My Culinary Adventures: Honduran Food

Living with host families for our three months of training really took a toll on our bodies, since Hondurans loooove to use manteca, or lard.  And salt and sugar.  But not together.  There is also manteca vegetal which is something like vegetable shortening.  I have never eaten as much fried chicken in my life as I have here, or plates where everything on it is fried!  I don't even like fried chicken (and when I eat it, I definitely take off the skin), but we pretty much had to eat what was given to us and try out the different types of food.  I am just extremely grateful that nobody has given me sopa de mondongo yet, because I don't think I could even bring myself to eat that.  It's a soup of beef tripe that some people serve every Sunday.  Other volunteers have had to eat it, and other things that I wouldn't be able to even look at.. like seafood.  I have a seafood phobia.  I only eat fish, and it has to be grilled or baked, not fried, not raw.  I'm still trying to figure out what happened to me because when I was little I ate everything, shrimp, crab, lobster, beef tongue, chicken liver, etc, but since elementary school everything changed.  Maybe I'm blocking a memory?  Hmmm....

Back to the topic.  Honduran food.  Yes, it's greasy, yes it's clogging your arteries, and yes you may get diabetes and high blood pressure problems one day from the obscene amounts of sugar and salt, but MAN, it is SO GOOD!  In moderation of course ^_^  I have learned to cook a couple Honduran staple foods here, and still have more to cook, such as pupusas, baleadas, and taquitos de pollo, but I've got time.  Here's what I've made so far:

Refried Beans and Fried Green Bananas with Garlic

Recipe for Frijoles Fritos y Tajadas


Ingredients
Manteca Vegetal
1 Package Red Beans (Frijoles Rojos)
1-2 Green Bananas
Minced garlic

1. Melt manteca vegetal in small saucepan over low heat, add the beans from the package and mix well.
2. Rub a bit of manteca on hands before handling the green bananas so that the resin doesn't stick to them.
3. With a knife, cut along the banana peel on the curved-out side, from bottom to up, wiggling the knife left and right to widen the cut.
4. Put banana in a bowl of water and peel under the water.
5. Slice banana diagonally
6. In a frying pan, heat up manteca vegetal on medium-high heat.  Add banana slices and fry until they are as crisp as you want them to be.  Should be like french fries.  
7. When done, turn the heat down to low and cook the minced garlic, then mix the garlic with the bananas.

Fried Plantain, Refried Beans and Onions, and Mantequilla

Recipe for Plátano Frito, Frijoles Fritos con Cebollas, y Mantequilla


Ingredients:

Manteca vegetal
1/2 Onion
1 Bag Refried Red Beans
1-2 Ripe Plantains
1 Bag Sula brand Mantequilla (or whatever type of mantequilla you like)

1. Fry onions in frying pan until translucent, same manner as frying the garlic in recipe above
2. Cook beans in same manner as recipe above, then add onions and stir well, keep on low heat.
3. Peel plantains and slice diagonally, trying to keep the length long
4. Heat manteca vegetal in a frying pan on medium-high heat.
5. Add plantain slices and cook until browned on both sides.  Slices should be soft and flexible when finished.
6. Arrange plantains, beans on plate and add the mantequilla to your liking!

Cemita with Coffee

My Culinary Adventures: Domino Potatoes with Steamed Broccoli

This is the very first dish I made.  It turned out delicious, except for the butter taste on the potatoes.  The way butter is sold here is in sticks, but they are not refrigerated and don't need refrigeration.  I'm not sure if it was the brand or that specific type of butter, but it gave the potatoes a different taste.  Next time, I'm sticking to the good stuff.  My recipes are not going to have the exact measurements because most of the time I played by ear.  Just trust your own judgment and do a bunch of taste tests and it should be fine :)

Recipe
Potato Dominoes: Recipe adapted from Steamy Kitchen

Steamed Broccoli
Ingredients
1 Head Broccoli
Olive Oil or Vegetable Oil
Minced Garlic
Lemon Juice
Sliced Almonds

1. Break broccoli into large bite-sized florets, and cut and peel the stem
2. Rinse broccoli well with whatever you use to rinse veggies.  For me it'd be that Chlorox/water mix then rinsed with drinking water.
3. In a pot, bring an inch of water to a boil.
4. Add the broccoli to the pot and cover with lid.
5. Reduce heat to medium and cook until broccoli is crisp-tender.
6. Drain water from broccoli and return to pot.
7. In a frying pan, heat a little bit of olive oil (or whatever oil you have) and add minced garlic, lemon juice, and sliced almonds.  Cook until you think it's done..
8. Add to broccoli and mix well

My Culinary Adventures: The Beginning

I had always thought I loved cooking and baking, and swore to myself that as soon as I got my own place and my own kitchen, I would be doing those things a lot more.  Nobody really believed me and said that if I loved it that much, I’d be doing it no matter what.  Doesn’t matter if the kitchen is cluttered with other people’s stuff, doesn’t matter if other people are living there, I’d find a way and I’d be comfortable.  But I wasn’t, so I waited.  The Peace Corps has given me my very first opportunity of living completely alone, and I have definitely been making great use of the kitchen.  Buying kitchen appliances is always my priority when I go shopping, and I will even travel nearly 2 hours out of site to buy the ingredients I need.

Here are just a few simple things that I’ve made, with more blog posts to follow about other food (which I promise are more interesting and they all have recipes as well!).

It is really a pain to deal with fruits and vegetables here because we have to rinse with a Chlorox and water solution for at least 20 or 30 minutes according to our health manual, but I kind of completely skip that and just do it for a few minutes.  I still haven't gotten sick.  It does make cooking take a bit longer than it should though because I scrub and clean very well with that solution, then rinse with drinking water. Also, since I have limited space and limited kitchen appliances (2-burner portable stove and a toaster oven rather than a full-range stove/oven), it sometimes takes me a couple hours to cook something where it should really only take an hour or less.  Or maybe I'm just slow, who knows :)  I do get distracted easily....!

Smoothie made of broccoli and carrot juice (leftover from steaming veggies), apples, bananas, and water.  It was super delicious!

Banana, apple, orange, oatmeal, Corn Flakes (they put that stuff in smoothies here so I figured I'd give it a try), honey, milk, water and ice

Fruit salad: watermelon, canteloupe, apple, oranges, pineapple, and bananas

Rambutan, most often confused for lychee.  They are completely different.  Lychee are not hairy on the outside.

Burnt omelette! Haha. Tomatoes, onions, green onions, salt and pepper

Salad

Catching Up On 2 Months

Ahhh sorry for the lack of updates!  I’ve caught a case of teh laziness, especially after moving into my house.  I have close to 2 months to update on!  Where oh where do I start…. Alrighty then - October 15^th was Global Handwashing Day, or Dia Mundial de Lavado de Manos.  My site-mate Brent and I visited several elementary schools with people from an organization called Agua Para La Gente, and were put in charge of selecting the three best drawings done by the students, based on what they showed about water and being clean.  One of the larger schools had a singing contest as well and we helped choose the winner of that.  There was one kid who seemed really shy and messed up a bit but he was soooo adorable.  The winning students received new backpacks filled with a bottle of Johnson & Johnson soap. 

That weekend was the despedida, or goodbye party for Andrea, my former site-mate.  She extended her service in another site but wanted to say goodbye to all her friends.  It was a private party at the club here in town.  It’s actually a pretty nice venue, and I got to know the owner who is super nice and gave me a couple free drinks J.  He’s dug out space and is going to put a pool in too.  I’ve heard on event nights at the club, it’s packed with people and has laser lights and everything.  I still have yet to go to one, but one day for sure.

El Club - usually full on an event night

A couple days after that I headed to San Pedro Sula again with my host family and got a lot of shopping done.  We walked amongst the street vendors and headed to a Ropa Americana store so my host mom could buy 2 fardos of clothing to sell from her house.  Down here, Ropa Americana is like second-hand clothing sent over from the states and sold here for super cheap.   I’ve already bought some clothes, like excellent quality reversible Nike shorts for less than $2, a nice Aeropostale polo for about the same price.. and other shorts and shirts.  Fardos are like huge plastic bags packed full of Ropa Americana, and sorted out by category.  There are clothes for adults, for children, and then there are bed sheets, shoes, and probably some other home goods like drapes and towels.  I also picked up a connector cable for my computer to external CD drive for about a dollar.   Later they took me to Diunsa and Lady Lee, two of the biggest home stores in the area.  It was like being in the states again!  Of course though, that meant things were also a bit expensive and I had to really look around and price-compare to find the deals.  Bought a couple starter items for the house and then we headed back home, along the way puncturing one of the truck tires so had to fix that.. then ran into some old friends of my host dad.  These were young guys, all probably in their 20s and one of them was extremely malcreado and unfortunately for me, he lives in my site.  I’m glad I haven’t run into him so much though.

The fardos

My host mom's set up for the clothes

Sometime in there I visited the Hammock Bridge with Brent and his brother, who was visiting from the states.  It’s this rickety-looking bridge that several people cross daily to get to work from the other mountain.  It looked incredible.

One day President Lobo landed his helicopter in the soccer field right next to my host family’s house and was giving a talk in the park and handing out bonuses to single mothers who in return had to send their children to school and put them in health and nutrition programs.

The following weekend I went back to San Pedro to hang out with my friend Daniel who works a couple hours away.  It was insanely refreshing to see a familiar face.   Before heading to SPS, we stopped by this small community on the very border of El Progreso, where the people live in small shacks made of wooden boards and metal sheets.  It was astonishing to see the stark differences between that community when right across the street was El Progreso, which is I believe the fifth largest city in Honduras.  Just earlier this year or last year that area was flooded.  The leaders of the community have already found another location to move these people out of hazard’s way, so will begin that process soon hopefully. 

We had lunch at Subway at the food court and walked around inside a couple malls, which made me extremely nostalgic but it was a great time.  Watched Resident Evil 4 on IMAX 3D.  It was my first time seeing a Resident Evil movie and I admit, I don’t think I will ever see another one again.  We went bowling afterward while wearing Santa hats and for the rest of my week my arm was killing me!  It had been a while since I bowled and I could just feel that ball getting heavier and heavier >_<.  Went back shopping at Lady Lee and found out that they deliver!  That totally made my day because it meant my stuff wouldn’t have been stuck in the pouring rain we encountered.

Helped my host mom make a mural, or presentation board (?) for World Vision, the organization she works for.  That was actually pretty fun even though it was a lot of tedious work and measurements I had to do.  It displayed the 5 projects that Vision Mundial does, and had some extra space which they later filled with the Vision Mundial logo as I suggested.  It was looking a bit sparse.

Oh, the most important thing I almost left out!   I finally moved into my own house on Nov. 11^th!   It’s my first time living completely on my own so that was exciting.  It really was a real piece of work to clean up though.  2 PCVs previously lived here before I did so it made sense to move in, and it’s a wonderful house.. now that it’s clean and fixed >_<.  I had a cockroach infestation in the kitchen so had to spray RAID everywhere and after doing that, I swept up all the dead roaches and roach cases (inside each case were spots for about 20 eggs… GROSS!) and there were probably 100 at least that I could see.  They escaped from the RAID through the cabinet cracks and scattered about the kitchen floor before flopping over and dying.  It was quite a site.  I also have a termite infestation in my room, kitchen and bathroom, as well as bats that come in during the day and leave at night, but they don’t bother me since they stay in the space between the metal roof and the false ceiling.  Also have your common ant and geckos and some spiders but those don’t bother me too much.  I spoke to the landlady a few weeks back after discovering all the problems with the house and she’s been great in having people come and fix things!  They’ve already painted the entire inside and outside walls, so now the house is one color instead of white, blue, and a hideous shade of yellow in the bathroom.  They also cemented my pila, which is this big concrete open water storage tank that I use to wash my clothes in, because the water was leaking out on the sides.  My sink was leveled with cement and it looks great now.. they may even put tile on it.  My toilet was fixed so the tube would stop leaking and so it would flush properly, my shower can drain water now, and my kitchen cabinets all have handles and the doors aren’t broken and everything was varnished again.. if that’s a word.  I even helped with that :).  They did fumigate the house but not very well.  Only put poison in some places.  That didn’t get rid of the termites, but I think made it worse…. So I said it’d be better if they fumigated with gas so that it reaches everywhere and I think they’re going to do that.  There are a couple other things that were fixed too but in all… I absolutely love this house!  I feel so lucky to live here and I know some other people have it a bit worse off and are probably experiencing “real” Peace Corps, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Honestly I probably wouldn’t be able to survive in some of the living conditions they are in, so good for them!!!  They’re tough people =]. 

I went back to Yorito one day to say goodbye to my friend Janet, who’s service was coming to a close and she was leaving that weekend.  She gave away a lot of her stuff and I ended up taking 10 large items back with me on the bus to my house, including a toaster oven, 2 huge potted plants, 3 bar stools, a suitcase, my backpack, a collapsible chair, and a large basket that was also carrying stuff inside.  That was pretty insane traveling alone but my host family came to help me pick everything up at the bus stop and take it back to my house.

I quickly stocked up my kitchen and have been cooking a lot for myself, and it’s been a lot of fun.  I am really into cooking and baking and now that I’ve got my own kitchen I feel like I have more freedom to do so.  Hmm.. oh yeah, I also have some plants in the backyard from Janet – coffee, basil, oregano, lemongrass, ginger, and cherry tomato, but I think almost all of them are dying except the coffee and basil =(.  Can’t wait to make some awesome pesto sauce!

Cabildo Abierto in La Majada

As for work – still slow, but I went to two cabildo abiertos, or town hall meetings up in the mountains near my site.  Those were fun.. they were held outside both times, and my mayor counterpart spoke about issues facing these areas and what the priorities were while at the same time representatives from different groups and communities had their opportunity to speak as well.  

Cabildo Abierto in San Jose

In San Jose, a new Catastro office will be opening this month so that people can go there to pay taxes instead of going all the way down to the center of town to pay.  I’m working on creating brochures for the offices to raise public awareness about their taxes, the fines and interest they accrue if not paid on time, and the deadlines for paying, in addition to some other transparency things.  Most of the people don’t have any idea about any of this so are unknowingly accumulating a massive amount of debt to pay to the muni.  On another note, in February I’ll start giving computer and English classes to students.  I still have to meet with my School Director counterpart to discuss specifics, but it’s definitely a plan. 

I’ve had the chance to go visit a balneario, or swimming area near site that’s really only accessible by vehicle unless you want to walk a super long way.  There were about 4 different pools of different depths, and even one that looked like a lap pool!  I wish it was a lot closer because I would definitely be swimming some laps there. 

We had our annual E-Zone meeting too and that was fun.  All the PCVs from the North Coast stayed at a hotel and some of us were able to arrive a day before the meeting, and all of us could leave the day after.  I watched “Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows” my first night there and it was AMAZING!  …except for the weird semi-naked scene and a couple other awkward parts.  Can’t wait for the next movie to come out =].  Mostly we hung out at the Applebee’s bar, and for some reason, Applebee’s is considered a super nice restaurant here.  People propose and even get married there.  What the heck!  But anyway, we had our meeting.. then that night some of us headed to a lame bar which was empty.. so we left and went to this nice club that had some other people in it and played awesome music (ie, American club music).  There was a Honduran guy who worked at the hotel we stayed at as a translator (I think?) and we danced and the whole time he was hitting on me and saying that if he kissed me he’d fall in love to which I said NO THANK YOU, but then he replied that one day he’ll be my boyfriend and I’m like, keep dreaming!!  Not all Honduran men are that way of course, but for the most part from what I’ve experienced and my friends have experienced… most of them seem to be =/.  I suppose that in some people’s eyes, it could be a very flattering thing to have men always fawning over you and complimenting and it can be hard to resist if you’re not used to it or if you like the attention.  Just have to be careful I guess.

Videos of Honduras!

 

Grinding Coffee!

Janet's English Class Singing "I Love the Mountains"

Dia Mundial de Lavado de Manos (Global Handwashing Day), children singing, and the puppy under the desk =P

The Rio Grande in Catarranas (Rio Choluteca I believe).. and Celis's little song

Clown at Tio Dolmo's grand-opening in Guaymas

My Embarrassingly Long List of Items I’d Like from the States (updated 1/17/12)

I am no longer living in Honduras so this list is irrelevant now...


Hello!  I've finally had the time to sit down and put together a list of items that I miss and items that would help me over these next 2 years.  That said, I'm in no hurry to receive these things.  I will very gladly take secondhand items.  Also, some things I can probably make myself here, I just have to be a bit creative ;). 


I realize the list is extremely long and certainly don't expect to receive 99.9% of it.  I would be grateful to receive even just a handwritten letter :).  So much more personal and special than e-mail!  Also, please let me know what you plan on shipping so that I can cross if off the list.  I've included links for some items for easier recognition.

Instructions for mailing:

• Remove all price tags, stickers, or any other sign that the item might be new.
  
• Do not write exactly what the box contains (especially if it is expensive).  You can write boring stuff like books or clothes.
  
• Write: "JESUS TE BENDIGA", "JESUS TE AMA" and/or draw crosses on the packages (don't go too crazy though).  People will be less likely to open the package and steal.
  
• Try to use envelopes or padded packages instead of boxes whenever possible.  Boxes are more likely to be broken into.
  
• Try to share shipping costs with other people if you want to combine items.
  
• Use REGULAR mail, not a shipping company like UPS or FedEx.  The companies do deliver here, but they charge a high fee to pick up the package.
  
• Please number the letters/packages you send to make sure that I am receiving everything and nothing has been missed, since it takes 3-4 weeks to arrive here.
  
• Click HERE for USPS Website for mailing guidelines and prices for Honduras.

Mailing Address:
Nancy Hagan
La Municipalidad de El Negrito
El Negrito, Yoro
Honduras, CA
Teléfono: 9880-8900


Requesting:
Personal Care Products (these are all things I use and have/will run out):

• Bed Head's After Party hair styling cream
  
• Mitchum Power Gel deodorant x 4 – Flower Fresh scent ONLY! (Can be found in CVS)
• Clinique Dramatically Different Moisturizing Gel (not lotion) with pump – 4.2 fl oz size
  
• Superfloss
  
• Estée Lauder Perfectly Clean Splash Away Foaming Cleanser for Normal/Combination Skin
  
• Shaving Razors
  
• Anything from Sephora :)

Food Items:

• Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (enormous bag please, they can be the cheap brand from Albertson's!)
  
• Tea – Any tea, looseleaf or teabags.  Favorites are Earl/Lady Grey and English Breakfast, and probably anything from Teavana.
  
• Vitamins – Iron, Vitamin C, Multivitamin, Calcium, B (to be less delicious to mosquitoes)
  
• Spices – Ground Ginger, Nutmeg, Ground Turmeric, Crushed Red Pepper Flakes, Sesame Seeds, Cayenne Pepper, Paprika, Ground Coriander, Ground Cardamom, Ground Marjoram, Indian food spices (including Garam Masala), Asian spices
  
• Sriracha Hot Sauce!!!  The bottle with the green cap.
  
• Health food – Raisins, Granola, Walnuts, Almonds, Flax Seeds, Anything Kashi brand, Trader Joe's, or Whole Foods
  
• Cereal – Grape Nuts, Kashi Go Lean Original, Multi-Grain Cheerios, All-Bran, Honey Bunches of Oats, Smart Start
  
• Pure Vanilla Extract, Mint Extract
  
• Chocolate – namely, M&Ms, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (mini size is better), Kit-Kats, and Butterfinger Crunch.  Nothing else please, I don't really eat other candy, or everything else I can get here.
  
• Gum – "5" brand – Elixir and Cobalt flavors only
  
• Peanut Butter!  Crunchy or Creamy, doesn't matter.  Please no Nutella.  No me gusta.
• Kettle Brand Sea Salt & Vinegar Chips (Blue bag)

 Books/CDs:

• Catch-22, Life of Pi
  
• English Dictionary (not translation)
  
• Educational books about any subject – I love to learn!
  
• Baking/Cooking/Arts & Crafts
  
• Any secondhand children's Spanish books or English books so I can start adding to the library here
  
• Magazines (used are fine!) – travel, home, cooking/baking, women, wedding (no I'm not planning a wedding - although according to all the Hondurans here I'll be married to a Honduran with 2 kids by the time I leave -_- but the pictures are prettttty), fitness
  
• Psychological thrillers, fantasy, willing to try other romance novels even though the one book I read sorely disappointed me (so please, no Danielle Steel).  Some of my favorite books are Harry Potter, Xanth novels, Angels & Demons, The Andromeda Strain, and The Kite Runner just so you have an idea.
  
• CDs/DVDs packed full of movies and TV shows (please ask me since I have a specific list), photos, etc
  
• Educational CD-ROMs about learning Arabic, Burmese, or Mandarin (starting with the basics)

Household Items:

• Thin 3-Hole punch (there are super flat ones that only punch a couple papers at a time but that is good enough)
  
• Swim Goggles (they may be at home in a box – family please let me know if you can find them)
  
• Small erasable whiteboard with dry-erase marker that has magnets to be stuck to the fridge
• Compressed air can to clean my computer (can that even be shipped?)

Fun Stuff:

• Tea lights - I really love the red-colored tea lights from Target, scented like something tropical I think.
  
• Incense (not the ones used in temples) and incense holder (don't want the ashes falling on the table)
  
• Wall Calendars for 2011 and 2012 (of beautiful nature/travel/home scenes - can be found at 99 cent store) – must have some space for me to write events in the date boxes
  
• Items from the 99 cent store that can be used as gifts, arts & crafts, or useful items in general for the house
  
• Exercise elastic stretch band

Expensive Items:

• A new camera. 

9x-7i>3(3x-7u), solve for i

Any takers?

=]

Stolen from my little's status in FB.

Teaching English

Oct. 13^th – 15^th, 2010

Since I will be teaching English and have no idea where to even begin, I requested project-related travel to another site to observe how another PCV is giving her classes, and to obtain some materials. I was gone for two nights, arriving on Wednesday and returning to my site Friday. Wednesday Janet and I made a delicious tuna fish salad with toast and melted cheese, and she showed me the plants she had been growing during her service here. She had oregano, cherry tomatoes, lemon grass, celery, coffee, basil, and sunflowers. Later in the afternoon we headed over to the school to prepare for class. She gives class from 3 – 5 pm Wednesdays and Thursdays to groups of about 20 adults who will teach their own groups of students, and has English game night also, once a week from 6 – 8 pm. What I learned most was to keep the class interactive and have fun because that keeps people interested and wanting to participate. Just standing in front of class lecturing or treating the students like children can create an uncomfortable boundary between the teacher and the students and doesn't seem to foster a successful learning environment. She had students come to the front of class to present to the rest a grammar activity they had prepared, other students presented to smaller groups around the class, they sang, they did dialogues, quizzes, and other fun activities.

Thursday morning we hiked about 2 and a half hours to an aldea up in a mountain to visit a Kindergarten class. The hike was beautiful. We passed corn fields, coffee plots, banana trees, rivers, parts of the trail that had been affected by mudslides, and we had to cross one river walking over some trunks of a tree.


 A couple ladies from the school came down the trail a ways to meet us and help carry our bags up the mountain. When we arrived, the children were already waiting, looking excited to have guests. We took a look at the small room that housed all their school materials and artwork, and also saw the small adorable chairs that were made out of wood and leather for the children to sit on.
 They didn't have chairs before and as plastic was too expensive, they used local resources to construct these chairs. It was suggested that in the future, the people of the aldea continue making chairs like these of whatever size as a business.
 We sat outside and the teachers gave us a generous helping of a banana and ciruelas. Ciruela is the word for plum, but it is completely different from what we have in the states. They taste like deliciously tart mangos.
 They then brought out plastic bags full of even more bananas and ciruelas - one bag for each of us! After snacking for a bit, we used felt hand puppets to tell the story of "The Three Little Pigs" then we switched it up and had the kids use the hand puppets to tell the story. There was a lot of blowing involved as we tried to blow all the houses down, and we asked several questions to see if they remembered what had happened in the story and which house was best to live in. They laughed a lot and seemed to really enjoy themselves :).
 We were only there for about an hour then left back down the hill, going down another way which saved us a lot of time, but which we would not have liked to climb up.


Janet and I had a lunch of banana pancakes and eggs, using the bananas we had just received. Then we headed back to school for another English class, then after that, prepared for English game night at her house. I baked banana cookies and she made popcorn.
 We had Scrabble, Scrabble Slam (in my opinion, a lot more fun than Scrabble), Boggle, and Monopoly set out on two tables. A good group of students showed up and started playing Scrabble Slam first, and then we switched to playing Monopoly. One guy had the misfortune of being sent to jail probably at least 4 times >_<. It was a fun night.
 After everyone left, I got to packing and Janet was extremely generous in giving things away! She is leaving site soon and thus is trying to get rid of stuff. She gave me several books, an external CD Drive since my Netbook doesn't have a disc drive, a big long plastic box filled with teaching English materials, another box with placemats, and other goodies, ground cinnamon (hard to find here! The most common form of cinnamon is the bark), Queen size fitted sheet and regular sheet, plastic containers, empty wine bottles to use for putting flour, sugar, whatever, and will give me her speakers when I go back to visit. It really was a great trip overall and her site, while small, is very beautiful and I enjoyed talking with her students and seeing that they were self-motivated and determined to learn.

ArcGIS Training and Karaoke!

Right now I'm working in the Catastro office (equivalent to Cadastre in the states?) because they need people to help get it organized by the end of the year. I'm not quite sure of the whole story, but I think they had an old office that was very disorganized and so wasn't recognized by the government as official. Now they're working to organize everything and have even brought in several high school students working sort of like interns, but I'm pretty sure they get school credit. Because I can type super fast and can pick up on things quickly, like how to use computer programs, they enlisted my help and are going to have me train other people. I'm also helping to input some information into ArcGIS, one of the computer databases.


I woke up bright and early at 5:30 one Friday to get ready to head to an aldea about an hour and a half from here for training. My municipality is super large and extends even as far as that aldea, which surprises me. I walked to the Alcaldia only to find that it was locked and nobody had arrived yet, so the cleaning people let me in and I sat and read my book (The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, already done with it!) and listened to music for half an hour until the trainer called and said he was outside. Got into the truck with him and one of the other guys that works in the Catastro office and we headed off. We passed through one of the larger cities and they went through the drive-through at Burger King (which is like a treat here) and they got me coffee and a small croissant sandwich even though I had said I already ate breakfast, but they insisted! People here are really nice when they invite you to places =]. We finally arrived at the aldea, which also has a Catastro office that is smaller and in worse condition than ours. There were four guys there who were going to be trained. I sat in on the training and learned how to fill out a form called a ficha, which people use to collect information on residential buildings, empty lots, and other pieces of real estate to calculate taxes. The office already had forms filled out for certain areas but we were making new ones based off the old information because this needs to be done every 5 years. We filled several of the fichas out and I also received some training in ArcGIS. Even though the offices here have the program, it doesn't necessarily mean that they understand how to use it and even if they have a general idea, the areas they map out aren't accurate. They don't seem to care about the incorrect numbers anyway. The main thing I guess is to have the areas plotted and the information relating to each in the system.


The guys ended up treating me to lunch as well at Tio Dolmo, which is a pretty decent restaurant. The set up is kind of like you choose whatever you want to eat and they put it on your plate but every food item has its own cost. After being in the aldea all day, we headed back to my site and the two stopped by a gas station to buy beer. They drove back drinking and blasting music and singing and I was just like ohhhh great. Please don't let us get into an accident >_<. This one song called "Chupa tu Paleta" came on and it was pretty much the Spanish version of Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop". Translated, it means "suck your lollipop" (paleta could also mean popsicle or ice-cream). I thought that was pretty funny. Then I got a text from Amanda that she had just passed a pulperia called "Hung Wang". Anyway, the guys and I went to a karaoke bar/restaurant, had dinner, and I taught them how to play Texas Hold 'Em. They picked up pretty quickly but I think it's because they already had an idea of how to play a different kind of poker. They then taught me 31, which is pretty much exactly like Black Jack except you try to get 31 instead of 21. We headed upstairs to the large karaoke room and it was empty except for us, so we put on some songs and took turns singing. I didn't know any of the Spanish songs that they had, and the ones that I wanted were too new so I ended up only singing American songs. A couple other groups trickled in and started singing as well. I was surprised myself that I didn't mind singing in front of other people, because I am super shy when it comes to that, but I figured these are all people I don't know and they didn't know that I used to not sing in public sooooo why not, give it a shot. It was kind of fun too.

Training in the other Catastro office

That was the end of a good Friday and I got to know a couple people I work with better. The karaoke place is super nice too. It's free to sing as long as someone at your table orders something, be it a drink or whatever. I can't wait to have visitors!




 

Threadless!

Edit//  I received credit for purchases, so whoever bought, thank you!!!! =)


Completely unrelated to Peace Corps, but one of my favorite T-Shirt sites is having a sale!  This website is where anyone can submit their design for a t-shirt, and it gets voted on and scored.  The ones with the highest rankings become official t-shirt designs and are printed.  Most shirts use American Apparel tees, which are 100% cotton and oh so comfortable.  I have probably close to 20 t-shirts from Threadless!


The only reason I'm plugging the site is because I have a street team link.  If you buy through my link, I'll get a $3 credit for every purchase (ie, transaction. not every shirt that's bought).  Help a PCV out!  Hahaha =D


Thanks and happy shopping!
Link: http://www.threadless.com/?from=indulge_intc