For options for V countries and we settled on the tiny South Pacific island group of Vanuatu, 1,200 miles east of Australia. While full of tropical beauty, it is one of the most dangerous places to lived as it has several active volcanoes and prone to earthquakes and cyclones! In fact, in 2015 a rare category 5 cyclone flattened its capital Port Villa.

Vanuatu has been inhabited since 1300 BC but only just became an official country (after being jointly governed as New Hebrides by Great Britain and France for 100 years) in 1980. And most of the population is still native Melanesians.

For more information about Vanuatu check out our Powerpoint presentation on it: vanuatu.

And here are some more interesting facts about Vanuatu:

• Melanesians of Vanuatu (along with some Australian Aborigines) are one of a few groups of non-Caucasian people who have blond hair.
• The islands of Vanuatu were well known for cannibals, and the last recorded cannibal killing on Vanuatu was a recent as 1969.
• Vanuatu is home to 10 types of bats, three of which are only found on the islands.
• In Vanuatu, pigs (especially the ones with big, round tusks!!) are considered a symbol of wealth.

FOOD

The food in Vanuatu is what you would expect from a tropical island lots of coconuts, bananas and root vegetables (like yams and taro.) And most people that live there grow and raise all their own food. The native flying fox (more bat like) and the coconut crab are also popular on the island but can’t be found outside Vanuatu.

Dinner

Lap-Lap and spicy chicken: This is considered the national dish of Vanuatu. Its basically a baked casserole of taro root, yams and coconut. Its supposed to be smoked over hot stones for hours but we opted for our oven (And a little liquid smoke!). The chicken was a hit with everyone, and I loved the flavors of the lap-lap but others found the texture a bit, um, interesting.

Papaya Salad (at the bottom of the page): Delicious! Much like the green papaya salad we have had at Thai restaurants but with coconut and no fish sauce

Breakfast

Coconut Scones (#6) –  This is a tropical take on an English favorite . Coconut cream instead of butter and lots of grated coconut. Isaac and I loved these, especially with a little icing. (Most people in Vanuatu just have a pastry and some coffee for Breakfast!)

Bananas

Coffee and Guava juice

CULTURE

If you have ever heard of Vanuatu, it’s probably because of of bungee jumping!! On the small island of Pentecost boys and men have been doing it for hundreds ofyears. In a ritual called Nanggol, they dive from tall rickety wooden structures with nothing but vines tied to their ankles to honor the gods in hopes of a good yam harvest. The taller the structure and the closer they get to the ground, they more favor they get!

We watched this National Geographic video to learn more. As it seemed a little unsafe to do some DIY bungee jumping we decided to have stuffed animals do it instead. (and the boys just jumped off the tree!) They did great and no stuffed animals were injured!

Nana Bungee Jump. Gaga Bungee Jump (both is Slo-mo!)

Next up in the alphabet is W and X but as there are no countries that start with these letters, we will be moving on to Y for Yemen!

 

 

 

 

 

Just in time for the world cup, we are doing the country that hosted and won the first world cup. Uruguay! Besides knowing where it is I basically knew nothing else about this country. We were very excited to learn about Uruguay!

We picked Uruguay because we wanted to go to South America again. Also knowing really nothing about other U countries such as Uzbekistan and Uganda we felt like those were too close to other countries we did so we ended up picking Uruguay.

Uruguay is not at all close in anything to Suriname. While being in South America, it has a tiny native population while most of the population is Spanish, Italian, English, or German. Besides this it has a very large beef industry and Uruguay is very similar to Argentina in a lot of ways.  So were not doing Argentina any time close to now.

For more facts about Uruguay check out our Power Point on the country: uruguay

Interesting Facts

• In Uruguay cows outnumber humans four to one
• Uruguay’s national anthem is the longest in the world which it lasts five minutes
• In 2009 Uruguay became the first country in the world to provide every student with a free laptop and WiFi
• Uruguay’s literacy rate is the highest in South America
• Uruguay is home six different types of Armadillos

FOOD

Uruguayan food is similar to some European foods and the cuisine has a lot of European influence probably because there wasn’t really any natives in the land before the Europeans came. Some European dishes in Uruguay are Pastries from France and Sandwiches from Italy. Also with having a ton of cows they are sure to eat lots of beef!

Breakfast

Bizcochos – This is the general term for pastries in Uruguay and we got a bunch at a Latin American bakery near us and tried them out. I really liked the cream filled horn shaped one. Andrew liked the one filled with brown sugar

Croissants Uruguayo – Croissants are the most common bizcochos in Uruguay so we decided to make our own and fill them with dulce de leche. The big different between these and the french kind is they use lard instead of butter. Still yummy!

Oranges – Most popular and most exported fruit in Uruguay

Dinner

Chivito Recipe – This is a very meaty sandwich and surprisingly the national dish of Uruguay. It was so delicious. Dada said it was better than a hamburger. We will defiantly having this again.

Russian Potato Salad – Even though this isn’t Russian it is still really delicious. It pretty much just tastes like your average potato salad.

Chivito Recipe – This is a very meaty sandwich and surprisingly the national dish of Uruguay. It was so delicious. Dada said it was better than a hamburger. We will defiantly having this again.

Russian Potato Salad – Even though this isn’t Russian it is still really delicious. It pretty much just tastes like your average potato salad.

CULTURE

Since Uruguay hosted and won the first World cup we decided to play  Soccer (or football as they call it) !!! I’m guessing most people know how to play soccer.  But it was fun to play after watching and learning about the first World Cup here: 1930 World Cup Final and learning how the rules have changed along the way: FIFA History’s of the Rules of the Game Long ago goalies could use their hand outside the penalty area!

Next up is V so our choices are limited and as we want to move out of the South America (and not go back to Southeast Asia) we are heading to the South Pacific for Vanuatu!

 

 

We decided to head to West Africa for T and visit a silver of a country (about the size of Tennessee) none of us knew much about – Togo.

Togo is well known – for better or worse – for being home to the Slave Coast – the main trading point for slaves heading to Europe and the new world long ago. Since then it has been under the German and French flags but has remained largely autonomous. It became independent in 1961, and one president had a tight rule over the country for 38 of those years. Consequently,  Togo still remains quite poor with an average annual income of just $541 (US).

The main indigenous group of people to the Togo are the Kabiye  but the Ewe (migrated from Nigeria in the 15th century) is the largest ethnicity. And there are more than  30 West African ethnicities represented.

For more information on Togo, you can check out our presentation here: Togo

And here’s some more interesting facts about the Togo:

• Togo means “House of Sea” in the Ewe language
• French is the national language but not largely spoken. You typically hear the indigenous languages of Ewe in the south and Kabiye in the north.
• At its widest point Togo is only 75 miles across.
• The Koutammakou landscape in north eastern Togo, which extends into neighboring Benin, is home to the Batammariba, whose impressive mud tower houses have come to be seen as a symbol of Togo.

FOOD

Togolese love their corn! That was the main message we go when researching the food of this country. Togolese eat the cassava-based fufu (doughy balls they use to scoop up their food) but they also have their own version that is corn/maize based. And like other west African countries, they love peanuts. And being such a poor country, chicken and beef are only eaten on special occasions, so if we wanted to make our meal truly authentic we would have found agouti (a large rat-like animal Togolese often grill up!)

Dinner

Chicken in Peanut Sauce – This was delicious and definitely something we might make again. The sauce would go well with just about anything.

Okra Soup This had good flavor but we think chopping up the okra so small made it way too slimy. So it was more of a gel than a soup after it cooled.

Fufu (from a mix)

Akume (from a mix) This is the Togo’s maize-based fufu. Pretty tasty.

Corn on the cob

German Beer (for the adults.) Thanks to the German influence, Togolese love a good Oktoberfest!

Breakfast

Fried Eggs – Even in West African, they love their eggs for breakfast.

Baguette (Thanks to their French influence!)

Fried Bananas – We looked a couple recipes but basically sliced bananas and fried them in butter, brown sugar and a little lime juice until lightly browned.

CULTURE

Togo’s indigenous Kabiye people – like many African tribes – hold a coming of age ceremony for both girls and boys when they are around 16 years old. The girls involves a rather embarrassing parade and sitting a rock but the boys sounded much more interested so we decided to focus on that.

The ceremony/festival is called Evala and basically involves young boys wrestling each other in numerous competitions while the whole village watches. They wrestlers are usually covered in a powdery substance to start (which we did not recreate) and also celebrate by killing a dog and rubbing themselves with the fat (which we did not recreate, either!).

We read about the ceremony here: Evala and watched some matches here: Evala video and we looked up some basic rules on wrestling in general.

You can see Isaac and Andrew’s, um, interesting attempt at an Evala wrestling match here: Osuri Evala.

Sorry for the delay in getting to T but hopefully we will get back to you sooner this time with U is for Uruguay as Isaac (not Mama) says he will write it!

 

 

Welcome to Suriname!!  A tiny country on the coast of  northern South America that seems like nobody knows about it. We chose this out of 33 countries that start with S because it seemed very interesting, and we didn’t really know anything about it. Being full of Indians, Africans, Maroons, Chinese, Javanese, White, and Amerindian people it is one of the most diverse countries in the world.

The Dutch colonized Suriname. Well, that seems quite crazy because the Dutch didn’t really have any other colonies. Spain and Portugal were the one who colonized pretty much all of South America, except most of the Guiana area. This area was easy to colonize because it bordered the Caribbean sea which was easy to access from Europe. It was made colonized by Spain, Portugal, England, France, and Holland.

The Dutch and British then brought in lots of slaves, then People from India, and Java (Indonesia) and Suriname became what it is today, even though it has lots of border disputes with neighboring countries.

Here’s our Power Point for more information about this interesting country: suriname

Interesting Facts

• The Dutch gave New Amsterdam to the British in exchange for Suriname when the Dutch invaded in 1667.
• Suriname is the leading producer of Bauxite, the main metal found in aluminum
• Adults under the age of 30 are not allowed to get married in Suriname without a written permission from their parents
• Suriname has a famous Toad “the Surinam Toad” or also known as “Pica Pica” and has some seemingly unique reproductive practices. The female Pipa Pipa raises tadpoles to mini toad size in the spongy skin of her back and doesn’t have a tongue or teeth

Food

Suriname has a mix of food. The slaves and workers brought over there own foods and  mixed it with the local dishes. Suriname food is pretty mild except they have a really spicy sauce called: Sambal. Besides that they also have there own take on Indian and Indonesian foods.

Dinner

Cabbage Salad  – The Recipe is in Dutch so use google translate to see what it was in English. The salad was crunchy and really good.

Pom Recipe – It is a chicken and cassava casserole. The Africans in Suriname modified this recipe from one that Jewish people there brought over.  Its a traditional dish eaten on special occasions. It is crunchy and soft, I liked the chicken on the bottom the best.

 

 

Dessert

Bojo Cake – Basically coconut, cassava, sugar and egg and We added sugar on top to make it more sweet. After that it was really good also. It is soft and I had this several times after we made the cake.

Breakfast

Fried Plantains with Bakabana Sauce – The Bakabana sauce is a spicy peanut sauce. It
couldn’t stop eating them because they were so good. The freed plantains are sweet and go well with the Bakabana sauce.

Roti – Borrowed from the Indian’s, Suriname people love Roti. We just mixed two cups of flour, 1tsp salt 1Tbls oil and 3/4 cup water. Then let the dough sit for  a bit them cooked the dough up in a hot pan.

Culture

 

For the Culture we danced to a type of music called Kaseko, which comes from the french “casser le corps,” which mean “to break the body.” So the dance does has a lot of movement and some people play the drums. Somebody sings and a choir replies. It really a combination of African, European and American styles developed by the slave that were there. We watched this to get an idea of the dancing and sound:   Kaseko dance.

Flag

The star in the center of the flag represents the unity of all ethnic groups, being a very diverse nation.

The red stands for progress and love, the two green stripes stand for hope and fertility and the white stands for peace and justice. For more information go here: Suriname Flag Wikepedia

By Isaac

For R we chose Romania, because we hadn’t “traveled” to Europe in a while! While this country is most famous for its storied cruel ruler (Count) Vlad Dracula, that is just a small portion of its history. Romania’s story also includes two separates states, Hungarian rule over Transylvania for hundred of years, Russian control for sometime, Communism and finally free elections and entrance into the European Union in the 1990s.

What we found most interesting about Romania is how much the land is similar to our state of Maryland with its mountains, forests, and coastline and a climate of lows in the 20s and highs in the upper 70s. Consequently many of the animals  – deer, foxes, bears – and crops – wheat and corn – are similar as well. With its 2,000 year history does have way more castles and much older, cuter villages!

Inspired by Isaac, I decided to put together a Power Point of information and he helped on several slides! You can read it her: Romania.

And some interesting facts about Romania we enjoyed were:

• Romania was known as Dacia in ancient time
• Walachia and Moldavia were the first Romanian states.
• The Parliament Palace in Romania’s capital of Bucharest is the largest legislature building in the world
• In 1884, Timișoara became the first European city to have electric street lighting
• Francesco Illy, the founder of Illycaffè was born in Romania in 1892. He also invented the first automatic steam espresso coffee machine

FOOD

Romanian food, as expected, has Eastern European flavors. Ground meats, soured cabbage and other vegetables and lots of cheeses and cream! While the spices don’t provide much heat, they are flavorful of coriander, paprika and black pepper. And fortunately I have a friend who is Romanian (Thanks Felicia!), so she shared some great recipes to make our meals truly authentic!

Breakfast

 

Romanians eat a traditional European breakfast with eggs, meat, bread and cheese. The big difference is they prefer vegetables (not fruit) on the side – like cucumbers –  and usually have on had a eggplant/red pepper spread called Zacusca. We couldn’t find any at Whole Foods so we decided to make some ourselves.

• Hard boiled Eggs
• Fried Ham
• Crusty Bread
• Soft Cheese
• Zacusca – We followed this recipe, sort of, cutting it back by three-fourths and using jared roasted red peppers and pre-roasted the eggplant. Isaac loved it so much he had it for breakfast the next day and Daddy declared it would go great with wine!

Dinner

 

My Romanian friend provided me with a complete menu for dinner – including some fabulous dessert. We were not surprised by the stuffed cabbage but were intrigued by Romania’s love of feta cheese!

• Romanian Stuffed Cabbage  – what makes this Romanian is that the cabbage is “soured” so it tastes more like sauerkraut. All the adults enjoyed this (grandparents joined us, too!) but the kids were not the biggest fans
• MĂMĂLIGĂ CU SMĂNTĂNĂ – Everyone thought this was delicious. Basically polenta with lots of feta cheese and cream!
• FOR DESSERT: Salam di biscuiti – Literally translates into “Salami of biscuits
  (cookies)”. So yummy and quite easy to make. Daddy said this was definitely a repeat!

CULTURE

 

 Romanian is famous for its pottery! Particularly in the town of Horezu where they have been making pottery the same way for centuries – even still using a hollowed bull horn and feather tip to paint! 

So we learned all about Romanian pottery and Horezu here: Horezu Pottery And watched it in action here (though the best video we could find was in French): Romanian Pottery And then we decided to paint some of our own pottery (or, err, acrylic plates) in the same style!

Next up is S. We have a lot to choose from, but we finally going to South America to explore Suriname!

 

Just like Oman, Qatar is the only country that starts with Q. With its history of pearl diving and now with oil drilling Qatar is like a lot of Gulf States. But, if you dive down deep you will find a lot of very interesting things about Qatar.

Being mostly desert with the only elevation being sand dunes and hills . Living in Qatar, you are probably very rich since 99 percent of it’s population lives in urban areas (mostly Doha and the surrounding areas) and the GDP per capita is $103,000, the highest in the world. It has a lot of salt flats in the south. Now let’s watch what happens to this nation in the future, especially as it will be hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022!

For more information go here: qatar_2. We are trying something new by typing our own slideshow not Britannica Kids.

Interesting Facts

• Qatar airlines became the best airlines in 2016 beating out Emirates which was originally the 1st place holder
• Qatar’s people are ranked one of the fattest in the world
• Foreign maps of Arabia drawn before the nineteenth century did not show Qatar
• There are two men for every one woman in Qatar.

FOOD

Qatari love sweet food. In Qatar it is believed that you should eat a spoonful of honey during the morning and evening. They have some Indian influence in their food which I think is because about 40% of Qatar’s population is South Asian. A lot of these foods are also found in Gulf States. Qatari food has flavorful spices just like Omani food, and the food was very delicious and tasteful.

Breakfast

 

Balaleet Recipe – This Indian – influenced dish is noodles in a sweet sauce with spices and rosewater. We replaced the rose water with orange juice. Despite the online reviews everybody loved it.

Olives

Cheese

Yoghurt and Honey

Dinner

 

Machboos Recipe – this is like Biriyani (an Indian dish). Rice cooked with meat and spices. This is very flavorful.

Kousa Mahshi Recipe – this is basically a zucchini stuffed with tomato sauce, rice, spices and ground beef (Lamb is more traditional but you can choose either one). I advise you to use more rice and beef because we mixed everything together when we made it since the zucchini was okay. We also stuffed a bell pepper since we needed something else in the pot.

Dessert

Luqaimat Recipe – This is like the Makoevna for Lesotho except the balls of dough are coated in a sweet syrup flavored with saffron and cardamon. Me and mama liked it but not Dada and Andrew. They said it was too sweet even though I’m the the that usually does not eat sweet things.

CULTURE

For the culture of Qatar we did Nabati poetry. This type of poetry originated from the Bedouin(Be – do – in) tribes centuries ago in the 1300’s.  The Bedouin people were the first people to live and settle in the Arabian Peninsula.  The Bedouin people used this as a way of passing down stories since they couldn’t read or write.

Nabati poetry is either written about happiness or for someone longing for something. A lot of Nabati poems written by the Bedouin were about traveling. Nabati poems are written with two lines for each paragraph that don’t rhyme.

For the Nabati poetry site go here: Nabati Poetry Site

For a the Video about Nabati go here:Nabati Poetry Video

 

FLAG

The Qatar flag is the longest in the world!! With it’s Qatar maroon to the right and whiteto the left it is the longest in the world. The nine serrated edges separate the colored and white portions. They signify Qatar’s inclusion as the 9th member of the ‘reconciled Emirates’ of the Persian Gulf at the conclusion of the Qatari-British treaty in 1916. The Qatar maroon is the dye that was made from shellfish which Qatar was the first producer off. The white symbolizes the independence from the anti – piracy treaty from the British. To learn more go here: Qatar Flag Wikipedia

Next up is R is for Rwand- no, Rus- no, that’s it. R is for Romania.

-By Isaac

 

 

Going through the list of countries that start with P, the boys and I immediately agreed we had to do Papua New Guinea – a truly fascinating country that is unlike any other. With more than 800 different languages, several untouched forests (and presumably undiscovered animals), and group of people that have only recently had contact with the outside world!!

Humans first inhabited Papua New Guinea (PNG) some 40,000 years ago. And 6,500 years ago tribes there development agriculture on their own, one of the few civilizations to do so independently. And they have been farming ever since, and agriculture is still the main driver of the PNG economy. However, as we started researching PNG a huge 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit the country on Feb. 26th. The death toll is now at 100 and there is extensive damage throughout the country.

Here is all the info you need to know on PNG: papua new guinea_info

And these are some of the facts we found most interesting: 

• PNG is the closest place to the equator to get snow with its highest point,  Mount
  Wilhelm, topping out at 14,793 feet.
• Until the 1930s, when the PNG kina was introduced, seashells were used as currency.
• There are more than 40 different species of birds-of-paradise in PNG and the only known poisonous bird, the Hooded Pitohui.
• Kangaroos in PNG climb trees

FOOD

Breakfast

Most PNG-ers don’t eat a big breakfast just some coffee (which they are quite famous for!) and toast, so we opted for a popular tea-time/snack treat.

Saksak – This is a dumpling made with bananas and ground sago (from the palm plant) in a coconut sauce. We could not find sago flour so we opted for tapioca flour. The sauce was tasty but the dumpling were a little chewier than we would like.

Pineapple & Fresh Coconut

Coffee and Mango Nectar

Dinner

Sweet potatoes came to PNG from the Spanish (by way of the Philippines)  in the 1700s. Today the are staple, with more than 1,000 different varieties of sweet potatoes in the country. And in some communities people consume around five pounds of sweet potato a day!!

Mumu – This is dish eaten only on holidays and special occasions, but it’s the official dish of PNG, so we had to try it. Its basically sweet potatoes, pork, pineapple, and greens (we used sweet potato greens) cooked at a low temperate for a long time. We basically followed this recipe but did add some chili powder, coriander and cardamon. It was super delicious!!! We already ate the leftovers and will definitely be cooking it again.

Kaukau – This a PNG style baked sweet potato – complete with coconut cream and lots of ginger. Another tasty preparation for the humble sweet potato!

Rice

CULTURE

When most people first think of PNG they might picture a person with a painted face in an elaborate head dress. So we decided to work from that! Though most PNGers now walk around in western clothing, they get dressed up in these traditional outfits for special occasions – particular something call Sing – Sing. Its an annual gathering of many of the tribes of PNG where they show of their distinct style of music, dress and dance. We read about it here and watched its video to find out more: Sing-Sing. Info.

Apparently there is no set meanings to the color or style of body paint or the headdresses and elaborate outfits. Basically, they are meant to represent nature in some way. So we decided to do our own face paint and headdress and channel our inner nature.

Face Paint- We used sticks of face paint and tried to color our whole faces to be authentic

Headdresses – Decorated pieces of ribbon with feather and fake flowers and whatever we could find (Isaac choose some bark and twigs from outside!)

The kids really had a blast. Isaac even added a costume and all of them were eager to dance (as we listened to PNG drum music while painting and decorating.) Here a glimpse of their crazy tribal dancing: At Home Sing-Sing

FLAG

Did you know the flag for Papua New Guinea was designed by a 15-year-old girl? She won a contest for the flag design in 1971 (four years before it officially became an independent country). The bird on it is one of the PNG’s famous Birds-of-Paradise and the stars are the South Cross, a famous constellation in the southern hemisphere. The red and black are the traditional colors used by many of the tribes.

Next up is Q so you all know what that means – back to the middle east for Qatar!

We chose Oman because it’s the only O country in the world. Besides being in a remote area of the world, Oman is quite interesting.

 Having about 8 times less people than their neighboring Yemen, they only have a small 4.5 million people. Their land is really rocky and dry and they only have a small fertile area in the southwest. Most people live in the twin cities of Muscat (Al Musqat) and Matrah (Al Matrah).

Frankincense in ancient times was one of Oman’s most important exports and still grows there today. Oil is now their main resource which makes them have a high GDP. To learn more of the awesome information of Oman go here: oman_info

Interesting Facts

• The most consumed beverage in Oman is Mountain dew
• You can drink alcohol in Oman even though it is Muslim by getting a alcohol license
• Oman has the longest serving head of state currently serving since 1970; Sultan Qaboos bin Sa’id
• Oman used to own Zanzibar Island of the coast of Tanzania
• Oman is part of one of the only Second order enclaves in the world Nahwa, a piece of the UAE inside Oman inside of the UAE

Food

Omani food is quite interesting. Omani food has  super flavorful spices. They have a hint of heat in their food. Omani’s also eat a lot of grilled meats. They can sometimes be weird like camel,  dried shark, and bird meat. They also eat chicken and lamb. They eat vegetables but not that much.

Breakfast

Ragag Ma Beed Wa Jibne Recipe – This is a flatbread with egg and cheese or honey in it. I do not like egg so we made a just cheese one also. This was really good.

Coffee and Dates – This is a thing for every breakfast in pretty much every Gulf state. But Oman has a special coffee with cardamon in it.

Dinner (You should do this for lunch, though, since lunch is the most important meal of the day for Omanis)

Shuwa Recipe – pretty much anybody in Oman loves their national dish. Maybe that’s why its only eaten on special occasions. This takes 24 hours to marinate so make it a day ahead. We dyed the rice to make it more fancy. Mama does not like lamb so we replaced it with chicken. It was still pretty good.

Yogurt, tomato, cucumber and jalapeños. This is a little spicy and can be used as a cooling dish for the Shuwa.

Culture

Since its the first of the three Arab countries that we doing (and have to with the others we have to do the others being Qatar and Yemen ) we wrote Arabic. It has characters and all the letters connected if you can. We copied the words from Google Translate into Word. Word show the characters not
connected so we had to use the words from Google translate.

The letters also change depending where in the word they are. There are different characters for the beginning, middle, end of the word, and if it’s its own word. Did I mention that it is written right to left? Arabic is very different from English in tons of different ways. I was the only one who wrote it correctly. What Mama and Andrew wrote I would call “Broken Arabic.”

To learn all the letters go here: Arabic Chart.

 

Flag

The Omani flag looks very different from the other gulf states’ flags. It has the red and white but where is the black? Well it turns out that Oman gets the red from the indigenous people and later on added the green and white so no black. The green represents the mountains in the north. White representing peace and Imam, or the priest for Islam. Red represents the indigenous people and is a common color in gulf states. The symbol depicted on the omani flag had been around since the 1700’s. It shows a curved dagger and cross swords connected by a horseback. For more information go here: Oman Flag Wikipedia

Next up is Papua New Guinea, the only country in Oceania to border another country in a different continent!

– By Isaac

Both Isaac and Andrew were in agreement N must be Nepal. Perhaps it was the unique shape of its flag (the only non-rectangular in the world!) or Nepal contains Mount Everest and eight of the 10 tallest mountains in the world. Whatever it is, Nepal definitely stands out and an intriguing place to “visit.”

Despite its grandness in height, Nepal is only the size of Florida but with 40 percent more people (for a total of 28 million) most of who live the rural and mountainous areas of Nepal. In fact, Nepal has never been colonized (it once ceded some control to Great Britain), and was pretty much closed off to outsiders until the 1950s  The only major city in Nepal, and also its capital, is Kathmandu, which was hit by a disastrous 7.8 magnitude earthquake in April 2015. For more information on it, click here: Nepal_info

Some other interesting facts that stood out to us include:

• Nepal is the legendary birth place of Buddha (though, now 80 percent of its population is Hindu).
• In 1950 only 1 percent of its population was literate, today  only 75% of males and 60% of females can read and write.
• The Nepali calendar, called Bikram Sambhat, is approximately 67 years and 8.5 months ahead of Gregorian calendar. The Nepali New Year is celebrated in mid-April.
• Nepal has more than 900 species of birds, which accounts for 8.9% of the total species of birds all around the world.

FOOD

Nepali food (or Nepalese – both are correct but the locals say Nepali) is very similar to that of neighboring India with rice and curries and dal. However, the flavors do not seem as spicy. Nepal also has something uniquely its own – the Momo! A stuffed thin dough filled with ground chicken onions and spices. It also is famous for it yak butter tea so we did our best to recreate that!

Dinner

Momos – We actually got a recipe similar to this from my friend Megha who is Nepali! These were delicious and the kids had such a fun time making them (and singing ‘”chicky momo” – to the tune of Phineas and Ferb’s “Ducky Momo” – while doing so!) We did just use Wonton wrappers, which worked great.

Dal Bhat –  Rice and stewed lentils. Tasty and very similar to the Indian kind we make.

Tarkari – This translated to vegetable curry but its more like fried up vegetables – which are flavorful – especially of the cloves, but not very curry like.

Cilantro Chutney – I am allergic to cilantro but everyone else seemed to like it. Sameel/Dada even said it would make a great soup!

Breakfast

Salted Butter Tea – We wanted to try this as its what the native Nepali drink to sustain themselves up in the Himalayas. It was…interesting. The boys each just took one sip and stopped in disgust. To me it was intriguing, but definitely takes getting used to.

Suji ko Hawla – Apparently they don’t have much more than tea and toast/bread/pastry for breakfast in Nepal. So we opted for the breakfast-sounding dessert, which was basically like cream of wheat or oatmeal, and quite delicious!

CULTURE

Carrom is a very popular game in Nepal, especially in Katmandu. And is played by kids and adults in leagues and tournaments.  Its very much related to billiards/pool and some believe Carrom may have come first. You basically flick with your fingers one disc shape piece at some smaller discs and try get them into pockets in the corners. The website was quite helpful to learn the game of Carrom: Carrom Instructions 

And we decided to make our own Carrom board and pieces using bottle tops, cardboard and duct tape. And it really was a lot of fun, both making and playing .

DIY Carrom Set

1. Cut a piece of cardboard 29 inches square
2. Cut out circles about three inches in diameter, so that you cut of the corners of the board
3. Cut four cardboard strips for the sides 29 inches long and two inches high – or at least four corner made of cardboard.
4. Put a long piece of duct tape just slightly under one side of the board cover it from corner to corner. Put the thin cardboard strip on the exposed tape Put down another long piece of duct tape cover the top edge of the board slightly. Stand up the side.
5. Repeat step 3 for the other three sides.
6. Bring all the corners together and re- enforce with more duct tape.
7. Collect 19 bottle caps (from water, soda, beer, etc) color 9 black, 9 another color and one red (or put a sticker on it like we did!)
8. Find a slightly larger cylinder (we used a checker piece) and you might want to tape a quarter to it to weigh it down some)
9. Draw the Carrom board pattern on the board
10. Play a fun game!!!!

FLAG

So what is up with Nepals crazy pointy flag?!? Apparently because Nepal is so mountainous they wanted a flag to reflect the terrain. The two points represent the high peaks of the Himalayas and also the balance between Buddhism and Hinduism. And the sun and moon patterns symbolize the hope that the nation will last as long as the sun and the moon!

Next up is O…and well, there is only one country we could choose, so stay tuned for Oman!

So we again went with obscure for M. Going with a tiny island east of Madagascar that has always intrigued us: Mauritius! While part of the African continent, most everything about it is more Asian, specifically Indian.

This once uninhabited island  was discovered by the Dutch and then long ruled over by the French and then the British. The island is most known for the Dodo bird even though it went extinct (by a bunch of hungry Dutchmen) in 1682. Once a major hub for the sugar industry, it is now one an international banking center and one of the most densely populated countries in the world.

And its beaches and landscape look amazing! We would really like to travel there one day! For more information about this tiny island nation, go here: Mauritius

–  Mama

Interesting facts about Mauritius

• The dodo bird is the national bird of Mauritius even though it is extinct.
• It is one of the wealthiest countries in Africa
• A popular tourist attraction is the “Seven Colored Earth” where sand is seven different colors in a small space
• When slavery ended the British changed the majority of Mauritius inhabitants from the African sugarcane slaves to new workers  with Indo – Pakistan origins, this was called “The Great Experiment”
• Mauritius does not have a standing army

Food

Mauritian food has a lot of Indian influence just like another her country we did: Fiji. A difference is that Mauritian food is more fresher and tropical. It includes more fruits and vegetables than India, and the food is less spicier and more milder than India. Everything, though was delicious.

Dinner

Dholl Puri Recipe –  This is like Chapati or Roti. It was very delicious and is eaten with curies. I (Isaac) made everything except for the split peas all by myself.

Coconut and Mint Chutney recipe – This was super delicious and refreshing. This is supposed to be eaten with the Dholl Puri but you can eat it on it’s own too.

Mauritian Shrimp Curry Recipe – This isn’t as spicy as Indian Curry and this also was very delicious.

Rice

 

Breakfast

Mauritian egg roti video – this was very delicious except I do not like eggs and Andrew does not like tomatoes, so we had a bit of confusion.

Pineapple smoothie.

 

Culture

For the culture of Mauritius we did the Sega dance. The Sega originated among the African slave people of Mauritius. When you dance you keep your feet on the ground at all times and dance. Women have long skirts that they hold up when dancing. Men don’t have a crazy and fun outfit like the women have so all of us decided to wear the long skirts.

For the two videos of Mauritians Sega dancing of here: Sega dance 1 – Sega dance one shows the landscape of Mauritius and Sega dance 2. And for our video:Our Sega dancing

Flag

Doesn’t the Mauritian flag look pretty colorful with its equal stripes of red, blue, yellow, and green? Its called the Four bands or Les Quatre Bandres in French. But do you want to know what it means? The red stripe represents its struggle for freedom. The blue stripe represents the Indian ocean, in which Mauritius is surrounded by. The yellow stripe represents their independence, and the green stripe represents Mauritius’s agriculture and beauty. For more information go to Mauritius Flag Wikipedia.

We promise to do our N country sooner than later, but we are keeping it a secret this time!

– Isaac