Can you cook?
I love that question. What does it really mean, anyways? Can I put water in a pot and not burn rice? Well, usually. I get asked that question pretty much on a daily basis any time I whip out a knife or spoon (cereal does not require cooking, people) and always answer with a shrug of the shoulders and an irritatingly high pitched “si!” (with slightly less enthusiasm).
(Side note: The one person in the world I know who can definitively answer with a “HELL NO” to the above question is none other than my infamous ex-roommate who is notorious in the kitchen only for that October morning when we woke up after a few too many local brews craving pancakes and I mistakenly thought it a good idea to allow her to take over the process and 20 minutes later bit into flavorless flapjacks with surprise! massive chunks of eggshell interspersed and who I am only tributing here because I’ve spent the last hour reading her blogs that I downloaded to my flash drive and am cracking up to myself while my family watches me from the door of my room, and I highly recommend you reading them, and none of that “no time” excuse, if you’re reading this you clearly have all the time in the world.)
So, for the most part, I pretend I can cook. My oatmeal rarely sticks (although it’s strictly instant oats here so I guess that’s nothing to brag about) and for my graduation present my parents invested in my future by fully furnishing my future kitchen (stainless steel pots, pressure cooker, and knives much better than my current Miracle Blades (which I also got for my birthday a few years ago…completely asked for)).
So it stands to reason that all my daily excitements, disappointments, surprises, and causes for confinement to my bedroom (rather good or bad) stem from my culinary adventures…
1) Avocados! I don’t think I even need to explain this, I’m sure I’ve gone into detail in previous other posts about my infatuation with this gem. They’re only 1 quetzal (roughly 12 cents) a pop, so needless to say since arriving in our new home myself and my work partner have had AT LEAST one batch of guacamole a day, and half of my clothes are stained with green splotches from guac drip that I am too lazy to wash off (washing clothes takes FOREVER by hand in the pila, besides what’s a little splotch matter if it reminds you that you have not yet had your daily avocado?) We also recently joined a bible group (see below) essentially for the sole purpose that the person who invited us told us she’d bring us a lot of avocados because she has a tree. One makes sacrifices… Which brings me to my next point…
2) TORTILLAS! Because really, what’s an avocado WITHOUT them. Many Volunteers I think get sick of them by day 3, but luckily not me and I’m making it my goal to learn appropriate proportions (we always failed at our college taco nights) and figure out the appropriate flattening technique before I leave.
3) Garlic – it may as well be nonexistent. My ex-host family LOVED garlic, which equated to roughly two mini cloves in a massive pot of Spaghetti. Please I eat that raw as a pre-bedtime breath freshener (tends to keep any unwanted Guatemalan men away). It depresses me that the only garlic you can find here is roughly the size of a tea spoon.
4) Olive Oil – Welcome to my impulse buys. Numero uno: Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I mean, I had to lug it all the way back from Chimalt and support Walmart to do it, and it cost the equivalent of nearly 1/10th of my month’s salary, but it was a weak moment and I rarely use more than a teaspoon in a meal so it should last me hopefully through next year at this time when I can afford to buy more.
5) Patacones, or fried green plantains: Um, pretty much my favorite bit from any previous Latin American travel but which somehow seemed to skip Guatemala on the culture train, although I plan to remedy this once I set up my street food stand with ridiculously high sanitary standards (gringos can come eat here without fear of parasites…yay!) which will only serve this greased out delicacy. Luckily today my day was made infinitely better when we absent mindedly wandered into a tienda looking for chocolate and found…GREEN PLANTAINS! Win one for my pueblito
6) Fish – I wasn’t expecting it, and certainly wasn’t intent on eating it when I’m living no where near the coast and there are definitely not refrigerated trucks in Guate, but their favorite delicacy in these parts is this ridiculously salted, flattened, dried version of our finned friends. I was very intent on staying away from it but have already been served it twice in the past week. It tastes like salty, compressed cardboard that’s used to carry fresh fish in the states. I’ll let you take that as you will.
What I was most excited about in my new site was the possibility to cook for myself again. We’ve so far made chili (already had a potluck, which was unbelievable) and lots and lots and lots of guacamole. I turned my one room rented out into a bedroom/kitchen, but every time I go to cook for myself I get a “you’re not going to eat with us?” frown from my host mother and feel obligated to join them. Usually this is an okay occurrence because it saves me time and money and there’s bonding involved (or so I’m told), but lately I get invited for meals immediately after I’ve eaten my own (cue tonight) and then can’t say no because they get offended so I end up eating two of every meal. Good luck guate butt with your shrinking plan. My site partner and I did start running this past week and have done every day for 7 days (and counting) with the intention of preparing ourselves for the 10k race in September in our neighboring town, but generally only make it about 15 minutes before our lungs collapse (blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-a-altitude).
Anyways, on a strictly non-gastronomical note, we officially started work this week. The first week living here was Semana Santa, so we did things like take two hour naps after lunch and go to the pools with my family (nearly drowning ourselves trying to tote my three sisters into the deep end with far too many people while they thrashed and screamed, yet continued to make us bring them deeper to the waterfall at the farthest end of the pool). I also chose to celebrate Easter Sunday by going to church with my family. They’re evangelical and I had never been to a service before so I thought it’d be interesting and confianza building and all that jazz. I must say I preferred it to the, although shorter, catholic service. While the latter consisted of singing for essentially the entire service (and Guatemalans are not all the most in tune with being in tune) the evangelical service is mostly just the pastor talking and he was remarkably easier to understand. This service also didn’t consist of being choked by massive amounts of incense.
I thought I’d try to blend in a little – I mostly just wanted to see the service and didn’t want to attract a bunch of curious eyes, unfortunately this desire was smothered when we arrived 20 minutes late and walked through the entire congregation to sit front and center (and let me point out that at my fairly average by U.S. standards 5’7 I stand a good head and a half above the average Guatemalan), and then had to get up twice to walk my sisters to their classes. Then about ¾ of the way through the service the pastor approaches me to ask me my name and proceeds to introduce me in front of the entire congregation. Probably a good thing, getting introduced to the community and all, although I wasn´t exactly prepared and turned beet red. As we left the Pastor came up to say goodbye with repeated verses of ¨we hope to see you next week, we´ll be waiting for you here,¨ which was incredibly awkward considering I have no intention of returning next week, though they may have just guilt tripped me into it.
We also got sort of sucked in to joining an evangelical weekly prayer group, and while I will try to be culturally sensitive right now, I can´t hide the fact that I was slightly terrified. It was just really intense, and there was a lot of mumble praying and people crying and blessing people and really emotional singing and it was just a little much for me to handle. If you would like a non culturally sensitive view, email me and I will delve into all the details, but I tried to take it with a grain of salt when I was there. As I said, our friend promised us avocadoes (and has already delivered) so it was vale la pena.
This week we started visiting the schools that we’re going to be working with for the next 2 (gasp) years (okay, 2 years minus one week…yay first week complete!). It’s reminded me that I am, in fact, in Peace Corps, and similar to what I’ve read from most previous volunteers experience the first few months are more or less figuring out what the heck you’re going to be doing the next two years. I’m trying to take it all with a grain of salt and not get too antsy when I arrive home from work at noon and don’t know what to do with myself (hard life, right?).
The difference with our program in contrast with most others is that the aims are very clear and specific and we know what we’re supposed to be achieving throughout the next two years, so I feel like we should be getting started right away but then it takes time to build confianza with the people we’ll be working with and to actually have them understand what the heck we’re doing here. So our first few visits are mostly just to introduce ourselves and hang out, chatting with the teachers, playing games that we don’t understand with the students, and inevitably getting offered massive amounts of cookies, bread, and chips from the greasy little fingers of the 6 year olds, and in this country it is completely unheard of to EVER refuse food. It is the one thing people are always on time for and is basically saying ¨I disapprove of you, your culture, and all of your offspring¨ by refusing it. This week we were treated to probably the most disgusting concoction of atoll (a warm, rice based drink) and beans that I’ve probably ever experienced in my life. I usually try to take all the food here with an open mind, and actually like most of them (see above) but this was just too much, and even though I insisted on muy poco, that phrase really doesn’t exist in Spanish vocabulary so I spent the remainder of recess trying to choke it down until a small boy spilt all of his and we rushed at the opportunity to wash all of our dishes together.
Anyways, I just realized how rediculously long this post has gotten. Apologies, lots of free time on my hands, I will try and take more pictures in future posts but for now here they are:
The route to one of our schools
Vacaville from afar
Um, apologies, I fail at taking pictures, but see my sitemate’s blog pigeonpose.blogspot.com for more pictures.
we have to go learn Kaqkchiquel now (a Mayan indigenous language) so must be off, have a great week and we´ll see if i get around to this again next week!
