new heights

Every day brings new adventures.

Today's adventure involved driving...

...to the most remote community.

...on the worst road.

...up up and more up

...without either my co-worker or my boss!

Day 2 of our cooking class in Vertientes, my co-worker was called away last minute (kind of an unnecessary phrase in this culture) to accompany the pastor to San Pedro. This left me as the only driver.

I have driven half way to where we were heading today, but the 2nd half is definitely more complicated. Only made worse by rainy season and a truck without 4 wheel-drive.

But God is good. I went well-covered in prayer (from my boss and the cooking teacher who is the sweetest lady I know) and we made it safe and sound! Praise the Lord. I was SO nervous. And just to let you know, I really love driving, so for me to be nervous indicates the complication of my task at hand.

The women were all surprised when I showed up with only the instructor. "And Don Oscar?" they all asked. Only after a time did it come out that I did the driving. Apparently they thought we must have come with some chauffeur. Hahaha...made me laugh. I enjoy more literal lessons of female empowerment for our beneficiaries. Girl power, ladies!

It was a great day. I had a fun time observing, tasting, learning, and chatting with the women. Successful day of cooking, successful day of driving.



Grateful for continued safety and the chance to rise to the challenge each and every day!

re-discovering teguc

I was "forced" to make another trip to Teguc this month to take care of the next step in renewing my residency. Although I enjoy visiting friends and family there, it is 8 long hours in a bus that I don't relish doing all too often.

So I decided to make the trip more fun and spend a couple extra days with my host family...oh, and I took along a traveling companion :) I haven't posted too much on the blog, but I have been dating someone for several months now and decided it was time he (Henry) met my Honduran family.

Henry is from Santa Rosa, or as they say here "Copaneco" (meaning, someone from the department of Copan). He has not been able to travel much outside of this town where he has been born and raised, and our trip was his first time ever in the capital. It was fun for me to show him around, teaching him the ropes of public transportation along with other "tips" about living life in the big city. The best part was watching him take in all the new stuff around him and asking questions about everything. I loved re-experiencing the craziness of a city I have gotten to know over the last 2 years and share it with a Honduran who has never lived outside of his pueblo.

We did all sorts of stuff...rode rapiditos, took colectivo taxis, visited the mall, ate frozen yogurt (oh yeah, that was just me...), went to Picacho park, checked out some women's small business endeavors, hung out with my Honduran host family, hiked the mountain behind Nueva Suyapa, spent time with some MCC friends and ate lots and lots of food.

Thankfully there were no major incidents (H was nervous about this after hearing all kinds of news reports about the capital city) and we had a lot of fun with my host family. When my host mom found out what a handy man he is, she put him right to work fixing things around the house...kind of reminds me of some shingle-fixing experiences forced upon my brother-in-law when he started hanging around our house ;)

Here are some pictures of our weekend in the big city!

out to eat baleadas at our favorite place. L to R: Josue, me & Henry 

Yosua and Axel 

jam session for the new church band we are forming haha

the Christ statue at Picacho park

the handy-man earning points with my host mom

bird-watching with Virgil on our mountain hike!

beautiful view of the city

at the top of the mountain!

going to miss this lady a lot...

good friends! L to R: me, Virgil, Franklin, Kathy

with the boys. to be fair, i think Franklin was on lower ground...

pumpkin-ade

You know the saying: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Well life (actually, a good friend) gave me a huge can of pumpkin before she moved home to Canada and so I have no choice but make things with pumpkin. She must have had lofty ambitions of making dozens of pumpkin pies because this can was like 2 lbs...and since every recipe I've found calls for 1/2 cup of pumpkin, its going to take awhile to use it all up.

Living with limited resources and options, I have become much more experimental in my cooking. So here's a look at what happened this weekend:

1) Found a recipe for pumpkin fudge (because who doesn't love fudge) and had evaporated milk on hand for what seemed like a simple recipe.

2) I did not have cornstarch. Nor am I sure what it is called in Spanish (rather often, a deterrent for going on a hunt!) Ended up substituting flour...maybe my downfall.

3) I do not own a candy thermometer and so tried my hand at the "soft-ball" test in cold water. Wasn't sure how to read the results...so...lets just say my fudge did not set.

4) I now had a pan of what resulted as deliciously sweet pumpkin goo...but not usable...and really, it just feels like you are in-taking way more calories when it's not the consistency of fudge.

So what is a girl to do? 

Make some pumpkin-ade with my pumpkin fail!

I took a yellow cake mix I had on hand, whipped that up in a few minutes and started experimenting with my pumpkin swirl cupcakes.

The first round was about 1/4 batter in the bottom, layer of pumpkin "fudge" and more batter on top.

What I did not count on was that my heavy filling would SINK to the bottom. 

Then I got wise and just put a blob on top...better results, but still need some work.

However, the taste is exactly what I was going for. They are fluffy, moist and have just the right amount of spicey-ness. Not up to par with what my sister can whip up in her kitchen and with a one-year old child in tow--but I try!

Now to find testers who are willing to eat their cupcakes with a fork :)

shopping

As with most things in my life, they never end up as simple as one thinks they should be.

My co-worker and I have to collect a large amount of groceries for a 2-day cooking class for each of our women's groups. This means I will get to have this lovely experience 3 more times.

First off, in Honduras you NEVER buy in quantity...that would make too much sense in a logical, North American kind of way. Buy a large amount of spices, divide into 4. done.

No, tita....we must buy for each time, individually. Oh, and one-stop shop? Forget it! You have to stop at least 3 places and make sure you are getting the best price. Regardless how many people tell you the same price over and over and over again.

Our first stop, the Despensa. A no-frills, basic grocery store. And when I say basic, I mean basic for Honduran cooking. Don't expect to find your Philadelphia cream cheese or pomegranate juice here. With Oscar's wife trailing behind us to confirm every selection I made, we made our way around the store. Of course, I wasn't an authority on anything (though I can cook) so we kept checking in, retracing our steps...then, in random fits of decisiveness, O would tell me "no, I'm sure we can buy that in another place cheaper."

Paying, putting things in bags, a spilled bag of oil (yeah, oil in a pouch), getting the cart to the car...I mean, it's hard to describe it to you, but nothing is as streamlined as the process you know in your cushy North American grocery store...just trust me on this one. I almost went chasing a cart down the cobblestone hill from the store because it is just. not. simple.

From there we dropped off the wife, went to another place to buy cheeses. Of course, they didn't have everything we wanted. Then to the downtown market. First to the lonely stalls on the outer ring where we bought one bunch of cilantro. Then to another lady outside the market to buy one bunch of spices. Then to another store to buy more dried spices. Finally, to the big market (my idea) to finish up. But if I ask for prices they jack it up for the gringa. So I try to make Oscar do it, but he doesn't know what he's doing. By this time I was about out of patience.

Back to another store to buy more cheese. Then back to the market to get one more kind of meat. I mean seriously, it was a lot of here and there and back and forth.

More than anything, I wanted to go to one big grocery store and buy everything at once. Is that asking too much? In this town it seems to be. But as always, in my frustration with doing things not my way, I learn a lot about patience, humility, having a sense of humor, and just going with the flow. It was not efficient, but did we really have a lot else to be doing? Not really. Did we get it all in the end? Yes. Will it all come together tomorrow? Probably even better than I think it will.

But believe you me, next time around, that list will be organized sequentially according to each aisle of grocery store, with check boxes, color-coding and a separate list of "market items." Watch out Oscar. I will bring method to this madness!!