Saturday, April 23, 2011

Passover 2011

Tuesday night 7 of us gathered in Asau to observe Passover. Of the Peace Corps volunteers, Lili, Elisa, Dana, Matt, Jeter, and myself were present, and Matt’s JICA roommate Dai joined us as well. It was a nice mix of people! Last year we had gone to Lili’s village and cooked the feast at her house, but due to time constraints this year, we made the meal more of a potluck, and it was greatly successful! A week before, Lily divided up the staple items and everyone was asked to make enough of their item for the whole group. I was in charge of cooking matzo and the charosets, and although neither were my dad’s cooking, I made a pretty close second on the apple-honey-nut mixture of charosets. I used my slap chop and had a lot of fun! Matt has a limited kitchen, so he boiled the eggs while his roommate made a delicious salad. Elisa conquered the market and made a beautiful vegetable soup, while Jeter conquered his fear of cooking meat and prepared a lamb stew. Lili cooked matzo and potato pancakes, and Dana topped the pancakes off with homemade applesauce.
It was a really lovely meal, but as always, the most special aspect of the dinner was the company. It was great to come together, retell the story, and share a special meal with people I consider family at this point.
Following dinner we sang songs while Matt played guitar, told stories, and swapped classroom experience tales. Then in true Samoan fashion, we took out our lavalavas, spread out woven mats on the floor, and drifted off to sleep.

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