Somethings Sweet!

Yes, I may get woken up by a nearby cow having a bad morning, Yes, I’ve yet to identify whether Jorge is a rat or small possum. Yes, if I want a hot shower I have to boil the water. But, I now have wireless internet!

That’s right – this little volunteer is living the sweet life with wireless in the office. Yes, it means I only have access during work time, but nonetheless…badass.

And as if that day (Tuesday) was awesome enough – hamburgers for lunch! The town hall was celebrating a few things and thus I got to eat hamburgers and cake. Sweet.

The only problem that day was the shear amount of people who wanted my attention or assistance. I only wanted to play on the internet, but no…I had to help an English teacher with their English and decorate the stupid conference room for the above mentioned lunch. It was only in the afternoon that I had uninterrupted bliss as I uploaded photos and organized emails.

Yes, I will release more photos very soon.

I was still excited when it was still there on Wed! Though, again, I didn’t have much time to play. Vilma and I went food shopping for the next fundraiser. My little group of artisans decided that making tamales would be their next fundraising adventure.

What is a tamale? It is a type of food made from corn. Not the type of corn you’re thinking, they take the dried cornels and cook them with cal to soften them up. Then they grind them into something that has the consistency of a sticky dough. Anyway, they take this dough and fill it with veggies and chicken bits….all sorts of chicken bits….then they wrap it in a banana leaf and cook it. How? They fill a large pot with the little tamales and then with water, stick it over a fire and wait for about 2 hours. They are not quite my cup of tea…a little too corny.

Any who – I was pretty impressed by my little participants. They worked their butts off for two days. They even organized to make more the following week since we over purchased on some items. I was particularly impressed by one woman who really took the lead, since she was the one with the most tamale experience. I’m hoping they will come together like they did this week.

Side note – for the tamales we bought live chickens I wasn’t as scarred as I though I would be by seeing them killed. And when they are all plucked and everything – they kinda look like the rubber chickens you see in cartoons.

That killed off Thursday and Friday.

Saturday was spent with Iris at her parent’s house. It had been her father’s b-day on Friday so we went out there to make…tamales!

We had to leave at about 5 a.m. to catch a ride – but it was only a partial ride. We still wound up walking over an hour and a half to get to the house. I was thankful that I had packed a second pair of shoes to chill at the house with cause it was a muddy walk out.

The day was a lazy day of resting in the hammock, making tamales and eating wonderful food! Iris’s mom makes a wonderful chicken soup – with fresh chicken and veggies. Our ride back was a little closer, but we still had to track through the mud to get there.

I got home and was exhausted. I finished reading a book, ate dinner and went to bed by 8:30.

The week closed out on Sunday with me cleaning up and relaxing. I also had the joy of the Evangelicals and Baptists competing on the music front – it would be bad but the churches neighbor each other and area a cross the street from me…joy.