4th of July in Fiji is the middle of winter

Overnight the weather went from cool and sunny to rainy and cold (by Fiji standards). After a weekend with no sunshine I wanted to celebrate USA's Independence Day, but mimosas didn't sound so good without bright sunshine. In talking to a friend about winters we'd experienced I mentioned how cold and wet my winter in Germany was, and how much we enjoyed Glühwein at the December Weihnachtsmarkt. Aha! There's my celebratory drink. I pulled a classic recipe off the web, and Fijified it.

German Glühwein aka Mulled wine
Ingredients

2 cups mandarin orange juice (probably about 8 Fiji mandarins)
1/2 cup white sugar
3 cinnamon sticks
10 whole cloves
3 (750 milliliter) bottles DRY red wine
1 (3 inch) piece of fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced

Zest of one orange (optional - helpful if the beverage is too sweet)
1 cup orange juice (optional - helpful if the beverage is too sweet)

Directions

In a saucepan, combine the orange juice, sugar, and cinnamon sticks. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer. Remove the membranes from the peel of both halves of an orange. Push the cloves into the outside of the orange peel, and place the studded peel in the simmering water.

Continue simmering for 30 minutes, until thick and syrupy.

Pour in the wine, and heat until steaming but not simmering. Remove the clove-studded orange halves. Serve hot in mugs or glasses that have been preheated in warm water (cold glasses will break.)

Fijiterian Chili

Growing up in Texas I turned my nose up at chili that had beans in it. Then, life happened. I went from hardly eating beans at all (yes Dad, I know you tried HARD to get me to eat frijoles, I guess I wasn't ready for it) to trying to get 4 ounces of beans in every meal. Yeah. Ain't life a kicker?

July in Fiji is the middle of winter, and I found myself wanting to nest and snuggle up with a warm bowl of chili. I fiddled around with some vegetarian recipes until I came up with this one. It uses unsweetened chocolate - 2 ounces of Abuelita's if you can find it, otherwise any unsweetened cocoa powder will do, just add in some cinnamon. Since I can't find Abuelita's here, the recipe just has unsweetened cocoa powder listed.  

Fijiterian Chili

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon ground cumin/jeera
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 pound eggplant, peeled and cubed (or a pound of browned and drained beef mince)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
1 (10 oz) can Ro*Tel tomatoes with juice
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 cubes vegetable bouillon
1 cup water
2 (15 oz) cans of your favorite beans, drained and rinsed
1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained and rinsed

1/4 cup corn starch (optional)
1 cup cold water (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Heat the olive oil in uncovered pressure cooker over medium heat. Stir in the onion, and season with bay leaves, cumin, oregano, and salt. Cook and stir until onion is tender, then mix in the celery, green bell peppers, and garlic. When vegetables are heated through, mix in the diced eggplant. Reduce heat to low, cover pot, and simmer 5 minutes.

Mix the tomatoes into the pot. Season chili with chili powder, cocoa powder, and bouillon cubes. Stir in the kidney beans, garbanzo beans, and black beans. Add one cup water.

Close cover securely; place pressure regulator on vent pipe. Bring pressure cooker to full pressure over high heat. Reduce heat to medium high; cook for 30 minutes. Pressure regulator should maintain a slow steady rocking motion; adjust heat if necessary.

Remove pressure cooker from heat; use quick-release following manufacturer's instructions or allow pressure to drop on its own.

Open cooker and add corn. If chili is thin, add 1/4 cup corn starch mixed with cold water. If chili is too thick, add water to thin. Stir to blend and heat through before serving.

My recommendation? Make it today and put it in the fridge, serve it tomorrow. The flavors just get better overnight. 

The Daily Debrief

About two weeks ago I needed a combination therapy/cup of coffee/put-on-your-big-girl-panties conversation, so I called up a friend who's been in Fiji for a long time and has ridden out the waves with grace and poise. Sweetheart that she is, she met me that very afternoon for a long talk.

While all of our conversation was helpful, the biggest gift that she gave me was some structure to my journaling. I'm a big believer in writing and try to do it regularly, but although I've used prompts I don't tend to stick with them. Enter (fanfare please) The Daily Debrief.

Written first thing in the morning each day, the debrief has three main parts - good things, bad things, and intentions.

• Good things (5) has overall mood and is ranked by benefit and enjoyment. Strive for five -- even after a rough day there are five good things to look back on.
• Bad Things (3 or less) can be skipped after good days. A key point here is to LIMIT the number of bad things written about and also to acknowledge mistakes
• Intentions (1-3) are the priorities for the day, the attitude adjustment to facing the world, the change to behaviors so mistakes don't happen again. This section is also limited to just 3 intentions for the day. This avoids analysis paralysis as well as that sense of guilt if the to-do list doesn't go to-done at the end of the day. 

I've been doing this fairly regularly for the last two weeks and it's been wonderful for me. There's something about seeing my worries in writing that makes them more manageable. I've been surprised by how few worries we actually have -- even though the ones we have are big ones -- and even after the roughest days how much there is to be thankful for in our lives. Simply getting it all out has definitely helped calm my mind. The very act of thinking about what I want to do next has helped me focus my time and be more productive.

Keep the boredom at bay

Summers growing up were long and hot. We didn't have a TV and the city pool didn't open until 3PM, so I learned at an early age that I needed to be good at entertaining myself. This has served me well over the years as I've had anywhere from a few hours of downtime to entire months. Here's a short list of things I've fallen back at different times on to keep my mind and body active:

- visit museums, libraries, galleries. Prep for the visit by reading up about what you're going to see. After the visit research questions you had and things of interest that you learned about on the outing
- take a local tour - none scheduled? Ask around, often there are people with specialties in the most surprising things that would be happy to show you what they know
- join organizations, like a library book club
- start an organization, like a geocache club
- check facebook events for things happening near you
- reconnect with old friends either in person or via phone
- ask a new friend out for coffee
- walk or bike around your current location
- plan meals with new recipes or special ingredients, make an outing out of finding ingredients, photograph each step of the meal prep
- go for body work - massage, facial, pedicure, etc.

Good luck!

Can't work, but this isn't exactly working

For most of us we have no choice - we must bring home a paycheck or the bills don't get paid. But there are some of us who have to cool our heels, some less voluntarily than others. When I moved to Fiji I became one of them. My visa is a resident visa - pretty much the only thing I am allowed to do is reside in this country. 

There is something that I am allowed to do, and luckily it comes to me as easily as breathing - I can connect people.  

I've written previously about the different international organizations here in Suva for new arrivals like myself. One of them is Suva University Partners and Spouses International - SUPASI. Today I sat down for the chat portion of "Shut Up and Write!" and one of the SUPASI members asked who he should contact to start a local chapter of Operação Nariz Vermelho (Operation Red Nose) here in Fiji. Completely and totally by chance the former organizer of the Corona Fiji trolley volunteers had just sat down next to us. I introduced the two of them and they exchanged contact info. 

Wow! 

I'm super excited! These are both such super organizations and seeing reps from each one trade info and ideas is so cool. 

Corona Fiji raises money for the Colonial War Memorial Hospital here in Suva through raffles, cash donations, and in kind donations from its members. The members then take the in-kind donations of toys, toiletries, new and gently used baby, children, and women's clothing by its members and stock a rolling cart. Each Friday morning 5 volunteers roll the trolley stocked with these donated items around the maternity, antenatal and paediatric wards. The items are priced at pennies on the dollar of their actual worth, many only $1FJD or so. All the proceeds are donated back to CWM in the form of much needed medical equipment or non-medical items. 

Operation Red Nose goal is to bring joy to hospitalized children, their families, and the health professionals that care for them through visits from "Doctor Clown." This was started in 2002 in Portugal after its founder Beatrize Quintella read an article about Clown Doctors visiting American children. The Clown Doctors of Operation Red Nose have a heart on their nose - a red nose of infinite generosity. 

I can't work for pay, I'm even super limited in how I volunteer my time, but I am super excited about how the people I bring together spark ideas. Together we're making things happen and I love it. 

If you really want to know someone, take away their wifi

My home internet has been spotty since Cyclone Winston in late February. (I also have mold everywhere, but that's a whole different story)

I've heard it said that if you really want to know someone you should travel with them. To that, I would add, spend some time with them when you have spotty/slow internet.

In case you're wondering, I get cranky without my internet.

This concludes our special post, which is a replacement for the post that didn't upload and then disappeared.

The Most Dangerous Writing App

Matt Young posted a link to The Most Dangerous Writing App in our Shut Up and Write! Suva facebook group. Not sure why I didn't click on it before, but I did tonight and figured I can do anything for five minutes.  Following is what five minutes inside my brain looks like: 

What do I do how do I type how does this work? One two three four five
dunno what if someone talks to me oh this is interesting and holy crap five minutes is a super long time oh shit how do I keep my fingers moving for this long? No countdown timer. 
Um
got nothing
although I do think I want to try making this into a blog post. It's certainly interesting. 
I wish I had hit 100 words this fast using other methods!!! 
One thing about this is it's just a brain dump, it's not actually real content
and why the hell did I set it for five solid minutes and not like one minute
I can feel my hands cramp up. 
EEEEEEEEEEEEE
I really need a five second counter to know how long I've been staring at my screen..
what if my control C doesn't work and I lose everything? 
and seriously - 155 words? how is this even possible? I had to knock out 2000 words and it took me a week
of course, that article actually made some sense
I don't know how much sense this makes, but I've been doing it for three minutes now....
five seconds or I lose everything. I need a longer lag. 
ok, the screen went white
and I guess I now know what hardcore mode is --- you truly DO lose everything if you stop. 
I'm down to one minute now
I can do this. 
hmmmm
basic writing - beginning, middle, end
I started this just to see what it was like
and now the tap is opened and I'm going to run out of time. 
Wow. 
the cure to writer's block truly IS to start writing. What an experience this has been! 
Not that this entry is worth anything, but hey, my heart rate is up, my brain is moving things around. Nice. 

1610c 315w 63wpm

Not sure if I want to do it again.... but ...... it's certainly been an experience!