Cultural Treats

Life can never be called boring around here, that's for sure! In the past few months my parents have been renting out the 3rd room in the condo to a Brazilian missionary named Ricky. He has been working with a fascinating ministry on the missions base called "Uniscript," translating Hebrew into the Uniscript code while he has been here the last year or so.

To roughly sum up what that means, Uniscript, in conjunction with the University of Hawaii, has cracked the

code on the sounds every language makes and put it into written form so that anyone of any language can become literate in their language within a few weeks. For example: based on the symbol you see printed, you make a certain sound with your mouth. When the sounds are combined they make up words. They have even tested dyslexic school children in California schools and have found this to be an effective way to teach them how to read.

Ricky is a very well traveled missionary and his background is anthropological studies . He has spent time in Germany, and now after his time here in Hawaii, he is going back home to Brazil to prepare for a year in Taiwan.

As he is leaving in the next few weeks, we celebrated his culture last night by feasting on Brazilian fair. He made a creamy shrimp dish, seasoned rice with shredded carrots, pureed sweet potato (normally it would be pumpkin, but sweet potatoes were a good substitute), and garlic potato chips. He proved to be quite the "professional" cook, as he would say. 

It was absolutely delish and so fun to taste food from another culture right here at home! This is for sure something that I would try making again on my own.

Thank you, Ricky!