“Our Stomachs Full and Our Awareness Raised”

By Caciques Sarah Sasek and Scott Endzel

This afternoon, after a long morning of Research, students and faculty came together once again to work on our Final Human Ecology Projects. An air of excitement filled the campus as the projects that we are so passionate about are coming to a conclusion. After five hours of hard work Chamon, Dorothy, Meaghan, and Allegra Hyde were excited to share with us their project: One Local Meal. Their goal was to create an entire meal using only local ingredients and to share this meal with the community in a family-style dinner. Instead of serving ourselves dinner, we all sat together in the dining hall and were served by our volunteer waiters and waitresses.

The One Local Meal team was apprehensive of how their project would turn out, but it was extremely successful. The ‘Bee Team’ provided us with local honey to accompany the cassava bread and the ‘Sassy Sugar Sisters’ provided sugar made from sugar cane. There was a beautifully green salad with passion fruit dressing and guava jam. I can honestly attest that the pumpkin soup was by far the best I have ever had. There was also goat provided by a local farmer as well as beans. Dessert: fruit salad with watermelon and bananas. After a successful night Meaghan said, “We were thrilled by how well it turned out and that we were able to raise the awareness of buying food locally.” With our stomachs full and our awareness raised, we were off to study hours.