to grind things here.

                           Cinnamon                                                             Cardamom

                                                  Nutmeg

I started peeling the apples for my apple pie.  I didn’t have much of an option in the apples I used.  

They don’t grow them around here, so we have to buy ones that get imported from elsewhere in India.  When I went to buy my apples I asked the fruit shop owner if he had any sour apples.  He responded by proudly stating that his apples are all “Ek dam gulio” or “So very sweet” and then proceeded to laugh at me when I told him that I actually wanted sour apples.   

In the end, these Kashmiri apples, although a little mealy, actually produced a pretty fantastic pie.

At some point during the morning I went to the fridge to look for my cream and discovered that some of it was missing.  Turns out that my wonderful husband had decided to used the 1.5 cups of cream that I had painstakingly skimmed off of the milk make his morning coffee.  Apparently he mistook it for left over milk.   Thankfully it was actually the second skimming so it was more like half and half so I still had the really creamy part that I got from the first skimming.  As a punishment I made him grind up the 3 cups of sugar that I needed. :)  The local sugar here is in much bigger crystals than what we usually get in the US so we had to grind it up a bit finer to incorporate well into the pies and whipped cream.

Our regular sugar

Passang scooping up the ground sugar

The sugar and spices already to be baked into pies!

I then mixed up my pumpkin pie, rolled out my first pie crust, and put together my pumpkin pie.

Pie crust

In progress

Meanwhile Passang got the fire going.  He borrowed a little stove from my mother-in-law so that we could put it close to our kitchen.  We decided that we would put the pie in one of the cast iron pans and then put the other one upside down on top as a lid.  With coals below and on top, it made a pretty nice little oven.  

Passang starting the fire with the help of our niece who decided to be camera shy all of a sudden.

It was working great until we heard a loud BANG!  The pan on top had cracked right down the middle!  Apparently these types of pans must not like to be used dry (the locals usually use them for frying).  Thankfully the pie only suffered a little bit of debris falling on it.  We cleaned up the mess, put some oil in the other pan in hopes that it would not suffer the same fate, grabbed an aluminum lid and put that on top, and got back to baking.  It was a painstaking process.  We had to constantly tend the coals, blowing on them and moving them around so that they were continuously supplying heat.  

The final set-up

Tending our oven

The top of the pie burned in the middle from touching the lid, but after 1.5 hrs the pie was done! 

I then put in my apple pie.  This time we used a bowl turned upside down as a lid because the apple pie was taller.  The apple pie was a pain.  The crust on top wouldn’t cook.  After over 3 hours of cooking I declared it good enough and we took it out.

Tending our apple pie

Our apple pie!

The two pies

Then I put in my rolls while Passang got to cooking the chickens.  He decided to roast them over a fire.  His concept was pretty good, but we really didn't have enough time to roast them properly.  They started burning on the outside while remaining raw in the inside.  Eventually he decided to take them off the fire, cut them into large pieces and fry them in oil on the stove.

Passang roasting the chickens

The first batch of rolls took forever, I think because we weren't as careful in tending the coals.  My sister-in-law finally took over the task, finished up the first batch and baked up the second batch in half the time.  I cooked the stuffing, mashed potatoes and green beans, my sister-in-law whipped up the whipped cream and the fruit salad, and eventually everything was ready.

Stuffing

Green Beans

Whipped cream!  Everyone LOVED this!

My sister-in-law and niece with our Thanksgiving meal

The spread

Roast chicken (unfortunately not cooked through)

Of course we also had the traditional rice and dhal (lentils) for those less adventurous in the group.  Most of my family started off with some chicken, rice, and dhal and then eventually started tasting the “American food.”  They actually really liked it.  I was surprised with how well everything turned out.  The chicken was SO good.  The pumpkin pie was really sweet (too sweet for my liking), I think because the pumpkin that I started with was really sweet, but my family thought it was delicious!  They especially liked it with the whipped cream.  I preferred the apple pie.  The crust was still raw in a lot of places, but the filling was SO good!

 Apple pie. mmmm.....

Our family enjoying Thanksgiving

In spite of all the mishaps and difficulties, we had a lot of fun with our Thanksgiving.  We learned so many things for next year – I think we will probably try to get an oven now.  Everyone enjoyed the food, and we had a great time celebrating with our family.  And we even had a few left-overs for the next day! 

Tuition

I am sorry for my long absence from posting.  Things have gotten quite busy around here, and I am just not very good at finding time (or motivation) to write.  But I thought it would be a good idea to finally update you all on what I have been doing. 

First of all, my parents came for a visit which was wonderful.  My mom could only stay for 5 days, but my dad was here for almost 4 weeks.  It was really great to have them here.  We did some sightseeing, shopping, played games, and watched local football (soccer) games.  My dad also went hiking with Passang and some of our relatives almost every morning.  We can’t wait till they get to visit again!

However, the thing that has really been keeping me busy is teaching students every day.  I have started “tuition” classes here in our village.  “Tuition” is basically tutoring on steroids.  I am tutoring students, but I teach several together at one time.  In the morning I have about 13 students at one time, and in the evening I have up to 7. 

I am renting a room from my mother-in-law’s house where I have set up my little class room.  I have a small white board, plastic chairs for the students, one table, and a few decorations that I have made. 

Here is our tuition room

Passang, me, and our adorable nieces Kasis and Snowly hanging out in our tuition room.

Here’s my awesome whiteboard!

 

Here is the alphabet I made for our classroom.  When I first started tuition I had no printer so I drew all these pictures by hand.  My mom and dad bought us a printer when they were here as an early Christmas present, and I am SO thankful for it.

I teach three high school chemistry students so I have started a period table on one wall that we will slowly start filling in with all the elements.

Teaching so many students at one time is difficult and somewhat chaotic at times.  In the morning, my students range in grade level from Class 1 up to Class 10.  I help them with mostly English, Math, and Science.  Their skill levels are also quite varied.  For instance, my class 1 student, who attends a private school in the village below ours, can speak better English than some of my class 5 and 6 students who have always attended government school. 

Here I am with my mom helping some of my morning students.

Every day we change the date and weather together on this wall here.  All the students get really into it and beg to be the one who gets to make the changes.  Then they all yell out the date, day of the week, and weather after I say them.  

We also have math competitions once in a while.  I divide the class up into three groups based on grade and give them different problem sets.

The rest of our time together is spent with the students working on their work and me coming around to different students to help them as needed.  It is certainly a struggle, especially with the language barrier, but it’s been really fun to see them learning.  I have also had to learn SO much.  I have never really taught a class before, so I’m learning what things work (and don't work) for these students.

 

Here I am trying to help some of my evening students.

Passang and I are hoping to open up a school next to our house for the coming school year (starting in February).  Interacting with these local students has shown me so much about what I want (and do not want) our school to be like.  It is unfortunate that these students can’t excel in many areas simply because of the lack of good, native English-speaking teachers.  I don’t think that any of the teachers in the local schools are native English speakers.  Without a good English education, the students’ options in the future become really limited.  It even hinders their ability to work in other subjects areas such as math and science which are both typically carried out in English.  We hope to start improving the futures of at least some of the students around here by making sure they have a really good knowledge of English.  We have named our school Lillyfield Academy ;) and here is the logo we have designed for it.  We would greatly appreciate your prayers and support as we embark on this challenging adventure!

Indian Independence Day

Yesterday was August 15^th, India’s Independence Day!  It was a glorious, sunny (HOT!) day – perfect for an Independence Day celebration!  The local schools put together the festivities.  The kids have done little class work the past couple of weeks as they have been preparing for the celebration.

The celebration took place at the soccer field next to Sombaria Senior Secondary School (the blue building up on the hill).  Everyone comes out for the festivities.

Some people set up these little shops around the field to sell snacks – cold drinks, chips, homemade momos, etc. 

Here is the stage where all the important guests sit. 

Everyone else just grabs a spot where they can!

Each school has a group of students that will march in the parade.  To start they were all standing in formation on one side of the field 

The chief guest (a local politician) raised the Indian flag to get things started. 

Then he was led over to the lines of students to inspect them

Then the drummers started and the parade began! 

The parade consisted of all of the students from the different schools marching once around the field.  Quite different than an America-style parade, but actually more interesting than I expected.  There were four different schools in the parade.  The one with the most people was Sombaria Senior Secondary School – the only government (public) secondary school in the area.

Here are some of the students from Sombaria Senior Secondary School making the first turn on the parade route. 

Then came Sunrise Academy – this is where our niece Snowly goes to school 

Here’s Snowly!  Looking exhausted (they’ve been standing in the hot sun for hours by now), but still finding the energy to march! 

Then came Model English School 

And Woodstock High School, looking classy in their pink plaid skirts! 

Lastly came the drummers, made up of members from all of the schools. 

Here’s our niece Marina (with the glasses on).  She was one of the drummers! 

Once everyone made it all the way around the field and back to their original spot, the parade was finished and the students were able to take a rest!

Here’s Passang and our friend Solomon trying to keep cool under the shade of an umbrella 

Then came the dances!  Each school put on a different dance. 

Sunrise Academy did a routine making various designs on the field.  It was pretty cool, but I think it would have looked even better from up above. 

This is a Nepali dance from Sombaria Senior Secondary School 

Woodstock High School did a drama about India’s independence 

Here are some troops getting ready for battle :) 

Here is the Model English School performing a Lepcha dance (SF:  the Lepcha are one of the tribes of the Himalayas and one of the indigenous peoples of Sikkim). 

This one was my favorite – the Anden Primary School performed a Sherpa dance.  

These little Sherpa were so cute! 

After dancing it was time for the two soccer matches, but by that point I was hot, sunburnt, and tired so I decided to head on back home.  The whole day was a lot of fun!  Very different than a Fourth of July celebration in the US (the whole time I was craving a hot dog and seriously expecting to smell a bbq at any moment!), but still a great celebration.  I look forward to doing it again next year!

Rainy Days and Fresh Pork

* Disclaimer – the following post contains a couple pictures of a pig being butchered.  If you are squeamish at the sight of blood or dead animals, I recommend that you not read this post.  Thank you.

                

We got back from visiting Darjeeling about 2 weeks ago.  It has been so nice to be home again.  Unfortunately a couple of days after returning home it started raining and didn't stop for more than a week.  That means that all of the clothes that we washed after returning home didn't dry for over a week.  A week of rain in Seattle is no big deal, but here, where you must dry clothes in the sun and walk outside to go places or do most of your work, it really becomes a pain!  But when I look outside and see the beautiful green hills and lush forests, the rain really doesn't seem all that bad.

Our Paradise

Here in Sikkim the monsoon season lasts from about the end of May to about the beginning of September.  We are right in the middle of it right now.  We haven’t been doing much while it’s been rainy because it is really easy to get sick.  We do our normal chores around the house, but not too much more than that.

Last weekend there was a meeting for the youth group leaders of West Sikkim at our church.  In preparation for the meeting Passang and I spent a couple of rainy days with other youth cleaning up around the church.

Cleaning moss off of the church ground 

Sweeping the church

Cutting the weeds around the church

Although the tools and methods are a little bit different than what I am used to in America, the chores that need to be done are actually quite similar. 

On Monday my mother-in-law had one of her pigs slaughtered.  As sad as it is to see an animal die and be cut up right in front of me, to me it’s actually quite refreshing to be able to see exactly where my food is coming from.  We are so removed from our food in the US.  It’s way too easy to forget that the meat that we eat was actually at one time a living animal that had to die in order to for us to eat.  Plus freshly slaughtered, home-grown meat is WAY tastier than anything you get in the grocery store in America!

Cutting off a strip of meat

Our cousin weighing the meat

Tying 2 Kg bundles of meat together with strips of bamboo to sell at the market

On Monday evening my didi and I made fresh pork momos for dinner (SF: momos are a traditional Himalayan dumpling very similar to a pot-sticker.  They are usually served steamed but can also be fried, and they are always served with a fresh home-made hot sauce called “achar”).  Here we do everything by hand from making the wrapper dough and rolling out the wrappers to folding all of the dumplings.  They were so good!  Fresh meat really does make a big difference.

Folding momos

 

Today is Passang’s birthday!  He is 31 years old!  This year will probably be the first year in a very long time that anyone has done anything for him on his birthday.  Birthdays around here, especially for adults, are not very big events.  Many of the adults don’t really even know exactly when their birthday is.  I’m not doing anything big, just making him tacos for dinner.  I made them for the family once before and they loved them.  Again I’ll be making everything from scratch including the tortillas, re-fried beans, and salsa.  Should be fun!