Every time I cook with my sisters, they ask: “Do you eat this in America?” Time after time, I stare into the pot: fish heads bobbing in a red sauce, green curd-like paste made from leaves off our tree, spaghetti with mayonnaise, rice with palm oil. “No,” I shake my head. One day, my sister Sainabou finally exclaimed, somewhat perplexed: “Well, what do you eat in The Gambia?” I promised to show them one day.
My sisters say their goal is to make me so fat I am unrecognizable when I go back to America, so everyone will know how great Africa is. I’m doing my best to counter their evil conspiracy!
For my mom’s big 5-0 birthday, we all wanted to celebrate together in a special place none of us had been. We decided to go “somewhere in the middle” and found ourselves in the paradise of Costa Rica where the season is always summer.
I might be biased since summer is my favorite season in nearly every city. But — Santiago’s charm truly shines through in the summer. After a long winter of no indoor heating, smoggy days, clothes taking weeks to dry on the clothesline, walking to class in the rain, flooded streets and reading Facebook updates about warm weather from Northern Hemisphere friends … summer is finally here. And I’m lovin’ it!
I can still honestly say I am lucky to have coincidentally visited Castro during Festival Costumbrista, despite it likely being the reason I wound up calling 37 hostels (while standing outside in the rain). The annual festival is held in various towns on the Isla de Chiloé in February, and celebrates the history and culture of island life. For an entry fee of about $1.25, we listened to live traditional folk music, watched locals weave and form unique apple-wood baskets, shopped at an artisan market, visited farm animals and learned to cook (and taste!) authentic island food.
Between the lush trees just across Río Valdivia is home of the Kunstmann brewery, a popular Chilean beer. After the 1960 earthquake destroyed Valdivia‘s main…
