Let's Go Fly a Kite!

 I'm home sick with a mysteriously swollen face & meds that turn me into a narcoleptic. Thus I am using today to catch up on some blog posts I've been meaning to do for a while now between naps...

Easter was a huge holiday here in St. Lucia, everything closed for about a week surrounding Good Friday and Easter Monday (yes, the day that comes after Easter Sunday). The lenten period is not observed nearly as much as it used to be, (Traditionally people would celebrate carnival and have crazy parties before Ash Wednesday and then be abstinent for the full 6 weeks building up to Easter in addition to not eating/drinking meat, alcohol or other indulgent food and drink) however there was still a notable drop in music at night, parties and general air of calm that filled the weeks preceding Easter.

By far my favorite, and the most unexpected tradition is kite flying!
Starting about a month before Easter, people would come to the beach with "practice kites" that they had made and were trying to get the balance of tail to kite ratio just right:

practice kites April 2, 2011

Easter Monday is kite day, a tradition outside St. Lucia as well, you can find many kite enthusiasts all over the East Caribbean,  I'm told flying is especially popular in Guyana and Barbados.
The following photos are from Easter Monday by Gros Islet beach (the town I live in) where a kite festival/contest was held all afternoon accompanied by lots of music, great food and swimming. It was a pretty magical day.

kids with hats and kites were abundant!

J with our kite

Some people took the distance that their kites were out very seriously- these guys are reeling their kites further OUT to sea! Some peoples kites were so far away they just looked like specs or tiny insects far far away...

Getting a good launch is key, our kite spent a lot of time getting to know the ground at first.

Being the only foreigners in attendance, Jul and I each were interviewed for the local TV station...

Most kites were home-made, but a few were just massive shapes like this parrot!

Determined kite launcher at work!

Massive kite being prepped for launch w/ a gated hotel community in the backdrop

No one is too small for a kite!

*sings* "...up through the atmosphere, up where the air clear, Oh let's go fly a kite!"

This little guy wanted a lot of photos with his beautiful kite, I obliged :)

Staging the launch

Up, up and away!

Small dots on the clouds are kites with Pigeon Island in the background

Kite frame.

Music, food, drinks, beach and kites, is there really a better way to spend the afternoon?

             Well, you could throw in Gamber and a rainbow ;)  Those specs in the background are more kites...

Dusk and kites (look closely for the specs, they're there!)

In addition to kites, the other thing worth mentioning about Easter traditions here in St. Lucia is Pennepis. Pennepis are baked, crispy ginger biscuits that are made and sold on Easter here in St. Lucia and I had heard about them in advance of the holiday. I wanted to attend Easter mass at the local Catholic Church to observe and participate in the local goings-on so I bribed my companions to accompany me with the prospect of delicious ginger baked goods post-service. The hunt for the elusive and enormously popular Pennepis took Julianna, Amber and me all over the town of Gros Islet. It seemed with each corner we turned someone had "just seen someone selling them" or "just run out" of the delicious ginger biscuits. In the end, we failed to find a single Pennepis, however two old men playing checkers successfully sold Jul two fish cakes under the billing that they were "cookies" and only informed her of their fish content as she walked out the door of the bakery. The fish-cookies were actually pretty good, but not Pennepis, so I tracked down a recipe that I'm going to try soon. Here it is in case any of you would like to have a go: 

Pennepis

Ingredients:

½ lb fresh ginger

1 cup sugar syrup with spices

Ok, so this can be anything from ½ cup water, ½ cup sugar to ½ cup water and 1 cup sugar 

As to what spices – cinnamon, nutmeg, maybe anise and a little clove (traditional spices here), about a total of 1-1.5 tsp combined

1 ½ cup all purpose flour

1-2 1 Tbs of butter

Instructions:

Finely grate your ginger (scrape off the light skin with a knife first)

Blend in the sugar n spice syrup

Take 1 cup of the mixture and mix into flour and cut/mix in butter – knead until it is very smooth.

Spread/Roll out into a very thin layer – 2-3 mm. You can roll little rounds or long ovals – your choice.

Bake in medium hot oven and “keep a watch, it burns fast”. 

I'll make modifications to this recipe once I try it, I realize all steps are not super clear!