When leprosy invaded the Hawaiian islands in the early 1830s, faced with confusion and the belief that leprosy was a punishment from God, King Kamehameha V approved an act, in 1865, to prevent the spread of leprosy by a century-long policy of forced segregation for Hawaiians showing symptoms of the disease. Situated at the base of some of the highest cliffs in the world (dropping over 3300 feet into the Pacific Ocean), the remote Kalaupapa Peninsula on the island of Molokai seemed like the perfect place to isolate individuals afflicted with Hansen's disease (leprosy). And thus was the history of Kalaupapa as a leprosy settlement started.

In 1866, the first group of nine men and three women who were afflicted with leprosy were dropped off at the closest accessible point on the southeast of Kalaupapa Peninsula (Kalawao). Nine months later, the peninsula was home to 101 male and 41 female leprosy patients. The Board of Health's belief that these Hawaiians would be able to sustain themselves on island resources on their own, proved to be wrong as their disease progressed and they became too ill to be self-sufficient. News spread of bad conditions of the isolated and Hawaiians started hiding their sick loved ones so they won't be taken into isolation, where they were sure they would die. Others chose to go with their sick family member to help them survive.

Despite the Board of Health's efforts to improve conditions by building homes and a hospital and providing medical care, their attempts were underwhelmed by the continuous arrival of more and more leprosy patients. It wasn't until 1873, when Father Damien (Joseph De Veuster from Belgium) and was followed by others, arrived into Kalawoa and volunteered to take care of the people in isolation. Father Damien built houses, planted trees, constructed a water system, organized schools and choirs and offered hope to the settlement residents. For the living he provided medial and spiritual care, and he gave the dead a decent burial. His work attracted worldwide attention and resulted in the deeper awareness of Hansen's disease and the plight of its victims. Father Damien lived in Kalawao for 12 years until he died of Hansen's disease, which according to the National Historic Park website, was due to his lack of care about hygiene when dealing with the sick people he served.

Yellowstone National Park, November 2007.

The theme for this week's photohunt is spiral. I kind of had a "ha" moment when I checked the themes last night, since I just posted a spiral staircase photo for my "Guess Where" post from yesterday. But when I voiced my "problem" of needing a different spiral photo to post toady out loud, my husband Bill, brilliantly, suggested the Santa Fe's Mysterious Staircase. So to New Mexico we go today, and even though my photos aren't that great, the story is nothing short of amazing.

Completed in 1878, Santa Fe's beautiful Loretto Chapel had a serious architectural defect in that a staircase to the choir loft--22-feet above the church floor--could not possibly be completed because of the small interior of the church. Carpenters concluded that the only way to get to the loft was to use a ladder. Faced with desperation, the sisters of the chapel prayed for Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters, to enlighten the carpenters to see a solution to the chapel's problem. On the ninth and final day of the sisters' novena to St. Joseph, a man with toolbox appeared on a donkey asking for work. The sisters hired him to build a staircase for the loft. The legend goes that months later, a spiral staircase was erected and the man was no where to be found. He left without even collecting his wages or getting his thanks. The sisters believed that it was St. Joseph himself who came answering their prayers.

The spiral staircase is mysterious not just because of the lack of identity of the man who built it, but because the spiral staircase with two 360-degree turns has no nails or visible means of support. Only wooden pegs hold this spiral staircase in place.

Happy Weekend All!

Another easy "guess where" photo.

Could you all tell where in Italy I can find this staircase?

P.S. My sister is driving from Columbia, SC to spend the weekend with us here. She is officially our first visitor and we are excited! We are having a 70-degree weather and the lows are only in the 50s (Yippee), but as I look out of the window now, it is raining. I am praying and doing the rain dance here that it would stop raining soon. Won't you all join me?

"Let us fast an acceptable and very pleasing fast to the Lord. True fast is the estrangement from evil, temperance of tongue, abstinence from anger, separation from desires, slander, falsehood perjury. Privation of these is true fasting."

I attended Lutheran schools for elementary, middle and high school education. We started every school day in the school's chapel with a reading from the Holy Gospel, a sermon from one of the teachers, siting the "Our Father" prayer and then singing a couple of hymns. On Sundays, I would accompany my grandmother at younger ages and my friends at older ages, to the Greek Orthodox Church for the hour and a half or so liturgy (service or mass for the Greek Orthodox Church.) My parents only attended church services on special occasions: Christmas and Easter. I learned at a young age that religion and spirituality are in one's heart and not something to be judged by how often you visit the church. But I always felt such a great connection to the church institution, particularly the Greek Orthodox Church. Perhaps because I know the most about it. At young age, I looked forward to Sunday school. What would Ms. Kathryn tell us today? Which new story would we hear? Which project would we work on? As I grew up, I started paying great attention to the priest's sermons, take notes on occasions and try to memorize phrases they use and points they focus on. With all the moving around my family did (and the moving around I still do), the Greek Orthodox Church was (is) the constant in my life.

The Greek Orthodox Church has four major fating periods, referred to as Lent: Christmas Fast, lasting 40 days from November 15th to December 24th, Fast of the Repose of the Virgin Mary, August first to the 14th, Fast of the Apostles, its length vary depending on the day the Pentecost falls on a particular year and the Great Lent, beginning on Monday seven weeks before Easter. I've never done the Apostles Fast. And depending on the year, I do some fasting for Christmas and the Repose of Virgin Mary. The Great Lent, on the other hand, combined with Easter is my absolute favorite time of the year. I think started doing Great Lent when I was 10 or 11 years old. I suspect at a younger age, it was more of proving that I can do it, but as I grew older, the depth of fasting for Great Lent had evolved with me. I am often asked, why do I do Great Lent?

This past Sunday, Father Nicholas at St. John the Divine gave (as always) a very inspirational and uplifting sermon. I thought I'd share it with you. (It's an mp3 file).

After Every Crucifixion There Is A Resurrection, by Father Nicholas Louh, March 7th, 2010.

I hope you all are pitching your tents in the land of hope.

Fellow blogger Sandra mentioned in a post that Piazza del Popolo is her favorite in Rome. I was reminded of our trek up Pincio Gardens (on the western edge of Villa Borghese) to view a magical Roman sunset over Piazza del Popolo and Rome's rooftops.

It was Marcia's turn this week to pick out a recipe for the Sunday Slow Suppers cooking adventure. This is what Marcia had to say about choosing the casserole category for her week:

"I picked casseroles for a variety of reasons, one of them being the fact that I am a big fan of the one dish meal - raising 3 athletic children, and working, meant suppers that would serve many, and serve them quickly. As a younger cook, I learned to make enchiladas the traditional way, dipping tortillas in hot oil and then sauce, filling and rolling, etc. As a mom I switched to this dish, using the layer and stack method. It can be even quicker if you use canned enchilada sauces."

At our household, my husband is the master of filling and rolling enchiladas using canned enchilada sauce. I like the stacking version of it myself. Marcia shared a recipe for chicken and green chili casserole. At first look, surveying the butter, milk, cheese and chicken ingredients, I was thinking I could not adapt this for a vegan recipe for Lent and I was just going to delay participating in this week's Suppers until after Easter. But then, my husband and I were talking about non-dairy products available at health stores. So I went and checked out Native Sun Natural Food Market , a family owned health food store with two locations in Jacksonville. It is actually as close as Whole Foods to our place, a little further than the Fresh Market, but I am planning on shopping there more often. They have great products and friendly customer service, and they give you the option of five cents off your grocery bill or donating the five cents to a green organization if you bring your own bag. I like that. But I digress.

I bought the vegan cheddar-flavored rice cheese from there (along with other goodies) and thought that I could just adapt the milk, butter and chicken out of it. Well the outcome was very pleasing, we thoroughly enjoyed this dish. We were hesitant about the rice cheese, but it actually wasn't bad, not great either like real cheddar cheese, but a decent alternative. I just used it to top the casserole for a wetter bite, but I am actually thinking the casserole would have been just as good without it. The sauce really made this dish, and it was very moist and tasty.

The theme for this week's photohunt is foreign.

We love traveling, both in our country and to foreign countries. As much as it is exciting to stumble upon home treasures, it is eye-opening, educational and enchanting to view foreign cultures up close and get a personal perspective of them. Bill and I agree that among the foreign countries we had the pleasure of visiting, Thailand wins the prize for the most foreign to us.

I thought I'd share our photos from one of the temples in Chiang Mai that I didn't get a chance to write about before: Wat Suan Dok.

Wat Suan Dok is different from many of the other temples in Chiang Mai, or for that matter Thailand, in that not only is the prayer hall large, but it is also open on its sides rather than being totally enclosed.

As you leave Jacksonville heading south towards St. Augustine and before you get to what remains of the old city walls and historic center, you would probably encounter a very tall cross rising above the marshes and wetlands of the St. Augustine Bay. A very impressive structure no doubt, but the history behind it is a fascinating tale that contributed to shaping North America as we know it today.

Rewind back to Easter day of 1513. It was early spring on March 27th, when the Spanish explorer and treasure hunter, Ponce de Leon, stumbled upon the shores of the mainland of the North American continent. Covered with spring flowers, Ponce de Leon claimed the Land for Spain and called it La Florida , "Land of Flowers." Sometime between then and 1563, and as the Spanish Government was launching expeditions to colonize their discovered land, the French beat them to establish a small settlement on the St. Johns River. The French settlement, Fort Caroline (or what remains of it) still exist today in Jacksonville's city limits. With the French guarding the Florida shores, the Spanish's expedition to colonize the land failed and they returned to Spain.

King Philip II wasn't pleased by the outcome, I imagine, and named Don Pedro Mendez de Aviles, a most capable commander, as the governor of La Florida, and assigned him the task to colonize it. And so goes the tale that Mendez first sighted the coast of La Florida on August 28th, 1565, the Roman Catholic feast day for St. Augustine. Elven days later, the commander and his soldiers arrived ashore at the site of the Timucuan Indian Village and fortified it naming it St. Augustine in honor of the day he first sighted it. Archaeologists later pointed out that the site of the Indian Village and the shore the Spanish colonist first conquered is the the present site of Mission of Nombre de Dios, home to the Great Cross.

I've been following this blog called Blog From Italy for a while now. And every once in a while, the blog owner Alex posts a photo from Italy with a "Guess Where in Italy" post. I enjoy these posts and thought they would make great quick posts for March Madness on these busy days (like today). But since I want to share photos from other places, I thought the post would be "Guess Where in the World" did I take this photo. To kick it off, I am sharing a photo from my beloved Italy. Can you guess the name of the city, piazza and building where I took this photo? I suspect it is easy for many if not most.

One of the things that I have been really enjoying in having a home base is the kitchen that has everything I want and use. Although all the places we were housed in during our assignments had all the essentials and sometimes more, the things weren't things I chose, so having a kitchen where everything is mine has given me a great pleasure, and I've been spending a lot of time in the kitchen. I like posting new recipes I try and like as a good way to archive and save them in my blog, where I know where to find them in the future, and since I signed up for March Madness (blogging every day), I suspect you guys will be seeing a lot of recipe posts.

During Great Lent (when I give up meat, fish, dairy and eggs), I turn to the Indian cuisine a lot for hardy and delicious recipes. Since a big part of India eats no meat, fish or egg for religious purposes and cheese is not authentic to their cuisine, it is normally easy for me to find satisfying vegan recipes. In this recipe, I went to Goa, India's smallest state, for a creamy, delicious and hot potato soup. I found the recipe in Every Day Soup book by Anne Sheaby, and the book suggested serving the soup with spiced pea samosas (which are traditionally fried in India, but the Middle-eastern version--normally stuffed with meat--bakes them, so I used the Indian stuffing but baked them for a healthier approach). The samosas were spicy, delicious and extremely fulfilling. I definitely would be using this recipe again.

Goan Potato Soup

2 Tbsp. sunflower oil
2 Tsp. black mustard seeds
1 large onion, chopped
1 chili, seeded and chopped (green or red)
1/2 Tsp. ground turmeric
1/4 Tsp. cayenne pepper
2lb potatoes, cut into cubes (I left them unpeeled, but you can peel them if you wish)
4 fresh curry leaves*
3 cups water
8 oz. spinach leaves (tear if large)
1 14 oz. can coconut milk
salt and pepper to taste
Handful of fresh cilantro leaves

*There is really no substitute for curry leaves that I found. I asked a few Indian co-workers and they are not aware of any substitute for curry leaves either. Hopefully you are lucky enough to live near and Indian grocery store where they have fresh curry leaves. I love using curry leaves for taste and health benefits, I actually buy a handful when I go to the Indian grocery store and use them in many dishes.

Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the mustard seeds, cover and cook until they begin to pop. Add the onion and chili and cook for five to six minutes, until softened. Stir in the turmeric, cayenne, potatoes, curry leaves and water. Cover and cook over a low heat for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are soft. Add the spinach leaves and cook for five minutes. Stir in the coconut milk and cook for another five minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Add the cilantro leaves before ladling the soup into bowls.