Sweet potato, greens, beans, and stewed tomato soup

I made this soup this weekend. I knew I wanted to use these ingredients, but there weren’t really any recipes that I found that I liked, so I just tried it out to see how it would work. It’s pretty yummy and savory, but there are a few changes I’d make next time.

Ingredients:
2 sweet potatoes, 1″ cubes
large bunch mustard greens, chopped (you can use any sturdy greens, I wanted kale)
2 leeks, sliced in 1/4 slices
1 large can stewed tomatoes
2 15-oz. cans butter beans (can use any, I wanted great northern)
1/2 large red onion, chopped coarsely
finely chopped garlic (to taste – I used about 2 tbs)
oregano (to taste)
seasoned salt (to taste)
fresh-ground pepper (to taste)
water or broth (I used 1 part veggie broth, 1 part water – about 2 total liters)

Directions:
1. start heating veggie broth, scrub sweet potatoes, chop into 1″ cubes
2. add sweet potato cubes to the broth, bring to a boil
3. while the sweet potatoes are heating up and boiling, slice and chop the leeks and red onion and sautee with spices to taste, garlic and olive oil. Allow some of the onions and leeks to get somewhat toasty and blackened to add flavor
4. while the potatoes and onions are cooking, rinse and tear/chop the greens into bite-sized pieces
5. add the greens, onions, and stewed tomatoes (with their juice) into the pot with the potatoes
6. rinse the beans if using canned (to get rid of some of the fart risk ) and add to the pot
7. allow everything to simmer, add any further spices to taste

It made a lot, probably about 12 servings. It’s completely vegan, and contains a lot of great nutrients (potassium and Vit A and C from the sweet potatoes, iron from the greens, vit C and lycopene from the tomatoes, protein from the beans).

Things I’d change next time:
- use kale, because it’s sturdier
- add another leek
- add more tomatoes
- use great northern beans, and add another can
- use all veggie broth, not half broth/half water

Carol of the Bells Lyrics

My current social work field placement is really bringing my two degree programs together. I’m a dual degree student – doing a Master of Public Health in SPH (in the department of Health Behavior and Health Education) and a Master of Social Work at the School of Social Work. I’m studying Community Organization and Community & Social Systems in social work. There are many dual degree options for students in public health, and it can be a really great investment if you want to work in multiple fields.

This is my third and final year of the dual degree program, and I’m happy that my courses and field experiences are really coming together in my learning. For my public health department, students usually do a 3-4 month field placement between their two years. I did a year-long placement at the HIV/AIDS Resource Center as an AmeriCorps member for the National AIDS Fund’s national direct AmeriCorps program in Detroit. For a social work degree, students can elect to do either two field placements (one each during each academic year) or one longer-term placement (from January – December of one calendar year). Most students elect to do the single placement, but I elected to do two.

This year’s placement is at the Washtenaw County Public Health department and I’m working with a number of community members to develop a Latin@ community center, Casa Latina, for Washtenaw County. I’m applying coursework in both schools that has covered grant-writing, program development, program evaluation, community participation, multi-level interventions, social marketing, survey design, materials creation, leadership development, and community organization and development. It’s nice to be able to apply what I’ve learned, and even combine some tasks at my field placement with current coursework. For example, for my program evaluation class, my final project is to create an evaluation plan for a health program – which is one of my tasks for a grant I’m writing at my placement. For another class, my final project is to create a community participation plan, which is something we need to do for Casa Latina anyway.

It’s great when I get to do public health practice during the semester and apply the things I’m learning in the classroom to the real world. Sometimes I wish there was a larger field component in public health, but there are definitely options for getting more real-world practice if you look for them.

Dressed in the new salwar kameez I wore to the office my second day

It’s been about two days since I arrived here in Dhaka and I’m still getting settled for the next three months. I don’t currently have internet at my home, but I do at the office where I’ll be doing my internship – at the Shakti Foundation for Disadvantaged Women.

In case you don’t know much about Bangladesh or Dhaka, please feel free to learn more on your own. I’ll be linking to a few resources where you can start (Banglapedia is a great one!! Also, here is the USAID’s Bangladesh info page). Bangladesh is a relatively new country, which gained independence in 1971 from Pakistan. Previously, the countries were one, and prior to that, they were part of India. Since all this used to be a British colony, there are many people who speak English here, but I cannot take that for granted. After all, the Bangladesh independence movement started as a language movement (“Bangladesh” means “land of Bangla”, Bangla being the language spoken in Bangladesh). It’s similar to other Indo-european languages like Hindi, Latin, and the ones I speak, German and Spanish. I think I can pronounce things ok (thankfully no tones like in Chinese dialects), but the writing is completely foreign to me, but very pretty in my opinion.

Bangladesh is also one of the most densely populated places on earth, and the most densely populated nation outside those that are city-states (of which I have recently visited two: Macau and Hong Kong in addition to previously visiting Vatican City in 2005).

How did I get this internship and what will I be doing, you ask. A friend from the U-M School of Social Work is from Bangladesh and convinced me to go to her home country for my summer internship when I was talking to her about going abroad for the summer. I met a family friend of hers, Dr. Humaira Islam, who is the founder and executive director of Shakti. She invited me to come work with them on their health programs and see if we can incorporate any HIV-related information/programs into their existing health programs. Additionally, I hope that we can do a PhotoVoice project with some of their project members.

I hope to update the blog again soon with more pictures! I’ve been having difficulty uploading pictures at the moment, so check back soon.

"Michigan Player"

The Olympic Village has many buildings, but the main ones we saw were the Bird’s Nest (National Stadium) and the Water Cube (National Natatorium). We paid to enter the Bird’s Nest and walk around and take pictures. It seemed to be currently used for a youth soccer league – I must say, I think it’d be sooo awesome if I could have played in an Olympic stadium when I played youth soccer! There was some sort of dancing/ceremony going on while we were there, so we went over to watch. We saw three different types of dancing, including some traditional Uyguhr dancing. I took a video, but I’m not sure if it all uploaded.

Morgan and Carrie at the Water Cube!

The Olympic Village was also really pretty at night. There’s a park at the far end, with a nice lake and some small paddle boats that can be checked out, but we didn’t try that the day we went over there. We did come across a guy writing traditional Chinese words and phrases on a sidewalk. He asked us if we had anything we’d like him to write, so I asked for my name. He wrote “Kai-li”.

Kai and Li, which together make the sound of my name (kind of)

Fruit on a stick, coated in sugar

Frogs, crabs and something else on a stick

Other things on a stick...

more things on a stick...

yum?

yes, that's starfish to the left

last one - at least this one is pretty!

Here is a video of scorpions on a stick… that are still alive