Moses Day 2 and Tea Parties

On Wednesday, May 1st we went back to see Moses. I couldn't get the pictures to upload while I was in Dominica so I had to wait until we got back.

Since Jackie has already given you the details of how the coconut oil is prepared, I'll provide some pictures (thanks to Hassan for taking them!) of each process.

Step 1: Open up and clean the coconuts. We had about 14 coconuts to use and surprisingly, they don't really make that much coconut oil.

 

 

Here is Eric cutting out some coconuts

 

Step 2: Shred the coconut

Here we are working hard together to shred the coconut -
we may have snuck a few bites of coconut here and there too :)

Step 3: Mix the shredded coconut with water and squeeze the milk out of it. Strain the excess coconut strands.

Griffan and Moses squeezing out the milk

Step 4: Boil until the water is completely boiled off. May add cinnamon leaves or other herbal remedies for smell. Moses also added plantains which keep the oil from boiling over.

Our creation

Step 5: Stir

Christina stirring

Step 6: Place into bottles and add bay oil.

Moses prepping the bottles

Step 7: Enjoy :)

Our finished product

Although it sounds pretty simple, it is a lot of work! Like Jackie said, there were 6 of us shredding coconut at the same time and we still didn't finish all 14 coconuts.
It was a really fun experience but I'm not sure I can imagine doing that every day -- it's really labor intensive. It makes you appreciate the amount of work that goes into it. I personally had no idea how coconut oil was made and was certainly a little surprised to find out.

Part 2: Tea Parties
After we came back from making coconut oil with Moses, we met up with Justin and Joanne to learn about some herbal teas and sample them.

They made a ton of teas and I think we were all pretty full of liquid by the time it was over but it was interesting to learn about the different uses of each herb and it tasted pretty good too.

They started off with some cinnamon tea which is delicious -- I put a bit of honey in mine for some added sweetness which was so good! They say cinnamon is used for women with menstrual cramps. We also had spearmint which is good for gas and is a great decongestant. We tried rosemary tea which is also used for menstrual cramps. We also tried 3 finger leaf tea which was bitter but some of us actually really liked the tea, myself included. The basil tea was a really strong tasting tea and can be used for sleep. There were quite a few others that we tried on top of these but I just wanted to name a few of them to share some knowledge.

By Wednesday we only had 2 more full days in Dominica and I was already pretty sad it would be over soon. Although my friends and family were missing me back home, I was really sad to be leaving. I wasn't sure how life-changing the experiences were going to be but was/am shocked at the differences in myself when I was there and when I came home.

Aubrey