A Warm Welcome + Happy Halloween

I just wanted to give a warm welcome to Kathleen, the Peace Corps Trainee who will swear in as a volunteer later this month and take over for us in our site. She just arrived yesterday afternoon and I hope that we didn't completely bombard her with too much information all at once.



It's just that there is a lot to talk about. The truth is, we didn't get a whole lot of information from the volunteer that we replaced two years ago and that is a very frustrating situation to be in.

Ever since our site visit two years ago I vowed that the volunteer(s) replacing us would be a lot more informed than we were.



Think about it, we've been here for two years and we know what's going on here. I want my work to continue and I want the new volunteer to take what I've done and build on it. We want her to stand on our shoulders, not have to start from scratch. And to do that she needs as much information as possible, even if it is a little overwhelming at first.

This is a very busy and emotional time for us. We're almost done, we're excited about going home, we'll miss the people we've become close to, we have to tie things up with the electric company, phone company and our landlord, but we can't think of this as being the end of our work. Filling Kathleen in on our site is one of the most important things I will do as a volunteer.



If you are currently a Peace Corps volunteer, think about how you felt when you first got to site and what you would have liked the volunteer you replaced to do. If you did replace another volunteer, did you feel that you were given an accurate description of your site? Do you feel that there were a lot of really simple things that you would have been a lot better off knowing from the begining, if only the volunteer would have shared that information? It's very important that the new volunteer learns things for themselves, but why make them start from square one if they don't have to?



On an unrelated note, Happy Halloween!!! Jon and I traveled to see our good friend Lisa on Saturday and as always it was a day full of cooking, eating and EATING! Though she hasn't updated her Peace Corps blog in a long while (to the dismay of my mother) she also has a wonderful food blog (recipes included) for your food ogling pleasure! Though I know that Halloween was just yesterday, you should still check out her pumpkin marshmallow post because the flavor has a very fall feel and could be easily adapted for a Thanksgiving treat.

Blackberry Cookies

Today is the last day of Ramadan, which means that tomorrow is 3id Sagir. The holiday is generally celebrated by going to the homes of family and friends and eating specially made sweets at each stop. There's so much preparation that goes into it, the coop girls haven't been to work since Tuesday. So this afternoon I thought I'd get into the holiday spirit and make some cookies myself, so that we'd have some to share tomorrow.

I guess you can say these cookies have been in the making since we went to visit another volunteer a few weeks ago for a workshop. Her site is covered in blackberries and we'd go out early every morning and pick as many ripe berries as we could find. No one was ambitious about picking the berries as Lisa, Jon, and I.



We picked so many berries we made enough jam to fill over 20 jars of various sizes. Though we've given some of it away, we still have a lot left (plus, we're going back to said blackberry site this weekend for more picking!).





That's why I chose the recipe, "jelly-filled cookies" from the Peace Corps Morocco Cookbook. Here's the recipe as it appears in the cook book so that you can try it yourself:

Jelly-Filled Cookies
2 c flour
1/4 t salt
3/4 c sugar
1 egg, beaten
1/4 c water
1 t baking powder
1/3 c butter or margarine
1 pkg vanilla sugar (I used 1 t of vanilla extract)
2 T orange juice
about 1 cup jam

Preheat oven to high heat. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in lg mixing bowl. In sm bowl, cream butter, vanilla and sugar. Add eggs. Pour butter mixture into flour mixture; stir in juice and water. Roll out dough to 1/8" to 1/4" thickness. Cut cookies with glass to make circles. Spoon 1/2 t jelly onto center; pinch 3 sides together to form triangle. Bake on greased baking sheet 10-12 min or until lightly browned.

That's the recipe, however, I found that by following it to the letter the dough was way too sticky to roll out. I let it sit for over an hour in the fridge, which helped but not enough, so I added more flour little by little until it was a nice sugar cookie-like consistency.

As you can see we had some spillage from the jam, but all-in-all they are great cookies! Light, soft, and chewy! Just before sundown we gave our neighbor a half dozen and she was very excited about trying them.

Give them a try with your own home-made jam this blackberry season (or grape or raspberry, etc) and tell me how they turn out!