Home Cookin’

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am now in stable housing, which means that I can eat home cooked meals (it’s been great!). The very first weekend my roommates had some people over and we had paella, fresh salad, and oatmeal cookies.

The other day I also prepared a stir-fry with eggs, tofu, tomatoes, and cabbage.

And just yesterday I had some baked oatmeal that one of my roommates made that morning. I added some ice cream as well! (I ate half of it before taking the picture)

For lunches, I have been bringing my own food most days. I will prepare food in the mornings (or the night before) and pack it in a stainless steel lunch box (“tahmin jai” as they call these containers in Myanmar). The whole container system is actually awesome. There are three sections that all seal together when they are clamped into the frame. I typically put rice in one container, fruit or meat in another container, and a dessert in the third container.

This past weekend was great. I spent Saturday helping to clean up the apartment before some guests came over for dinner that night. We had guests come from different units in the building, as well as some other folks. There is an American woman living above us, a Burmese couple living in another unit, and a Kenyan family on the ground floor. It really seems like this could be a tight knit community, which is fantastic. I also got to meet some of the street vendors in the wet market outside the building (we had so much food that we gave some away to these people).

I also got a peak behind the curtain of what life is like for the people that live and work at these markets. One girl works at a street stall that sells egg rolls. We ordered 50 egg rolls from them, and the girl that helps prepare the food spent some time at the party after delivering them. Turns out that she lives with her aunt and uncle who own the street stall. Apparently her mother passed away and her father is a drunk. She is 24 but only went to school through 8th grade. She said if she had the opportunity she’d like to be an engineer. She said that she works 5am to midnight, 7 days a week. That night after the party she went back and started serving people at the stall. The next morning I got up early to go to church and she was out working (still smiling and waving though when I passed).

On Sunday, after church, I want to a Buddhist monastery for a birthday party for one of my colleagues (Lei Lei — the third picture below is of the two of us).

After the birthday party, three colleagues (Mar Mar, Duen, and Thiri) and I took a cab about an hour an a half south to go to a pagoda built in the middle of a river. After arriving, we took a boat to get out to the pagoda.

The woodwork on the buildings were pretty cool.

Here are the three colleagues I traveled with:

After visiting the pagoda we went to a local market.

Dried fish seemed to be a specialty.

The market itself didn’t seem to be in the best shape, but that appeared not to deter people.

That’s all for today!