What a week for Minnesota sports!
Well I am once again behind on my blog - sorry David. This time I have a legitimate excuse. I finally got sick. It had been over a month without a single incident, so it was long overdue. Luckily, it wasn’t the bad food, throwing up sick like you’d expect. The flu, or “gripe”, has been going around one of our schools. With all the kids holding your hands and touching your stuff (water bottle, dictionary, hat, etc.) it was bound to happen. It had me in bed all weekend. Sore throat, plugged ears, headache. No fun!
But I am better now! So back to the good stuff. Matt and I have successfully created peanut butter cookies from scratch. You may be thinking to yourself, “Oh, nice work boys. I could make cookies from scratch in the 4th grade,” but from scratch is REALLY from scratch down here. We started by buying peanuts from a street vendor. Make sure and get the roasted peanuts, as most of them are not, making them inedible. Next, you need to shell the peanuts – tastes better that way. After that, we put them through a grinder used primarily for grain and corn. Next, we had to translate the recipe into Spanish, which would normally be easy, but when you are using ingredients not common in Guatemalan cuisine life can be difficult. For example, there is no baking power here. Or brown sugar. We needed to improvise a bit! Using our homemade peanut butter, along with whole grain flour and oats, we were able to develop a nutritious cookie that tasted really good. This was the primary goal, as our aldeas produce eggs and peanuts, and we are trying to create a market for them to sell their goods. Our organization can purchase these inputs for our Nutrition Program, and produce the protein-packed nutritious cookies.
I hate the Yankees.
Spanish classes started this past week with my teacher, Mirna. She has been teaching for twenty years and seems like a very good match so far. We meet three days a week for two hours per session. In between she assigns homework. This should help speed things up a bit!
Happy Birthday Christine!
This past Monday we never made it to work. It was Dia de las Razas (Day of the Races). It is recognized across the country and is celebrated with demonstrations for indigenous rights. One of these demonstrations took place on our road, the only road, to the aldeas. Like these demonstrations often do, things escalated and had become violent. Two people in a similar demonstration were killed in Guatemala City. Here, they prohibited anyone from passing. I have to admit; it is frustrating when you drive through this pass daily, clearly marked as “Rotarians” on our pickup. We eat our breakfast there every day on our way to deliver food/aid to the INDIGENIOUS population! Now they won’t let us through and consequently the kids at our two schools won’t eat today, let alone have teachers.
On a happier note - Welcome, cousin Leo!
On our way home from working, well TRYING to work, we decided to make a detour. The two guys we work with, Oscar and Alberto, showed us this swimming hole off the main road. It doesn’t exist in either of our guidebooks and was hardly marked, so we weren’t expecting much. Wow were we wrong! Here we walk down an embankment in the middle of the jungle. It is so untraveled that nothing but random rocks and a cable to hold onto exist for a path. With more than about two beers in you it would be impossible, and you’d have better luck sitting down on your butt and sliding. We got to the bottom and could see the small lagoons of blue water – similar to those in Glacier National Park, but not nearly as cold! We thought we were there, but Oscar told us to follow the path a bit further. As we rounded the bend, a massive waterfall with a large lagoon appeared from nowhere. It was honestly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The picture below cannot do it justice. The sides of the ravine shoot straight up from lagoon. Best part is there wasn’t another soul there except us.
After venturing behind the falls to the cavern, Matt and I returned and we all enjoyed a cold beer on the shore. Life doesn’t get much better than that.
Happy 62nd Anniversary Grandma and Grandpa!
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