Random thoughts

I hate writing "post titles" more and more as time goes on...  it may be a contributing factor to my less-than-impressive 75 posts during my two years here. Really?! Only 75??? Why does it feel like so much more? Maybe because it is more than I have written about myself and my daily thoughts, feelings, activities since that super-introspective phase I went through in high school.  I was really into the whole 'teenage angst' thing back then and felt that I was best expressed by moping a lot, dying my hair weird colors and wearing a lot of black, torn, mismatched clothes.......

.... On an unrelated note, if you notice my blog turning super introspective, its probably due to the fact that I'm approaching another Huge transition in my life. Gah!  Again! I'll probably be shocked about the impending end to my PC service every time I write until it happens. Sorry. 

Anyways.  I've been busy cooking super amazing meals (chopping vegetables is like a zen thing for me. apparently.), discovering Adele (where have I been??),  running, and slowly writing my informe tecnico reviewing the last year workwise for Peace Corps. 

It was unreasonably, ridiculously cold last Tuesday. I could see my breath inside my house.  Not. OK.  So I opted to stay in and made Roasted Carrot and Cheese Gnocchi with Herbed Butter.  They were AMAZING...

Bought a ton of veggies in the market down in Xela over the weekend so I was looking for a different way to use them up. I landed on Spinach/Tuna/Bell Pepper/Black Bean "burgers". Basically a catch all patty of vegetables and tuna but turned out pretty good. Never eating a frozen veggie patty again, its pretty simple to make your own.

The first mangoes of the season are trickling into the market so I indulged (at Q3 or about .40 cents) and It Was Worth It.  Delicious.  Look, this variety you can peel like a banana, forgoing the nightmare that is peeling and slicing those big mangos you buy in the grocery store back home.

Oh, we received late Xmas presents last week-Bella was remembered by Grandma and Grandpa, and Mom and Dad. She's sporting her new collar and cuddling with her stuffed worm (?) that Grandma sent...

In other news, Guatemala's new president will take the reins on Sunday, along with the new mayors, etc all over the country.  I guess it's going to be a big deal.  Will keep everyone posted. 

Hope everyone is getting 2012 off to a great start.

xoxo's

amber

Bring it On

That was a fast - two weeks?!? I've heard Peace Corps compared to a Roller Coaster so many times...but that's because it's the perfect analogy.  And now, with 88% (24 months/27 months) completed, I feel like I'm about to drop off that big final drop, carried along as the weeks whizz by on that momentum of medical clearance, COS (close-of-service) conference, final reports, wrapping up projects, etc. and it will be over before I know it, truly, the last sprint to the finish. 

That is a lot to take in.  After all the aspiration and anticipation for years before finally getting on a plane and being dropped into a completely new and unfamiliar territory, adjusting and struggling to make headway in my assigned work, meeting new people, making new friends and family, and finally feeling comfortable in that once unfamiliar vocation and location *phew*  Now, in a blink of an eye, all of that will be...over.

How do I feel?  People around me are starting to realize that I'll be gone soon, to which they generally ask, "Y tu, estas feliz?"  or "Am I happy?" to be returning home.  The short answer-of course I am!  I can't wait to see my friends and family, drive a car, flush a toilet, drink water from the tap, turn on a damn heater when it's cold outside.... But I'm sad too.  Sad at the end of an era, to live a block from the wonderful open air market with fresh fruits and vegetables, to hang out with my host mom, to head to xela to go thrift store shopping with my peace corps friends and commiserate on the quirks of Guatemalan life, the conversations in broken english with total strangers who are so pleased to run into an American girl in the middle of the Gutaemalan campo....

I can't believe I'm about to be catapulted back into the hurried, consumeristic US culture in a couple of short months-its enough to give a girl a slight panic attack. 

But I'm not gone yet.  That's important. So I'll try to drink it all in in the short time I have remaining.  Enjoy the people and places that surround me, and try not to worry about it too much.  That feeling rising in my chest as the unknown approaches yet again is a good thing-it signals a new adventure on the horizon. 




Bring it on

Christmas Tamales Day Two

This morning I returned to help with wrapping up the tamales to steam, less complicated and more labor intensive, while chatting with Dona Reina and Flopi, Lidelia's daughter.  |We wrapped the rice tamales that I helped prepare, then potato tamales that used the same sauce mixed in with mashed potatoes.  

A spoonful of cooked rice, a chunk of chicken, a slice of bell pepper, and raisins are wrapped in banana leaves

Here is the masa for the potato paches

Dona Reina with paches

Potato paches with chicken and a whole chili

Ready for steaming!

And so concludes my adventure in tamale making.  I hope to share the tradition with some of you when I get back!

Christmas Tamales Day One

My host sister's mother in law was gracious enough to let me invade her kitchen, snap lots of photos, and 'help' with tamale-making yesterday and this morning.  Here is an exhaustive photo journal of the process.

Day One involved making the sauce and filling for the paches



Preparing the sauce involved roasting all the ingredients.  Tomatoes



Pumpkin and sesame seeds

White bread, toasted and then moistened

Roasted bell peppers plus two different kinds of dried chiles simmering

Pumpkin and sesame seeds and cinnamon sticks get ground with a coffee grinder,
 then added to the chiles, tomatoes, and onions

And the bread, for thickening

Blend it all together

Me with Dona Reina, my host sister's mother-in-law and master pache chef

Heat up sauce until it simmers, then cook another ten minutes

To make the masa or filling, add ground white rice to boiling water in a ginormous pot

Over a wood fire

Stir constantly!

After the masa of ground rice boils for five minutes, we took it off the fire to cool for the next day. 

Feliz Navidad

It donned on me sunday that Christmas Eve was only six short days away, which meant only six short days of guilt free Christmas music and movies...I started listening to Michael Buble and a Glee Christmas immediately.  I guess it worked because I was shortly thereafter overcome with a desire to bake, a passtime that I had put on the shelf about a year ago after realizing that living alone and baking was hazardous to my health. 

In the spirit of goals 2 and 3 of Peace Corps (Sharing US culture with Guatemalans and vice versa), I arranged to borrow my host mom's stove and invited a friend over to make some Christmas cookies.

Using an old wine bottle as a rolling pin = resourcefulness typical of a Peace Corps Volunteer ;)

We made Sugar Cookies, Chocolate Peppermint Cookies, and Peppermint Biscotti that all turned out yummy.  I'd never made biscotti before but guess what?  Not that difficult!  Now I want to try savory biscotti, like...garlic, cheese, rosemary, etc.  I actually don't have much of a sweet tooth and gave most of the cookies away. 

Last year I was here as well, but never really got into feeling Christmas-y and although I did spend it here with the family, didn't learn much about the holiday.  Here, the tradition is to make and eat tamales called paches, made with rice or potatoes and a chunk of chicken, raisins, and chiles.  My host mom decided not to make paches this year, however, so I got an invitation to go to her older daugher's house and learn from her mother in law. 

I took about a gazillion pictures of the whole process over the course of two days.  I think I'm going to include them in a separate post to follow.  Christmas 2012,authentic Guatemalan paches at my parents' house, anyone?

Anywho.... Oh yes, Guatemalan Christmas traditions.  Along with delicious paches, we will be making ponche, an amped up traditional cider type hot drink with chopped up pineapple, apple, papaya, coconut, and raisins in it.  We eat a late dinner and wait for midnight, when everyone celebrates the birth of Christ with fireworks.  Lots of fireworks. In an attempt to get the whole Navedad experience, I bought a few fireworks to join along in the fun. 

And there you have it.  A little food, a little fireworks, and lots of good company and conversation. I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas as well.

So feria "ended" but the street vendors, for the most part, are sticking around.  As is the video arcade, and unreasonably loud music, apparently.  I will be going back to work tomorrow, trying to make some headway on my ambitious December list, along with writing an end of the year report on my service. 

We in Peace Corps Guatemala received some upsetting news on Friday that I have been postponing writing about because it is super disappointing.  I want to preface the news by asking you all to please not worry about me; the admin here has done and continues to do everything possible to keep us Volunteers safe.  Despite their efforts, however, Peace Corps Washington handed down the decision on Friday to suspend arrival of any new Volunteers to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras due to the declining security situation in our countries. 

What does this mean for me, personally?  I think the news most directly affects those of us leaving in March who were expecting to be replaced because, for the time being at least, we will NOT be replaced.  This leaves most of us disappointed and worried about the projects and the work that we have done here.  Not to mention all of people who thought they were leaving to begin their Peace Corps missions in a short two weeks.  It hurts my heart to put myself in their shoes.  I hope Peace Corps will find them new posts in a timely manner.  

In short, I don't know exactly what to think about this news, except to grieve for the wonderful work that Peace Corps does down here and the thought of the loss to both potential Peace Corps Volunteers and potential host communities.  Also the sadness I feel that a new Volunteer won't be replacing me and continuing to support Environmental Conservation and Education work in my community.  It is up to the people of the community to follow through with it.  I hope I've planted seeds that will grow in the absence of another volunteer and fear that it wasn't enough. 

So uncertainty and disappointment abound in the Volunteer community for the time being.  I think that this week we will receive more updates about what this bombshell means for those of us still in country.  Will they evacuate?  Adopt a gradual phase-out that allows those of us here to finish up our service? Or is this a temporary measure that will be repealed in the future?  =/ 

More news to follow

Photo Update

Photographing fireworks is hard-at least with my little camera that didn't have a 'fireworks' mode.. I took about a hundred pictures of the fireworks show last night.  Most of them came out like this:

Luckily, though, a few of them came out like this:

Win.