Day 170 - Amy

6/19/2010

Amy told me she looks forward to my "picture of the day" so today I am honoring her. Thank you Amy!

This photo was taken at the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Colorado annual picnic.

Popcorn

Growing up in Missouri, we had a garden. Our garden took up a complete city lot, in fact, after we moved a house was built on the lot. We had a strawberry patch that was at least 3 feet wide and 12 feet long (that's what I remember at least - but then I was a lot shorter then!) The garden had a another berry patch that had raspberries, blackberries and boysenberries that grew on trellises. We had carrots, tomatoes and beets. The flower garden faced the house and included many beautiful blooms during the whole season. I remember the corn rows. We had 3 or 4 rows of corn in our garden and some of the corn was popcorn. If you have never seen popcorn growing, it looks just like regular corn until you husk the ears. Popcorn has a pointed kernal. You must dry these ears to use them. We would pick the ears of corn then shuck the husks off. The ears then had to dry. Ours were stored in the attic over the garage in bushel baskets. When they were completely dry, it was time to take the kernels off of the ears. Sunday evenings were popcorn nights. We would have Sunday "dinner" after we got home from church in the early afternoon. So in the evening we would have popcorn and some desert, depending on the season. It could be pie or cake or fresh berries or fruit or ice cream, whatever was in season and available. One of us girls would go to the attic room and get 3 or 4 ears of popcorn and bring them down. To get the kernels off the ears you would twist the ear in your hand or rub two ears together. The had kernels would fall in the bowl. (popcorn kernels are pointed on the bottom unlike sweet corn kernels which are flat) Dried popcorn kernels hold some moisture inside, that's what makes them pop. Different varieties of popcorn will make smaller or larger pieces. In later gardens, Mom planted cute strawberry and multicolored popcorn. The tiny ears had pretty little kernels but when it popped, the resulting popcorn was delicious and crunchy.

When we lived in Toril we sometimes saw popcorn from a street vendor in the market but had to find a package of corn to pop at the small grocery store in the city center. Davao grocery had "Jolly Time" popcorn! I remember the first time that we made popcorn at home. The children in the neighborhood had never seen it made before. Their eyes grew wide with amazement.

When we moved to Bohol, we couldn't buy popcorn on that island. It could be bought at a grocery store in Cebu, the 2nd largest city in the country. Cebu was a f5 hour boat ride from Tagbilaran where we lived. We were traveling around the island giving seminars. One of our hostesses asked Patring what I liked to eat and she told her that I liked popcorn. Gloria took that 5 hour boat ride to buy some popcorn to have for me. I actually had some at 6 different schools. Another teacher went on a pump-boat to the city but couldn't find the popcorn. She had Cracker Jacks for me.

The best pan for making popcorn is a heavy pot. I have an old aluminum pressure cooker that I only use for popcorn. My next door neighbor in our first apartment here in Denver borrowed it one day and managed to start a fire inside the pot so it is not good for anything else but popcorn. I like movie popcorn, microwave popcorn, "Smart Corn" and especially popcorn from my special pot. I don't really like air-popped corn. Yellow kernels pop into larger pieces but white kernels are crunchier. I like to eat popcorn like cereal with milk. I only have met a few other people outside my family who eat it that way. You should try it sometime.

Day 64 - Pomelo

3/5/2010 When we were Peace Corps Volunteers in Toril, Davao City, Philippines, we had lots of wonderful fresh fruit in the market. The pomelo was one of our favorites. It is sweet with a very thick rind. Grapefruit is actually a hybrid of the pomelo and a type of orange. Rachael found pomelo in Israel when she lived there. We were all very happy when it started showing up in our local grocery stores each year.

Day 59 - Peace Corps letters

2/28/2010

In honor of Peace Corps week, the envelope from a letter to us from my parents using the Peace Corps stamp. Received on Feb. 29, 1972 when we lived in Toril, Davao City, Philippines.

Day 57 - "Once in Afganistan"

2/26/2010

I went to a screening of a documentary movie called

"Once in Afganistan"

about a group of women who were Peace Corps Volunteers there in 1969 doing vaccinations against Small Pox in the villages. It was very inspiring. This is a bill and some coins

(I think) and an earring that I got when I visited there in 1974 on my way home from Peace Corps.

Getting Published

I was honored to be asked to write about being a Peace Corps Volunteer for a book written by my friends Nora and Nestor Mercaco and Alok Sarwal. The book, "Voices from Colorado - Perspectives of Asian Pacific Americans" has the stories of many Asian Americans here. There were four RPCV's who served in the Philippines who were included in the book. My story "My Life in the Peace Corps - a Summary" was condensed for the book.
The release party was like year-book day at high school. People whose stories were in the book were collecting autographs from the others who were there.

I am a PCVP & RPCV

I am so proud. I am now no longer a PCTP (Peace Corps Trainee Parent) I am a PCVP (Peace Corps Volunteer Parent)! I am also an RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer). Daughter Becca has started her PCV experience in Peskopi, Albania. She was sworn in a week ago at a ceremony in Elbasan. 

Her Dad and I were volunteers BK (before Kids) back when Peace Corps was still in it's first decade in the lovely country of the Philippines.
Becca is truly a 21st century volunteer.
We had a small portable typewriter and used carbon paper to send letters to our families back in the states. She took her laptop computer with her and is connected by dial-up to the internet. We get email letters from her and are able to read her blog. This morning I saw her latest update just minutes after she posted it.
We had to take a jeepney into town (half-hour ride) in Davao to make an international phone call from the phone company office (or the phone booth at the Apo View Hotel) and we really needed to make an appointment to do it. To make a call from our second site in Bohol, we had to take a 5 hour boat ride to Cebu City to make that call. Becca was given a cell phone by Peace Corps for security purposes. She can call us (an vice-versa) from that (of course international rates apply) I can send her a text message for only 15cents! I just got off the phone with her calling from her computer using Skype. That only costs her 2cents/minute to call our phone and will be free computer to computer when we get our Skype account!
I sent my film home to process and didn't even see some of my slides for 2 years. Now she has a cute little digital camera that she can upload photos from directly to her blog and her online photo album so we can see them almost immediately. Her camera even takes short video clips!
We had a shortwave radio that we picked up in Japan on the way to the Philippines. Becca took one with her. Our neighbors had television and we were able to see some US programs on them around many commercials and blackouts. Becca has inherited Mike's television (He is a PCV who just finished his assignment in Peskopi. She is taking over his rented house.) She told me that she even gets CNN!
Read more about it on her blog. See the link on the right.