Living The Dream - A Ghana Project And Transition Update

So glad we are at that stage of life where things are slowing down and can take it all in at a leisurely pace. LOL

It is just three weeks ago that we returned from our Eurasia escapade. And only two weeks since the Bil and Sil survived...I mean ENJOYED... their adventure with de-I Sandia Outfitter's Cooking School. Tomorrow I am off to Chicago for a couple of days of business. And in three weeks, I will be off once again to Accra, Ghana to move forward the great Rotary Volunteer Project. It has been a while since I did an update on that project. Since it continues to move at maximum warp speed, I will rectify that omission.

• One of the big lessons, I have learned is that if you want to raise money, you have to be willing to go where the donor market wants to be.
• What this means is even if you are all hot and excited about a project, if the market place of donors is excited about something else you had better change your trajectory
• So I have taken my main hypothesis - that we can create more jobs in developing countries by helping smaller/middle sized companies to operate more effectively - and put it on a slower burner while I take a project I saw as a sidelight and make it the lead
• That project is developing a turnkey program to assist sex workers to not just get job skills to move them out of sex work but create a business they can own that will allow them to make a better living than sex work
• This all came about because I met another American in Accra, an educator who has been working in Ghana since 2010, who created a cooperative for some sex workers and wanted a business to give them an exit (I will write a longer post soon about the issue of sex workers in a developing country such as Ghana because it is a very different environment than the US and one has to be careful about bringing cultural baggage that clouds one perception). He was all over me because he has no business skills and wanted me to help him create a business for the women under his guidance
• I got sound advice from Daughter #2 and others that this project was totally in the bullseye for donors today. It hit all the hot buttons - helping disadvantaged women, helping sex workers to find other ways to earn a living, training and education, job development
• So I have made this the lead project while not forgetting the other
• So much else is happening - doing due diligence on my new partner, doing research on our proposed business for the women (as I will call them), getting ourselves set up legally here to raise money (setting up a not-for-profit corporation), finding out the kind of accounting support we will need 

Getting ready to go to Ghana this time is so different. My schedule is already 60% full. I have two people who I am mentoring that are making huge strides. Wife will be joining me not on this trip but in a trip planned for September. I am very excited about that. Many of the projects being worked on are in need of accounting assistance. And everyone I have met there keeps asking when she is going to come so that will be answered.

So to make a slight shift into how this all relates to the Transition Process. If you might remember, this all got started about two and a half years ago when Wife and I realized that 1) what we really enjoyed about travel was the people interactions we have, 2) that to have more of those we were going to have to get engaged in someway deeper in a community and 3) if we were going to do that we should try to do something where we were giving back.

As I look at this Ghana Project, I make these observations. Are we engaging with people? Hell yes! Are we getting more engaged in a community? Hell yes! Are we giving back? Hell yes! Really if a grandiose project does not get off the ground, that was not our goal. As long as we are genuinely helping some people, engaging in a community and meeting people, that was all we ever sought. And if we can do that and stay within our budge, that's all that counts.

Sounds like 'living the dream' to me.

de-I Sandia Outfitters Cooking Classes

As faithful readers know de-I Sandia Outfitters is expanding in all kinds of directions. Long gone is our singular focus on losing people in the mountains then looting their belongings as they realize they are hopelessly lost surrounded by killer bears and mountain squirrels...NO...I mean gone are the days when all we could offer clients was a lovely day in the Sandia Mountains.

Now we are taking lucky guests all over the world. (Remember our recent Istanbul tour?) Recently Bil and Sil of Homerville, Ohio took advantage of our newest offering - de-I Sandia Outfitters Cooking Classes. After spouse Sil had booked five days at the five star de-I Towers, Bil, a life-long learner who had spent very little time in the kitchen during his many decades of life, decided to sign he and Sil up for the "Fill the Larder" cooking classes.

On the course agenda were:

Cooking via the Flavor Principle Cookbook way

Making a Fricassee of Chicken

Using different flavor principles to vary a Fricassee

Uses of the meat from a Fricassee as the basis for daily cooking

Learning to build a flavor base for braising vegetables

Using dry rubs as a marinade for thinner pieces of meat

Pan Frying meat and making a deglazing sauce

Roasting vegetables

Making a true French style omelet

Bil and Sil in action

No pansy ass cooking with chicken parts

No you will learn to breakdown a chicken

Bil showing off he got done first

Bil

"How come we are cooking so many chickens?"

de-I

"We need to stock up...I MEAN practice makes perfect

Keep chopping"

Bil and Sil ACTION SHOTS!

Click Here!

The key to making a good Eastern European style Fricassee is the squishing together of the chicken, onions, garlic and flavoring

To demonstrate how a basic technique can to modify to create very different results

We made two fricassees

One was the classic combination with only a lot of paprika added

But with the other I put in a big glob (a technical term - like two tablespoons, a half cup, a big glob) of my homemade Malay Curry Paste

I must say that both fricassee that were made turned out great

There were a few snarky comments about the overall volume of chicken being processed

Wife looks on happily as guests Bil and Sil vacuum pack nearly six months worth of chicken for us...of course learning valuable lessons themselves!

Bil

"What do you mean we have to put a testimonial on your site in order to get our id's back to get the heck out of here?"

Ah the joy of doing good work

Another happy (as in surviving) de-I Outfitter's customer

2019 Eurasia Adventure - The Great Trip Review Post

We jumped into the transitioned/post-full-time employment travel mode in December of 2013 when we made our first Asian sojourn to Pulandia/Philippines version and trips to Cambodia and Singapore. That was followed in the spring of 2014 by our first 6-week trip to the Low Countries and Brittany in France.

Those first years, each trip was a massive adventure. Traveling for 6 to 8 weeks straight. Going to parts of the world we would never have imagined going to even a few years earlier. With each trip there was huge learning. Not so much learning about the places we visited (though there certainly was that) but about ourselves, what we could do and couldn't do, what we liked and didn't like, what uplifted us, what brought us down and how on a mechanical basis we could do what we wanted to do

Gradually we developed a clearer understanding of what we really wanted from our travel experiences and the processes for how to do the travel we liked. So it should not come as a great surprise when I note that there were no cosmic revelations on our travel lifestyle from this latest trip.

In many ways, it was as big a leap from our comfort zone as any trip we have taken. We were almost exactly a half way around the world. All but one of the countries we visited had different alphabets. At least three of the countries visited, the vast majority of our peers had never even heard of.  Four out of the six countries visited were states of the former Soviet Union. So on paper it looked like a big leap.

But in the context of how we have learned to manage our travel, it was really not such a great a stretch. That in and of itself was a great lesson. How far we have come in our understanding and in our ability to explore. So unlike past 'Great Navel Gazing Posts' there will be not cosmic revelations. Yet at the same time learning continues.

Sights and Things We Did That I Loved

• The cityscape of Baku with its fabulous new architecture and its well preserved older city as well
• Taxi hailing apps. You may not be able to use Uber but there will be something that fills the niche and makes it so much easier for the person without the language to get around
• Tbilisi and its kaleidoscope variety in its cityscape and general upbeat attitude
• Wife's amazing recovery...a complete 180 from last year at this time. The woman is amazing!
• Great eats in Azerbaijan and Georgia with lots of grilled meat and fish, good bread and wonderful salads and vegetables. Hats off to Georgian and Armenian wines. Armenian brandy too!
• OMG do I love it when Wife and I just cruise the streets in our photographic exploring mode! We always find neat stuff where we least expect it. Thank you Wife for being my Muse and giving me this blessing
• The Lake Sevan Hydroelectric Plant - Damn I wish we had been allowed to post our pictures of it :(
• The Geghard Monastery and surrounds in Armenia. If only it had not been so cold and wet!
• Istanbul - Coming back it reminded me how much I love the city and its vibe. And our Culinary Backstreet Tour again was such a great experience
• The uniqueness of the Kyiv, Ukrainian Orthodox Church design
• Memory eating in the Ukraine!
• The comfort and familiarity of Kalamata Greece. One of these places that just feels good to be in and that you can go back to 
• The thrill of going from place to place and making each one your own and of discovering the uniqueness of each

 The Not So Good

• Armenia was so depressing. Driving through a country that had been looted by its elite leaving it look as if the Mongols had been through. The whole vibe of Armenia was depressing
• Being ripped off by our guide in Armenia when we had the 'family' meal. So depressing. 
• The Ukraine wasn't much better. A knowledge that people felt there might not be any hope of things getting better
• The drain of bedding that is just not right for our aged, arthritic bodies
• The physical drain of going from place to place and dealing with the annoyances of transportation
• We are still able to push ourselves, to do things, walk, climb, etc. But there is a longer and longer recuperation time needed
•  Fucked by a discount airline again! Ukrainian International may you go the way of Monarch Airlines!

Conclusions

• We have this dichotomy going on. On the one hand we recognize that we physically probably need to do shorter trips with less moving around from place to place.
• But on the other hand there is this feeling that time is running out and there are so many other places in the world we want to get to
• And most of the places we have not visited yet are further away meaning we are going to be saying, "Well if we are going all this way, we should do X,Y&Z which leads to too much moving around
• Are we Type A travelers with this need to say we have been here, there, everywhere? If I am honest, we are exactly that. Maybe in the Eldership toned down version but still there
• So I expect we are going to continue to push the envelope as long as we can 
• And you know, in a world of all aging experiences that is a pretty great place to be!!!!!

Happy KIdney Day!

Yes it is that special day of the year when I hold my mass celebration with all my multiple personas attending where we acknowledge the day I donated my beloved left kidney to my Sister. It is 11 years now and like the Timex watch of a past era, it keeps on ticking...or I should say cleaning.

I think 11 years of user lifespan on a kidney that was already 60 years old when it was donated speaks very well to the quality of my body parts. It has driven me crazy these many years as I realize that the quality of my parts is quite likely better than the quality of the assembly of them. Surely my Ferengi loving mind says there must be a way to monetize on this hidden value and still be here to enjoy it. And yet I have not thought of a single way to do so. So sad.

But seriously, the whole process was one of the major rites of passage of my life. For those who are interested, I wrote a chronicle about here on the blog starting with this post. Or you can just search on the label, Living Organ Donation, and go to the oldest post.

Tomorrow I will finish up Eurasia Adventure with the final 'navel gazing post'

2019 Eurasia Adventure - Finale By Food

Wife and I are now back in the comforting embrace of home in Albuquerque...luxuriating in the comfort of beds that actually account for our sadly arthritic bodies. As is my custom, I am throwing myself back into the other aspects of my transitioned life...namely the earning of income to allow me to continue my globe trotting lifestyle. Of course it is not quite as simple as that but more on that in a future post. For now I am not quite ready to let you leave our Eurasian adventure quite so soon. There will (of course) be the traditional 'navel gazing' analytical post soon. But I also decided to assemble the foodie highlights of the second half of the trip in a single post. So for your gastronomic pleasure the Ukraine and Greece

Ukraine

Family Food Memory Tour

To understand my feeling about eating in Kyiv, you need to understand that I am 100% second generation Eastern European Jewish of background with a family that loved their food traditions. I ate this food growing up and loved it. Coming to this part of the world was this opportunity to go right back to my roots...AND in the most economical way one could imagine! LOL.

Cured Fish of all kinds was a major part of what my family thought embodied "living" when I was a child. These types of things are extremely hard to find in the high desert Southwest and if they are available, are very expensive. I indulged during my time in Kyiv.

Salt cured mackerel and herring

Smoked salmon

Sturgeon Caviar

The Emperor's dish

For 20% of what it would cost in the US

There were also foods that Wife's family grew up with because they immigrated from the same area

Vareniki 

A dumpling with a pasta like dough filled with all kinds of fillings such as potatoes, cheese, cabbage, etc.

Wife remembers family and church members making these on Sundays when she was growing up

Green Borscht or Schav

A soup made from sorrel

In my family it was served cold and meatless

This version was served hot with meat in it

Eating out with the Two's

A cheese baked in a bread

Who would guess they would serve the foie gras pate in a tin!

It was still damn good

This was just a steak but also pretty damn good

The corn...not so much

Chicken Kiev

 

I wish I could remember what these two cakes were because we devoured both of them up!

Greece

A lot of our eating was outside enjoying the Mediterranean enviornoment

Cooking at our rental was a pleasure because the quality of ingredient we purchased locally was so high

An "Easter" pork stew made by yours truly for our 'third Easter' of the trip

Some Greek appetizers

Meatballs

Saganaki

Fried Cheese

Fried zucchini balls

What the Greeks call a 'Greek' Salad

Marinated Octopus

The culmination of weeks of celebration of Wife's 70th

Official birthday cake (click here)

Happy grandchildren celebration

The Cake

 

2019 Eurasia Adventure - Mystras The Magnificent

The last stop on Eurasian tour was visit to the Byzantine city of Mystras. When Ioannis our guide put it as a choice for us to visit, it didn't ring any bells. But when we got there and I found out how it fit into the great last chapters of Byzantine history, I suddenly remembered about it.

Very briefly, toward the end of the Byzantine era as it was weakening, Constantinople (Istanbul) was briefly conquered by Western Christians posing as Crusaders but in the pay of Venice. Mystras came into being as a sort of court in exile until the Catholics could be thrown out. It remained an important city in the Empire as it declined and was one of the last strongholds to fall to the Ottomans even after Constantinople itself fell. 

There are very few complete Byzantine cities available for observation. Most have been overbuilt by later time periods. So for a Byzantine history buff like me, coming here was very special.

The city is built into the side of a hill

Wife contemplates the glory that was Byzantium

The mysteries of Mystras attract all kinds of adventure seekers

Let's follow them and see where it leads us!

 Because at the de-I blog we listen!

A reader complained that we had missed posting church pictures in our Olympia entry

Rectified

See what if feels like to walk into a 13th century Byzantine Church by clicking here

 

Detail of the spectacular 13th century frescoes

3.1 points out where meals were served in a monastery

We delve deeper into Mystras

And come upon another church

Where the last Emperor of Byzantium was crowned

The two headed eagle, the symbol of the Empire

Now used throughout areas influenced by its civilization

Some last glimpses

A sarcophagus from ancient Sparta

That was used by the Byzantines to water horses!

 

 

Looking down on the city of Sparti which is built over the ancient city of Sparta

Where we had lunch

A statue in honor of Leonidas, the Spartan King who led the 300 who held off the Persians at Thermopoli

We finished up at the museum of olives and olive oil

See 3.2 prove that it is time to throw of child labor laws as she auditions to become an olive crusher

We are now on our way back home

We flew on Saturday to Amsterdam, today to Chicago and will get home tomorrow

Another adventure in the books!