Recipes for traditional Nicaraguan sweets and cookies
Posted on zaterdag 12 juni 2010
by heleen
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English |
We finished the work more than a month ago: UNAG published a book that gathers recipes for making traditional candy and biscuits. It is the result of two years working on artisanal food processing in rural communities. Except for materials and ingredients lists, every recipe is presented step by step and where necessary (read: what the budget permitted) presented with pictures. The overall purpose was to have something very practical. Women that haven’t been to school for a long time, should get motivated to start experimenting. On the other hand, it is a good PR-instrument for our own business: hopefully other organisations within and without Nicaragua can use it to get new people into food processing.
The original idea just got out of hand. At the end of 2009, the plan was to make something simple, but when more funding became available, the book had to become something more decent. In that way we couldn’t use anymore the pictures I had “stolen” from the internet. Trough Volens we found someone in Dominican Republic who pictured the happy ladies, the ingredients and the materials. Just as intercultural as could be. (In the printed version the ladies on page 12 and 74 are in fact black boys with curly hair: you don’t meet them in the north of Nicaragua…)
If you understand some Spanish, you can use your summertime making coconut and orange sweets. I heard (I never tried it myself) that is should be possible to make the piñonates as well from the skin of a watermelon instead of the papaya. The cookies are quite simple and adapted to offer and demand in Nueva Segovia, the northern department in Nicaragua.
And if the plan is to make a business: just sit down for five minutes and calculate what you might gain!
Posted on dinsdag 11 mei 2010
by heleen
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English |
Mango season is about to begin. When summer (= dry season) ends and winter (= rainy season) starts, all mangos turn sweet and yellow.
One of the reasons UNAG hired someone like me, is to help to do “something” with the abundance of mangos each year. These sweet tropical fruits ripen all at the same moment and it is far from being an understatement to say that majority is just rotting. My former boss in Burkina was often taking pleasure telling the story that he once saw a sheep dying in mountains of rotting mangos.
And after more than two years Heleen still hasn’t done anything with mangos…
“But where is abundance, thou shall create wealth.” I took up the challenge with all enthusiasm and started working on some creative mango processing. After some trial and more error, we can humbly say that we are ready to do workshops about making mango jellies. Colleagues tested the sweet answering a question list about texture, taste, smell, colour,… and we should go on. But somewhere in my mind, I still dream about soft caramels with mango taste. Yesterday, I tried some basic recipe for making the plain soft caramels – the virgin version, without any fancy tastes. I took a full jar of the caramels to the office this afternoon and left it carelessly in the kitchen. By 5 pm the bowl looked like this: (good, not?)
Chepe’s check
Posted on maandag 8 februari 2010
by heleen
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English |
“Those are stupid women.” That’s how the translation sounds more or less. These are the words from one of the accountants at work when she puts down the phone. She just finished a fairly rude call to the bank where UNAG has all its accounts and where all the checks that have been written out, should be changed.
Don Chepe had just come back from that same bank, a bit down. The people in the bank didn’t want to pay for his check (still the most efficient system in this country). Don Chepe is the bricklayer for a bakery we had constructed in the mountains of Mozonte where he had to be paid for in a correct way (that check).
What was the problem? He has an ID card that has been emitted in 1995 and since he couldn’t write in those times, there is a long black line in the box where there should normally be a signature. But since then, the man has been alphabetised and now he can write down his name and the number of his ID card on the back of the check, just the way it should be. And which he hád done. But human progress doesn’t stroke with a stupid burocratic system. No is no according to the lady from the bank; the signature on the check isn’t the same as the one on the ID card.
Sad. Don Chepe had left proudly to the bank to get his money, but instead was humiliated by a ’stupid woman’…
Hiking in Nicaragua / Nueva Segovia
Posted on zaterdag 28 november 2009
by heleen
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English |
Between August and November, Katrijn volunteered at UNAG (thanks to my Belgian ngo Volens). All those months she worked on mapping hiking trails in Nueva Segovia. She left yesterday for Peru and Bolivia and a first version of the booklet with maps and explaining information is posted on this very own public spot. Once Katrijn will be back in Belgium, a special website will be made to publish the booklet (in English and Spanish) on line to be downloaded for free. The purpose is that as many tourists get off the beaten track and discover some splendid beauty in northern Nicaragua.
(hoping that googling tourists-to-be, end up on my website):
Here you can download for free, seven described hikes in the department of Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua. The booklet can be printed recto-verso. All hikes have the city Ocotal as base and all starting points can be reached by bus, taxi or on foot.
Download it and use it as an instrument to discover some real Nicaraguan life in the mountains/hills of this wonderful country.
Posted on zondag 6 september 2009
by heleen
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English |
Snakes
Posted on zaterdag 22 augustus 2009
by heleen
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English |
Girls from 30 still go hiking and meet creepy animals...
Una vez al año, no hace daño
Posted on zaterdag 22 augustus 2009
by heleen
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English |
Two weeks too late, but Heleen said goodbye to her twenties. There was a big party on Friday in our house and it was like it had to be (in Nicaragua they say that once a year, it can’t be bad). Chapters in life should be marked well in order to have the structure to understand how and why things happened. And at this very moment there is no other place in the world where I want to be than here.
On a lazy Sunday afternoon, sitting in my rocking chair and slurping a newly imported cup of Colombian coffee and eating sun backed chocolate cookies, I am thinking about what has been and what still has to come. Searching people/friends from the past on the interet: meeting new babies, new men and new women (and probably stable jobs, houses of brick and fast cars) and thinking about all the things I have not (done) before my thirtieth birthday. On the other hand, rummaging through my personal archive of digital pictures and discovering that I should be happy about everything that has been: those times in Leuven, Haiti, Burkina Faso and Nicaragua. And we’re not even half way.
Et j’avance dans la beauté de mes 22 ans…
(And I am advancing in my 22 year’s beauty…)
A day in a life
Posted on zaterdag 20 juni 2009
by heleen
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English |
I wrote in March that the communication officer from Volens visited me in UNAG to make a story ‘A day with Heleen’ for the website. Everything is online now and it is worth a visit. Unfortunately it’s only in Spanish and French, but the pictures talk for them.
Just this tip to find it all: keep on clicking on the links because the pictures, stories and interviews are well hidden …
Posted on vrijdag 15 mei 2009
by heleen
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English |
A couple of weeks ago we made alboroto during a workshop. These are big balls (about 5 cm diameter) made from pop-sorghum. The popped grains are glued together with sticky syrup from cane sugar. All ingredients are easy to find in the village and sweet lovers buy it at 1 córdoba each (less than 5 eurocent). Investing 1 dollar, makes you gain 2 new dollars. And sweets are venta loca (crazy business)…
Cake
Posted on maandag 11 mei 2009
by heleen
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English |
There is something here with the water. Or it’s in the air. I don’t know. There are 11 women working in the office of UNAG. Since I arrived last year, three of them gave birth (two girls, one boy) and since some time, Brenda was showing a pregnant belly. Recently, she went to see a doctor with stomach ache and had to be operated from appendicitis. Last week, Darling (that’s her real name!) had stomach ache and went to see a doctor: she appears to be pregnant as well. That means five pregnancies in a very short period. Our boss doesn’t really like it (all those months of absence) and is paying the price for contracting young (and beautiful) women. Everybody is speculating about who is going to be the next one…
Today is my housemate’s birthday and I had made a cake yesterday. I had hid it in a secret place in my room to guarantee a special effect this morning. But I did not count on our dog Arquí. When he was released from its lash yesterday evening, he rushed into my room and attacked the cake (I know, I should have closed the door...). Plan B got operational this morning: pancakes (with candles!)
Shaking
Posted on dinsdag 31 maart 2009
by heleen
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Earth quaked a little bit this morning. At 11.50 am local time our office trembled. Nothing fell on the ground nor people died or got injured. 5 on Richter’s scale. Ten minutes later another one I did not feel (4.1). Some 28 houses should be damaged.
For those who might be in Ocotal on Thursday: party at my place (7 pm) (Heleen is one year in Nicaragua – Hallelujah)
A day in my life
Posted on vrijdag 13 maart 2009
by heleen
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English |
The communication officer of Volens América visited me this week in Ocotal. He spent a day with me in the field in order to make a story ‘A day with Heleen’ for the website. Text, voices and movies should appear online soon. I’ll drop a note when you all should go and see.
Granada
Posted on woensdag 25 februari 2009
by heleen
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English |
Bookkeeping
Posted on maandag 16 februari 2009
by heleen
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English |
Last week me and Ligia did a workshop on bookkeeping in the village called ‘El Cuyal’. Paper work is a sad thing we have to keep learning lessons from. Making money is one. To be sure it doesn’t get lost, is something else… As a member of a women’s group, it is so tempting to “borrow” a pound of sugar from the common storage room. And what if we make 250 cookies? It isn’t so bad if we eat 30 of them, or not?
We made a whole day of exercises, but the funniest part was de game in the afternoon: we had made a big simulation with a lot of drama. But every part of it was functional: the balance had to be correct in the end.
Next steps are keeping a strong eye on the correctness of the bookkeeping and a second workshop about calculating and sharing (!) profits.
Innovation
Posted on donderdag 5 februari 2009
by heleen
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English |
This is a series of pictures from a workshop I participated in in Honduras. It was about inventing new products. It took place in Nacaomé, the hottest place in the country and indeed, it was hot.
The first day was a theoretical seminar, but on the second day the culinary work was of some practical nature: one group (re)invented encurtido (vegetables in vinegar), mine made a candy from tamarind and banana.
On the blog of a collegue of mine (Maïté) you can find a cool movie about the magic on the fire…
The music is out and out Nicaraguan: Carlos Mejía Godoy.
Belgrado
Posted on zaterdag 10 januari 2009
by heleen
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English |
Belgium – Bélgica.
Being belgian – Ser belga.
My nationality often is subject for silly jokes. ‘Verga’ in Spanish (pronounced as ‘berga’ with a soft ‘r’ so it sounds like ‘belga’), means ‘penis’. Can you imagine those eyes (and the smile that goes with it) when I say that I am ‘belga’….?
Geographical knowledge often is a disaster. ‘What is Africa’s capital? was the question that followed on my statement about what I had been doing in a former life of mine.
I just stick with the simple fact that I am European (which in the end sounds far better considering the political mess in my o-so-rich-country). Sometimes I estimate the background of my interlocutor and try it again. ‘De Bélgica’, I say then.
‘Is Belgrado the capital of Belgium?’
I can see the logic. The capital of NicarAGUA is ManAGUA. Why shouldn’t BELGrado be the capital of BELGium?
If it would be all that simple, geography teachers would be unemployed.
Home
Posted on zondag 4 januari 2009
by heleen
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I am back in Ocotal since noon.
When it doesn’t snow they paint the footpath white in the Kartuizersstraat in Brussels. This can only be Belgium.
I flew back over Newark (New York). In broad daylight I landed and took off again. Seeing its skyline took my breath away. Even more when the plain went down instead of going up.
I succeeded in getting two light bulbs with small fitting in Ocotal without falling them into pieces.
Sea
Posted on zondag 28 december 2008
by heleen
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Thuis |
I am in Belgium until January 3rd. For an upcoming family event in the month of August, I was searching in some old picture boxes at my parents’ place. This was my favourite one. It should have been taken some years after WW II. These are my people. Mi gente.
Fiesta de despedida
Posted on vrijdag 19 december 2008
by heleen
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Yesterday we closed the year at work: the last weeks everybody had been writing year-end reports, doing evaluations and playing mi amigo secreto (my secret friend). We started playing on December 1st. Everybody had a secret friend to whom he or she had to pay special attention. I picked Fatima and wrote her nice notes and tried to spoil her with sweets and biscuits on secret moments.
Yesterday was the climax: a dinner with the whole staff and the exchange of the gifts we had bought for the secret friend (and saying some nice words on that person). And of course we went dancing. 2008 shall end moving!
Earrings
Posted on vrijdag 19 december 2008
by heleen
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I had lost two little boxes: a black one with my earrings and a red one with girl’s stuff for hair, neck, fingers and wrists. Since Tuesday I had been searching like mad for those boxes. I knew when I had opened them the last time and I also knew where they should be in my room. But in lunacy of every day it was possible that I put them in a place and I had forgotten where. Or it could have been Arquí, the dog that thieved it playfully. These were my thoughts until this morning.
Together with don Romulo – my landlord – and a boy we combed out the whole patio searching for those boxes (still thinking that the dog stashed them away somewhere). Too soon we found the trinkets between the leaves of the nancite tree (kind of sour cherries). Empty. Closed. And not bitten apart by the dog’s teeth.
Those boxes have travelled the whole world. It is a collection of stories from the past 13-14 years. Gifts from beloved ones, the result of long hunts on markets and in small shops. And I feel sad they all disappeared at once. Sometimes I am attached to clothes that feel comfortable and that make me look prettier than I am ;) But clothes wear little by little and some day they find their way to the dustbin with love. The End.
These jewels are/were always travelling with me. Until this week. Probably it had to be like this. I can start a new collection. Collecting new stories.
And I lost a little bit more of my confidence in mankind.
Again, Belgium is a country without government. And there are a million less pigs in Flanders since 1999. There are certainties in my country, my flat country. Tomorrow I am flying home for Christmas. It has been quite some years I was in Belgium in the end of the year. I might have forgotten how it feels…
From Farmer to Farmer
Posted on vrijdag 28 november 2008
by heleen
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For some 20 years now, the organisation where I work at (UNAG) has done pioneering work in organising farmers in order to innovate through the so-called ‘Campesino a Campesino’-programme (‘From farmer to farmer’ in Spanish). It is a practical methodology to teach farmers to adapt new agricultural techniques to cultivate their land more efficiently. Hundreds of books have been written about it (Google it!) and it is a tried and tested method all over Latin America.
The strength of it is that the all-knowing agriculture engineer with his/her difficult words and dito stories keeps in the background and the farmer him/herself plays a key role. The farmer visits other colleagues in other regions and receives on his/her turn farmers from somewhere else. In an informal way they exchange information, they reflect together and they take home the information they need. The core is quite simple, but it works. The process of learning is from equal to equal. The technician is only facilitating the exchange.
The thing I am doing at UNAG in northern Nicaragua, fits in the same story. We search for local people with some special skills in food processing and we invite them to share their knowledge with people in other villages. This week we invited Isabel and Lilian to teach about traditional sweets and pastry respectively.
I participated as well in an active way in sharing my knowledge and skills about making pizza for lunch on Monday. I had been practising for the last two weeks to do it well…
Sweet fair
Posted on zondag 23 november 2008
by heleen
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Today I participated with two women from a candy group in Ciudad Antigua to a fair that was organised in Telpaneca by two colleagues of mine. We left Ocotal at 5 am and had to travel two hours by bus on a dusty road, just to sell for about USD 20. But it was the first time we did it and all the trouble was worth the experience. Next week we’re participating in another fair closer home. I hope this is only the beginning of a big story… To be continued…
Sweet sugar
Posted on zaterdag 15 november 2008
by heleen
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I wrote that we are workshopping in the villages in making sweets. Since some time, I had the plan to make a YouTube of it, and here it is: my first one!
The sweet is brown because we used raw cane sugar. Last Tuesday we tried it again with white sugar and the result was even more spectacular but my camera refused to work – more next time!
The music in the movie is ‘Ríe y Llora’ (‘Laugh and Cry’) by the in Cuba born Celia Cruz. Cruz was renowned internationally as the ‘Queen of Salsa’. Her songs are punctuated with the shout ‘¡Azúcar!’ (‘Sugar’ in Spanish). Google Almighty gives the answer: Cruz used to tell frequently a joke at her concerts. Once, she ordered cafe cubano (Cuban coffee) in a restaurant in Miami. The waiter asked her if she’d like sugar, and she replied that, since he was Cuban, he should know that you can’t drink Cuban coffee without it! After having told the joke so many times, Cruz eventually dropped the joke and greeted her audience at the start of her appearances with the punch line alone: ‘¡Azúcar!’
Election fever
Posted on maandag 10 november 2008
by heleen
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Yesterday was a big day in Nicaragua: municipal elections all over the country.
Fever started in the end of September and whole month of October was campaign season. John Lennon’s Spanish version of ‘Give peace a chance’ and ‘Ode an die Freude’ blared the last weeks far too much in the streets. But now it is all over. Today (Monday) was proclaimed as a holiday so that everybody could celebrate victory. Celebrating without alcohol because it is impossible to get it just before or just after the elections. The parade of sympathisers with red-black flags moved in the afternoon through the city. Horning cars and motorbikes, ringing bicycles…
At last online...
Posted on maandag 10 november 2008
by heleen
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English |
At last I give birth to the English part of the website, hoping to stay in contact with all those people all around the globe that don’t understand the Dutch language.
So far, so good: I am living already 7 months in Ocotal, northern Nicaragua. I work for the provincial department of the biggest farmer’s association in the country through the Belgian ngo Volens.
My role is to support (mostly) women groups in processing fruits and vegetables. The strategies to apply is not the classical wine and marmalade one, but new ones (because people in Central America drink rum, not wine and they eat tortilla, not bread). So far, we are in full ‘sweets period’: orange, coffee, tamarind, papaya,… we are workshopping at full speed in the dry zone of the province of Nueva Segovia.
Whoever and wherever you are and you know a *delightful* recipe for making sweets, just mail it to me!
