I never thought last week I would make it this far. It has been hard, but I am now on the down hill until I get home. We have a lot of things planned so I know I will be busy. I had a rough morning but when I went to the internet cafe I saw a friends status and it was just what I needed:
Sometimes when the going gets rough and we feel that God isn't there, the only thing that gets us through everyday is the faith we have in him because in our darkest hour, faith is all we have... when we have no friends that we can turn to, no family we can lean on, shoulders to cry on, doctors to take away our pain, or anyone to help us up when we fall, we must have faith..My faith is definitely being tested right now. These have been the hardest few weeks of my life. I know that as long as I keep praying and giving my problems to God, he will take care of them. I am just having a hard time letting go.
At three we went to our meeting at Alexandra's house to prepare tamales. Her four daughters are so cute; they helped teach us how to cook. This meal is a two day process.
We got started with the rice first:
Ingredients: 2 lb Rice, Water, 1.5 stick manteca (margarine)
- Boil water on the stove
- Sort out the bad rice
- Rinse rice out in colander
- Add 1.5 sticks of manteca (we used "mirasol" margarine)
- Put rice in water and stir until thick
- Let rice sit overnight
Next we prepared the maize (corn):
Ingredients: Pot, water, wood, fire, Cal (ground up limestone, calcium carbonate like the baking soda)
- Chuck corn
- Take off corn kernels
- Boil water over fire
- Add corn to water
- Add Cal to corn to clean
- let sit over night
After preparing the food for tomorrow we sat down and chatted it Alexandra for a while. She showed us the tinaja, a pot used for carrying water on your head, and la tiedra para moler, a grinding stone. They have metal tinajas that are easier to use and last longer, but aren't nearly as pretty. The grinding stone is used to ground corn, achiote, and other ingredients. The girls gave us a demonstration and then let us try. The one we used is small, she told us her grandmother has a large one that is about eighty years old and can not be moved. She then taught us the significance of the different types of corn.
There are four colors of maize, white, black, red, and yellow, and they signify the four cardinal points:
Color---- significance
white---- rain and water
black---- night
red------- sun set
yellow--- the wind, air, and good life
After we left Alexandra's house, we went for fried chicken and french fries at one of the food stands. I have eaten fried chicken about everyday because the food that we eat, outside of the houses we cook in and restaurants, is not that great. It doesn't make for a happy stomach at all. But after two weeks, three times a day, I am sick of eating fried chicken and will never eat it again in life. One of the best things about being here though is the corn. When you go to a food stand and buy corn its like buying a little piece of paradise. The corn is huge, and full of buttery deliciousness. But they like to add ketchup to it. YUCK! I don't mind eating corn everyday, I will miss this corn stand when I go home.
Of course we ended the day with a bootleg movie. Today we had the premiere of Pineapple Express (which actually wasn't bootleg because Mitch brought it with him, but we already had a bootleg matinee of Megaminds).
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| There sky was amazing tonight |
*Since Guatemala I have eaten fried chicken a total of three times, only one of which was from a fast food place
** I do not condone the buying and selling of bootleg dvds. However, when in the middle of the mountains in a developing area exceptions are made. We left all of the movies at our little house on top of the zapataria when we returned home. I ended up going straight to Best Buy to buy Megaminds when I got settled because I was used to watching it everyday and had to share my new favorite movie with my family.
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