Q&A: How islanders cook

Bill Andrews posted a comment asking how folks cook on the island, and we couldn’t have paid him for such a great leading question, as this is one of our first projects we are working on as part of our Peace Corps service! (BTW Bill, please send us more info on your solar stove; we´d be interested in trying one here.)

In Panamá, while most families have a 25-lb. propane tank and a gas stove, the traditional cooking method is a fogon (FUH-goun, rhymes with scone), which is really just three rocks (soccer ball sized) with the fire in their midst.

(Here is April proudly showing off brownies she cooked on a fogon using an ingenious nested pot system to serve as an oven. Wow that was yummy!)

Ollas (pots) of many sizes can be balanced on the stones for cooking; rice, soups, beans and lentils, boiling corn, and other long-cooking items are all cooked this way to save gas. (Frying plantanos, fish, or eggs and other foods that don’t need to cook as long, is done on the gas stove, although I haven’t really discerned a real plan for how long things cook; I’ve seen spaghetti noodles at a rapid boil for over 20 minutes, and a big pot of rice reheated for just a minute. I think things cook until you remember them sometimes.)

Ironically, this combination of cooking methods was just as true in our training community, about an hour outside Panamá City, as it is here in the island. Our host mom there had a fogon out in a gazebo type structure there as well, and actually used it almost daily. But here on the island, most folks have the fogon much closer to their kitchen.

And this brings us to why April and I are working on the cooking methods. As you can imagine, the fogon design is not overly efficient and can be rather smoky. Sometimes the kitchen, sometimes the entire house, will be filled with smoke, and often our clothes, hanging on the line near the fogon area, would come down clean but smelling of smoke (sometimes better than the slightly moldy smell they’d take on after three grey, damp, days on the line ;). The mother of the house, who will often spend a large portion of her day either cooking on the fogon, tending the fogon, or working near the fogon, will breathe in a lot of smoke while tending an open fire. Some older women have been told by doctors that when they start coughing a lot, they shouldn’t use the fogon for several days. In addition, firewood must be collected and split almost daily, and even on an island as large as ours, there is a limit to how much wood you can cut.

Which brings us to the estufa lorena, which I think originated in Africa. (Here is a picture of April working on a split-open model of an estufa for a talk we gave on its designs and benefits.)

Constructed of clay, sand, and grasses, it functions a bit like a masonry heater or a brick oven. With only one opening in the front for tending the fire (compared with the easy 360° access of a fogon), it contains the heat much better. With two openings on the top, it can cook two ollas at once, instead of just one, increasing the efficiency of cooking and wood use. Lastly, with a chimney in the back, it draws the smoke out of the cooking area and releases it above the roof line, benefiting the health of the cook and her family.

In talking about the estufa lorena with some of the folks on the island, we already have requests for about four or five. If we make just that many, it will be a pretty impressive change, and something we hope the folks here will be able to continue teaching and building with each other.

One of the main kitchens we hope to change is in the school. Everyday, two moms of kids in the school come in and cook a cream-of-wheat type vitamin drink for mid-morning snack, and then a lunch of rice and beans. The school kitchen is a one room building with black roof and walls due to the smoke, and often the cooks have to step outside to avoid the smoke. If the Madres and Padres de Familia (the equivalent of the PTA) are interested, we hope to build a large estufa there, which not only will make a huge difference to the cooks each day, but will also provide a great place to demonstrate the estufa to a wide audience of island cooks.

As for us, right now we are planning on a gas stove and probably an estufa as well, so we can boil big pots of water to occasionally wash clothes in hot water, and because it can serve as an oven after warming up - and we´d love more brownies (even without cold milk) and maybe to make a pizza!

Thanks for the question Bill, and everyone, feel free to ask more! We´ll do our best to answer them as soon as we can!

Q&A: Water sources and purification

Bill asked another question as well, about water sources and purification. Yet again, a topic very close to some of our tasking, as the islanders are very interested in watershed reforestation and source protection.

Much of Panamá, including our training site, runs off an aquaducto system, which is a series of PVC pipes serving all the houses in a community, coming from a big tank somewhere higher up, which in turn is fed by a PVC pipe from a quebrada (stream), fuente de agua (water source), or ojo de agua (spring) even higher up. Here on the island, as you can imagine, there isn´t too much room for that "higher up", and as spread out as the houses are, there are numerous separate aquaducto systems and associated sources. (In our current host house, this has led to the water not quite having enough pressure to reach the house, and so we have a pluma - spigot - in the yard about 25 feet from the house, and haul water for cooking and cleaning dishes, and do bucket showers and laundry there in the yard.)

As for cleaning the water, well, supposedly you cholorinate the system regularly or give it a thorough cleaning every three months or so, but of course nobody pays for the water (generally the gov´t set up the aquaducts at some point in the past, but there is no Water Maintenance office) so there is nobody to do that sort of preventive maintenance. But, being on an island, as I said there isn´t much room for the streams to run before they are tapped, and we´ve been drinking water at our host houses and at houses as we pasear (walk around and chat) and haven´t gotten sick yet.

However, there are pastures above some of the sources, so the chance does exist. And apparently in the summer months (mid-December to April), when it is hotter and there isn´t rain, they sometimes run out (more often the houses farther from the sources or on higher ground) during the day. Both of these issues we hope to address while here with protection of watersheds and reforestation, as well as possibly talks about maintenance (preventing leaks) and conservation of water. (Yes, it is hard to believe as I listen to the past 45 minutes of heavy rain, but there are times here in Panamá that are dry and they actually run out of water. More on that in the future, when we encounter it, I´m sure. :)

Again, thanks for the questions and feel free to post more or ask for clarification.

What the corn told me

We recently stayed with a wonderful family that produces the majority of their own food through farming and fishing. They live in a beautiful spot that overlooks the water to the south of the island. They occasionally get beautiful sunsets to the west. They are also shorter than us, so all of their clotheslines are low enough to be a walking hazard.

While we lived with them we tried to pitch in regularly with their daily work – both to be a part of the family and to learn more. One night we shucked a saco (a large sack a little bigger than the size of a large bag of dog food) of maiz (field corn) and then sat around companionably talking as we removed the corn kernels from the cobs. Removing the kernels can either be easy or hard to do depending on how dry the ear of maiz is. We sat and worked together, 4 of us, for about an hour all told in order to fill a 5 gallon bucket with corn kernels.
Chickens huddling under the eaves to stay dry while it rains.

They go through this process every couple of days to provide enough food for their flock of chickens and ducks. That moment, after completing the work to feed the poultry for 2 days, is when it struck me the amount of work that goes into meat production here. They use about 2-2.5 gallons of corn kernels (in addition to 3-7 coconuts) a day to feed the chickens and ducks in order to have meat available when they want it.

Feeding the chickens and ducks (should also say that the dogs howl when the chickens get fed which is very amusing.)
I have known for a long time that being a meat eater means that it takes more resources to feed me than it would if I were a vegetarian. I know the simple facts that animals eat plants and it takes a lot more plants to produce meat than it takes to fill my tummy with veggies. But I had never directly experienced the magnitude of work involved in these facts.

Suddenly I had a very real example to put those ideas into a new light. I could clearly imagine the work that they did to plant the maiz, and the work to tend it. I know the work involved to harvest it and haul it to the house and remove the kernels. The amount of labor, time, and their resources involved to produce meat is staggering. And they don’t eat poultry every day…at most once a week.

My experiences here have made it easier to understand the idea that, for some people, eating meat is a luxury. Some simply can’t afford the time that goes into producing or money that goes into buying meat. That doesn’t mean that they don’t eat meat; instead, because eating meat is a part of the culture, a large amount of their resources goes into obtaining meat even though it might be more efficient or healthier to use those resources differently.

I know that, back home in the States, much of the work involved in commercial production of meat is done with machines. The feed is not produced by hand, but the resources (land, water, plants, energy, etc) involved in meat production are still much higher than those needed to produce the same quantity of plant-based food products.

Cecilia using a pilon (pronounced peeloan) to prepare maize for food. This process breaks up the corn to remove the casing from the kernals and facilitates faster cooking. She is MUCH better at using a pilon than I will ever be.

No, I am not going vegetarian, but I am thinking more about what I am eating and the labor that it took to produce it…it is easier to think that way when you know the people who did the labor. With this in mind, I will be eating a bit less meat here in Panama, and probably when I return as well. 2+ gallons of corn a day could more than feed me.

The Island – a better description

So what is this tropical paradise that we are living in really like? Please believe me that not every moment is spent sitting in a hammock with a great view...but those moments do happen occasionally. :)
The island is big… and hilly. We have hills reaching ~100m in height, and some parts of them are very steep. You can see the mainland and other islands all around the island. This makes for some great views and interesting weather watching. The water in the gulf is most often a pretty greenish gray color, not clear, but not murky either. After a hard rain the water will turn brown for a day or so until the sediment settles out again. We have been told that the water gets clearer in the summer season (Jan-April) when there is much less rain to cause the sediment.

Almost all of the people who live on the island live on the coast…within 100-150m of the water. There are about 77 households spread over 18+ miles of coastline (which makes visiting an all day proposition). Many houses can not see the nearest neighbor’s house. Most of the land is still owned by Panamanians….which is not true for all of the land nearby. Only one house that we know of is owned by a foreigner. There are lots of trees along the perimeter of the island around the houses.

The center of the island is mostly farm and pastures, and fairly deforested. There are tracts of forest still, but they tend to be in areas where the land is not suitable for farming or the land is not actively being farmed. In their farms, people grow yucca, rice, maize, banana, plantain, coconuts, and limited pineapple, and ñame. These crops are grown for use on the island, not for selling as they may or may not be able to raise enough food for their family.

The island pastures are used for horses and cattle. The horses are used for working the cows and transportation around the island. The cattle represent a major income source for the families who raise them…one cow can be sold for $200-$400+. Even though the cattle are raised for meat, there is very little consumption of beef on the island, it is to valuable as a product to sell to be eaten at home. (Below is a baby calf that my host family had to help with eating. When I took a good look at him I realized that he seems to be mostly or all blind...thus he was having trouble finding his mothers teats...and them being swollen huge with milk because he wasn´t able to dring regularly wasn´t helping matters at all.)

In addition to farming, fishing is a major source of food and income on the island. Many people fish for fish, shark, shrimp, lobster, and various types of shellfish. Some seafood is more commonly sold than eaten as it brings a higher price. Fried is the most common method of preparation for seafood, but it is also used in soups and smoked.

There are no cars or bicycles on the island, all of the paths are footpaths/trails. The paths can get quite muddy or feo (ugly- see photo above for post walking muddy feet). Going from place to place is like hiking, although not all trails are hilly. The beach is also used as a road, before you imagine us just strolling along the sand, many parts of the beach are quite rocky. In fact, we intend to take pictures and post about the different beach surfaces because it is quite interesting geology. The beach is a good route (sometimes longer, but always flat) unless it is high tide. You have to think about the tides when planning which way to go each day. High tide can completely cover the beach. Other types of transportation common around the island include horses and boats.

Electricity is only available on the island through solar power. Most houses (but not ours) have a 100W solar panel that was provided thought a NGO/government program. This is enough to charge a battery that can run several florescent lights or a small TV for several hours. It is not enough to power electric appliances such as refrigerators or blenders. So most houses have lights at night unless their battery has gone bad over time and they can not afford the $120 to replace it. We calculate that over the life of the battery light costs $2 a month.

Most houses have water running to them from an aqueduct system. There are 5 major aqueducts on the island…each serving a different community. The water is not filtered or chlorinated. There are some problems with water supply in the summer months when there is dramatically less rain. Some households have to haul water from the closest flowing creek during the summer.

Other notable island sites include:
· A small Catholic chapel that is visited by a priest (once in Feb and once in August so far this year).
· A primary school with grades 1-6 that serves almost 30 students. Two teachers live at the school Mon-Friday and go home for the weekend.
· A Puesto de Salud or health clinic that is staffed by a nurse. She is in the clinic 3 days a week and does home visits 2 days a week. A doctor comes to the clinic every couple of months. More serious or pressing health issues have to be taken off island.

Hope that helps to round out your imgained view of where we are living.

Photos to enjoy

The following are some photos that I wanted to share. Some of them are of things that were mentioned in previous posts...but we didn´t have the camera cord. Enjoy.

Photos of and from Panama Viejo....the ruins of the original part of Panama City.

The scorpion that we found in our bedroom wall. First photo showes his hiding place -note the hook of my toiletry bag just below him. The second shot is post mortem and showes his size.

There is some goofing off. Kevin demonstrates that making a house of cards is much, much easier with ery old cards. Note the missing card on the lower right side, yup that is a gap without a card that you see behind the 9 of hearts.

The following are photos of the process of loading cows onto a boat so they can be sold. You can probably imagine how happy the cows are with this whole process. It took a couple of hours to load the 8 cows that day. Needless to say, it is a bit dangerous for the cows, people, horses and dogs involved.