a Kriol dinner in San Pablo village

my host family and i just returned from a wonderful dinner in Donna's home village of San Pablo. it's a village of just over 900 people, about a 20 minute drive from Orange Walk Town. her parents have a big spread there, where a whole passel of their kids and grandkids are gathered at all times. it's impossible to tell who lives there and who's visiting. it's just a mass of people, dogs, kittens, chickens, rabbits, rats and birds running amok. and i've never seen so many fruit-bearing trees in my life. Donna's father climbed up an enormous avocado tree to knock some down for us to take home. Donna's husband Ismael and a bunch of the cousins attacked the waya (ginip?) tree, while Yolanda went for the mangoes. the quantity of fresh fruit was overwhelming. i kept myself busy eating waya (you pop the little green fruit open with your teeth and suck on the flesh surrounding the seed. they'd be way better than peeled grapes to simulate eyeballs at halloween.) while trying to avoid Donna's brother John, who kept telling me my eyes were so beautiful that he wanted to take them. yikes.

Donna's father demonstrated how to crack open a brown coconut with a machete, and grind out the flesh. you can then dry out the husks in the sun, chop them into smaller bits and use them on a fire to add flavor to your barbecue. but the real reason for busting them open was to get at the milk, which Donna used to make a delicious Kriol dinner of fried fresh barracuda in a cocunut milk broth with garlic, onions, tomatoes and plantain. it was a gourmet meal cooked over a wood fire, eaten in an outdoor kitchen surrounded by lots of lively company and a couple kittens trying to get in on the fishy action (reminded me of Felicity at the dinner table). i tried to watch the preparations carefully from beginning to end, but i won't guarantee that i'll be able to replicate it. i was a bit distracted by the thousands of mosquito bites i was in the process of obtaining. all in all, a highly enjoyable evening.