Monday January 28- Coconut oil

Today was our second day visiting Moses. We began the day by helping peel pidgeon peas to help Moses prepare his lunch. Our second task was to prepare coconut oil which proved to be a very labor intensive and time consuming task. We used 8 coconuts and the first step was to beak the coconut and grate it. Each of the students had the opportunity to grate the coconuts. We then added room temperature water to the shredded coconut and extracted coconut milk. We did this by squeezing the wet coconut shreddings into a bowl. The third step was to extract the coconut oil which we did by boiling off the coconut milk. After an hour of boiling we began to see coconut oil starting to form over the layer of coconut milk.  Each student got to take home a small bottle of coconut oil which Moses added a drop of bay oil too. Moses said the coconut and bay oil mixture could be used for sore muscles and massages. After collecting the oil there was a cheesy mixture left at the bottom of the pot which Moses let us taste. He called it coconut cheese and it had a very sweet coconut taste. Working with Moses really reminded me of the people of Dominica. Making a small amount of coconut oil took a lot of work, time and dedication; over this rotation I have realized how hardworking the people of Dominica are, yet how happy they are and how little they complain.