Denbigh Agriculture

Last Saturday Khaled and I went to Denbigh Agricultural Show. This annual event that takes place in Clarendon, a parish east of St. Elizabeth, and is always fun and full of stuff to see. At Denbigh each of Jamaica's 14 parishes get to strut their stuff by showcasing local fruits, vegetables and foods. This picture shows a display in the St. James booth. At the bottom, looking kind of like limes, is actually June plum surrounded by big 'Tommy Atkins' mangoes, sugarcane, pineapple, coconut, watermelon and a whole host of other Jamaican foods. To the right is ackee, Jamaica's national food, with a red shell, yellow inside and black seeds. I'm not big on ackee as it is kind of oily and served with saltfish. I really cant deal with fish here in Jamaica becausee it always has lots of bones! Blech! Especially saltfish because, as it's name implies, its very salty and oily, so when it's mixed with oily ackee it my stomach revolts. The picture below shows a ackee a little clearer. This is another display at denbigh, but its from St. Elizabeth, you can tell because of the garden egg (eggplant) in the middle. These only grow on the southcoast where the climate is drier. I really love eggplant and they grow a nice round variety in Jamaica that makes great eggplant Parmesan (if you can find the Parmesan).
At Denbigh we also saw a marching band, which was unusual. I saw one kid playing the bass drum with his hand, that must've hurt! Khaled got some great information on maps that he needs for the Parish Council, where he is working now. Overall it was a pretty good time, even if we couldn't stay long becausee we had to get back before nightfall.
Here is Khaled with his new guitar! He bought it from a volunteer who was finished with service and going back to the states. It's really a very nice instrument and he has been playing his pants off. He's learned all kinds of new songs that he'll probably play this weekend when we host some PC trainees for 'shadowing' . They will stay with us for the next few nights and go to work with us on Monday. Thanks to our buds Shane and Kae for letting us steal their Denbigh pics, because we were to lazy to take our own!