Food Experimentation Week!!

So this week has been interesting.  Although not too much happened,  I must say it was fun (and tiring).   So after my post on Thursday,  I went to school to play volleyball...and managed to continually injure myself!  First I jammed one finger, then, I hurt my hip, somehow.  And because that wasn't enough,  later in the game, I injured my thumb (felt a couple cracks, but it's not swollen, so not broken, right??  Although it does still hurt a week later...).  Then, as I was walking home (after a long game, leaving me to walk home in the dark), I twisted my ankle.  It was just tragedy day.  But I did go home and make a burrito (see pictures).  It was delicious (and I made another one for lunch the next day)!!

Friday marked the end of month 1 of Insanity for me (pure excitement!), but it also began a jam-packed weekend!  Since it was site visit weekend for us (Peace Corps regional directors come to check out our living situation/working situations), there was an M23 (we are M24s) who came to help out with our site visits.  We spent the weekend hanging out and giving him a tour of our city (also bragging about how awesome our site is).  It was a lot of fun!  And in regards to site visits?  The regional director said that my ger is one of the best gers they've seen (thanks to my HCA[host country agency]), he loved my family and teachers, and they love me too!!!  It felt good to know that my school thinks I'm doing what they need me to do (although they wish that I would talk more).

Now back to food week.  On Monday night, I decided to make fried chicken for my site mates.  It came out well (I know it's not that hard, but I'm still excited).  Then on Tuesday night I really decided to experiment.  Being the super Jamaican that I am (and being excited about all the spices I got in my package), I decided to make some Jerk Chicken in my ger stove.  And *drumroll* another success!!  I literally went all out to make it as authentic as possible (see pictures).  My whole ger  (and my fridge) still smells like jerk...and I love it.

On Wednesday, I woke up (still happy about my jerk chicken adventures) to snow everywhere!  It was so beautiful!!  And you know I just had to take pictures!!  The day continued on pretty well except for one minor disturbance (thank you world for having Murphy's law as one of your ruling laws).  Now you're probably wondering what that disturbance is, right?  So as I was walking (to meet my counterpart and a community member who I sometimes help with english for a GREAT dinner), a group of teenage boys looked at me and said "nigger, nigger, nigger (notice the er...not an a...and then they laughed)".  I stopped and told them not to say that to me and then they laughed and said "nigger".  This time, I was completely thrown off guard because they seemed to do it just to get a rise out of me (even after I said not to do it, they did it and laughed).  Although it threw me off, I wasn't as angry as I could have been.  I think the other everyday interactions I have with Mongolians helped that a lot.  There are some people (no matter where you go in the world) who do things just to get a rise.  Now maybe they didn't understand the depth of what they said, but they definitely understood that it was something that offended me, yet they continued with it.  But hey....what can you do but brush it off/educate, huh?

That's about it for the week.  Today I taught English to the English teachers (went great!  we did a composition and editing!) and to one of my counterparts' 10th grade daughter and her friend.  Those went pretty well also.  No volleyball tonight (so sad), so I guess it will be an early night.  Enjoy the pictures and talk to you next week!

My ger covered in snow

My dog hiding in her house.  She looked so cold!

The same view as the shot last week...now covered in snow.

My burrito!  I even made the tortilla from scratch.

My tiny burrito.  But it was so filling!

The ingredients for my jerk chicken.  Notice my sauce brush...lol

My ger stove and the Heineken...because what is jerk chicken if you don't pour on Heineken while it's cooking????

Chicken in the fire!

Pulled it out for a little bit to add sauce and Heineken

The plate at the end (could really use some greens...but I had to throw out my cabbage earlier that day because it went bad)