The wonders of jungle vegetables

        Today was my first day teaching the lady that I was assigned to, Sinah Supang.
To start our day, she took me to look for jungle vegetables. The first vegetable we got was bamboo shoot. I was so surprised that bamboo shoot can be eaten. I also learnt how to cut the bamboo from my sinah.

My sinah asked me to pick 'paku pakis' for her. Unbelievable! I didn't even know how 'paku pakis' looked like although I like to eat it. I ended up picking all different kinds of green leaves for her but none of them were 'paku pakis'!

My sinah was laughing on the leaves I gave her. Then, she gave me a sample (of 'paku pakis'), but still the first three leaves I gave to her were the wrong ones. On the fourth, I finally got the correct 'paku pakis' which made me very happy!

Later on, we went to pick tapioca leaves. At first, I thought that it looked like a papaya tree leaf. Then, my sinah started to pick the tapioca leaf and told me it can be cooked and eaten. I was so shocked! (What? Papaya leaves can be eaten?) but I still followed her silently, and I managed to clarify later on that they were tapioca leaves. Phew! I tried to get the leaves for her but when I got back I was met with "This no good", "No good", "No"... I was so curious how she could differentiate which leaf is good and which is bad. After few more tries, I still could not get it and my sinah ended up picking the tapioca leaf by herself while I stood and wondered how she did it.

All the different leaves I got!

We went back home when we finished picking the leaves. Then, we cooked the leaves that we collected. It tasted so good! 

It was a very joyful day picking jungle vegetables with her, and I learnt more from her today than I could ever teach her!