Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Labor Day...May 23,2012

Today is Labor Day. In Jamaica, Labor Day means community building. Different projects are chosen and people come together to WORK! Now that is a twist. In the US we take Labor Day off to REST!

The newspaper puts it this way.."putting labor into Labor Day!" Even the mayors get involved with cleaning, bushing, and painting. One town is cleaning up the community center and giving the town square a facelift. It sounds like the communities basically do "spring cleaning" and doesn't that always make the family feel better!

And so along with all the work comes a lot of lunch! The newspaper calls it "yard food" and it is something different than the curried goat or daily chicken. They prepare protein dishes since so much energy is being expended.


Things like green-banana dumplings, run dung (simmering salt fish with vegetables and seasonings in coconut milk till it cooks down to a custard-like consistency), salt fish and susumber or cod fish and susumber. Susumber is also known as "gully beans." It is a relative of the eggplant.

On Labor Day these meals are prepared in the yard and lots of fruits are on hand, mangoes, star apples, otaheiti apples since all of these are in season for Labor Day. The drink of the day is limade. We don't have lemons so the lemonade is made from limes.

So a little recap of Jamaica's Labor Day, I think I will go get my work gloves and get busy!

These photos are from the newspaper site this evening. Hot off the press. What a great day..

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