November 4, 2014 The time has passed very quickly; it is hard to believe we will be returning to the US in just a couple of weeks. I have started to prepare to leave. I have several container gardens on our roof and young Kenly will continue to care for them when we leave. He has asked me to bring him back a flash light and a yoyo for this service. I asked Julia a friend of mine to keep Sadie our dog until we return. Another project was to process all the cocoa from the Center. I had no way to weight the coco but I would guess it was over 15lbs of dried cocoa beans. I dry these beans on our roof. Then the Ladies helped me to roast the beans over a charcoal fire. The next step in the process is to peal the outer skin off each of the beans. We had a lot of beans, it was a big job. I usually am not in the Ladies kitchen, so this in itself was very different, but when I am included I really love being a part of the women’s community. The ladies and many children and I spent a couple of hours pealing all of this chocolate. Madam Friznell and I then went through all of the beans and made sure all the peals were off. The peals are hard some come off easily and some are more difficult, the children showed me to rub the bean on a ruff surface like a rock to help get it off on the difficult beans. This time spent also gave me an opportunity to practice my Creole. Madam Friznell is quite the animated storyteller, I could not understand all that she was saying but her gestures and expressions were priceless. Janet made some popcorn and gave some to the children, I gave everyone suckers. Although it was a tedious job it was also fun to all be together. When the pealing and sorting was done the next step was to take it to our neighbors that have a pillion and pillion the beans (mash). A pillion is a four ft log about two feet across that has a foot carved in the bottom, and has been hollowed out about half way. The hollow is concave at the bottom, there are two poles that are rounded on the bottom and not attached to the pillion. Two men each have one of the poles and in a rhythm pound the cocoa beans in the pillion, until they are an oily paste. These beans are very hard to start with so the paste it pretty amazing. The paste in chocolate talk is called the nibs. The last couple of years I have brought back small amounts of nibs and made a couple of cups of very good chocolate just using a blender. This process took two weeks starting the blender and turning off 10 minutes later, letting the chocolate cool for a while and starting it again. To refine and conche the chocolate takes about 36 hours. I burnt out a few blenders and a food processor. The chocolate still was slightly gritty but had a great flavor. We need a table top melanger (machine to do this), in order to process this much chocolate nibs. I have been doing research and it looks like this machine is the same as a Wet Food Grinder, there are a few adjustments on a Melanger that are not on a Wet Food Grinder, but from forums it looks like you can use a wet grinder. A wet grinder is about half the price and is more available. I hope to get one and make chocolate as a fund raiser when we get back. I will bring back raw sugar, from Haiti so the chocolate will be totally organic. I hope many people will want to give chocolate for Christmas. Another preparation has been buying baskets to sell. We have a couple of local artists that make beautiful sturdy baskets. I really love baskets and could have bought all of them but controlled myself and only bought a good selection. We will also have the things our artist groups are making, along with the tin art we will buy in Port Au Prince. I like to call these “the gifts that give twice”, once to the artists here in Haiti trying to feed their families, and then secondly to the person who receives the gift. We are hoping to visit a few churches when we return to make these things available, but if you are interested you can contact us and we will accommodate your needs. We use any profits from the art we buy to support the artist programs and help us with our travel expenses. When we are here there are times that we have missed things at home. We used to go Trick or Treating with several of our grandchildren. Also we would like it when we can join the grandchildren at their church parties, so we got to see their costumes. The last two years we can only see the children on facebook. I did feel sad not to see the kids in person, but then I thought in a way we have “trick or treaters” every day, because we have all these children that come up to our porch in the evening and Bob or I hand out candy. They don’t have costumes, but often they are wearing interesting combinations of rags. Pajama pants and shirts would be pants and shirts here. Clothes way to big or small are tied with pieces of rope, I find the creativity interesting. With great thanks to the Lay Salvatorians we will return after the Holidays, We are also thankful we can return to the States and spend the holidays with our family and friends. It will be good to see our home, take a hot shower, cook without starting a fire, and just throw the clothes in a washer and dryer. But I am sad we will miss the feast day at our home church here, we will miss our friends here to. We have many projects going that could or could not continue when we leave. I think it will always be difficult to have one foot in each country. It is always hard for me to leave and I am always glad to return to either. But this is just what God has asked of us, and it is OK. Thank you for your interest and your many prayers, Denise
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 23:46:05 +0000
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