Oreo Cake and Witches

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Mixing up Oreo cake

The finished product

As a reward for our last day of Spanish class, we combined with another class to cook hamburgers and dessert in order to use our Spanish commands and other cool phrases we have learned over the last seven weeks of FBT. Making American food in Honduras is not that easy and making dessert here is super hard b/c mostly people just walk into a store and buy packs of cookies or go for palettas or chocobananas. So, when our group set out to make hamburgers and brownies it went something like this… ask our facilitator who is our “go to” guy for errands to head to Teguz and seek out two pounds of meat for less than 100 Lempiras, along with some cheddar cheese (an impossible feat here), tomatoes, lettuce, onions, ingredients to make “secret sauce” and some brownie mix. God Bless him, he came back with everything but hamburger buns and brownies. This is where Evan and I come in. At 9:45 AM our Spanish teacher sends us out in the little town of Cantarannas to find brownie mix and hamburger buns. Now, we have been living in this town for seven weeks and I have yet to see either of these items. So, either she has AWESOME faith in our Spanish abilities or she has AWESOME faith in the small pulperias hanging about. Primero, we head to the store owned by my host aunt, b/c they are the largest in town and if they don’t have it no one else is either. They don’t have it. But, they do have boxes of cake which we decide we will come back for if all else fails. They also don’t have hamburger buns. So, so far we are doing a crappy job with our new Spanish skills. Next, we seek out three other tiendas who all look at us like we are dumb/crazy/idiotic/lost in Honduras Gringos and “what the hell are brownies” asks one lady in her most polite Spanish. Whatever, we go back to the first pulperia where we ask my host aunt if she sells frosting for the cake and she asks us what frosting is. Yeah…this is going well. We ask if she sells any sort of round bread. Again, no. So, we leave (again) and go to the Eskimo ice cream shop where they don’t have bread either. Then, we go back to my aunt’s tienda and buy regular bread and figure our hamburgers will be patty melts; we do not buy the cake. We go back to Spanish class where the hamburgers are almost done by this point and tell our teacher that we only got bread and she doesn’t understand that Americans eat patty melts. It doesn’t look anything like McDonald’s and what do you mean you didn’t get brownies either. I can see the failure in her eyes. She sends us back out. We go BACK to my aunt’s pulperia where we just go ahead and buy the cake mix box, then go to the Eskimo ice cream shop and buy two packs of Oreos to crush up for the top. People will eat it, I decide. After reading the box in the middle of the street, we realize we need eggs and Evan refuses to go back to the store with me. Which means I have to head BACK to my aunt’s pulperia and buy two eggs. After leaving with my purchase I am ecstatic that I am leaving this town tomorrow b/c after this shopping spree I can never show my face anywhere again. It is now 10:45 AM. The trip has taken an hour and there are only eight blocks in town. Cheque?

Back at the house there are only three more hamburgers to cook when we start up the stove. Then, the stove blows a fuse and nothing works. The owner of the house is gone, which means that we have cake mix and raw hamburgers and five starving students. This is getting better. By the time we figure out we can not use the stove and the burners at the same time it is 11:00 and we only have 30 minutes for the cake to cook…it needs 37. Whatever, we throw it in anyway and after devouring the burgers the Oreo and vanilla mix is a hit with our teachers. So, although our trip into town might not have been a success, the end product surely was.

Prepping my secret sauce

Deliciousness is called hamburgers with cheddar cheese

Me and Evan several hours later

Obviously we are cool

Later in the afternoon we headed out to a sugarcane factory near town. Upon our arrival, we were stopped at the gate by a guard with a gun (not an uncommon site in Honduras) who needed all of our names written on a piece of notebook paper. I really love how everything is so “official” here. Afterwards, he issued us all red hard hats and protective glasses so that we could go on the tour, which began with a long video about how the factory worked. Then, we divided up into two groups and got a very cool behind the scenes tour of how sugarcane is produced and processed at the factory, how all the machines work, etc, etc. Anyone who has ever been on a tour knows reading about it is quite boring, so I will just put a lot of pictures.

Sugarcane Factory

I am so cool

This is where the water and sugar come together

Something else happens here..but I forgot..sorry!

Dangerous chemicals coming into play

Friday, September 3, 2010

LAST DAY OF FBT! Woo Hoo! Super excited to be heading to Orocuina next week and with each day I find out a little bit more about my new city. Like, how it is known for brujos (or witches), although no one seems to know exactly why… I will be sure to find out more about this situation. It also sounds like there is continued room for my Spanish to improve as I’ll be living with a lady for two months that likes to correct people when their Spanish is wrong, also she owns a restaurant so maybe I can just go talk to people when I need to practice! There is also another girl in town working with another NGO who seems very nice and around my age so I am looking forward to meeting her next week! I have already spoke with the volunteer who is there now (although he is leaving one week after my arrival) and he has given me some great information, so I can’t wait to get to site and dive in to work. As for today, my big boss came from Teguz and got a little bit of history regarding what we have been doing the last seven weeks. We made her a slideshow of photos from everything and talked while they rolled on the projector. She seemed to like it, I think, and hopefully it gave her a better understanding of what we have been doing. Afterwards, we received our FINAL FBT presentation of recycling management here in Honduras and what we can do to make it better. It was interesting, b/c I have a lot of ideas about how to implement recycling in my community, but it is so difficult, b/c people here just throw their trash on the side of the road. They think recycling is for the poor people who need money for cans/bottles, so the first step is in changing their mindset.

Later, I finished packing all of my stuff and hung out with my family for the last time. My mom gave me a rosary and told me it would be useful when I go to church in Orocuina… so that was interesting, since I’m not Catholic and haven’t been to church with her except for the time she took communion and they wouldn’t let me in. She also told me it would protect me from the witches in Orocuina… so, um yeah…. I need to find out more about this story.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Being fingerprinted at immigration for my residency card

Adios, Cantarannas. Thanks for the memories, but I probably won’t be riding a chicken bus back anytime soon. I swapped phone numbers with my friend Elizabeth (the owner of the Eskimo shop) and we have plans to meet up in Teguz for shopping and she is coming to visit in Orocuina, but after hauling all my stuff down to the bus, I was really excited to head into Teguz and the immigration office. We met up with the youth development trainees and together with 150+ bags of luggage, we took our bus into Teguz where we were over one hour late. Once there, we received our applications, and were non-promptly fingerprinted, had our photos taken, and some three hours later let go to the Pizza Hut. It was awesome to see all my friends from the other two groups and I was very jealous that the PAM’ers got to spend most of their time outdoors camping and hiking during FBT, but I still like my job of writing legislation and fighting the good fight. Once at Pizza Hut a large group of us attracted a lot of attention by being gringos, but that didn’t matter as soon as the pizza got to the table. Delicioso! The free wi-fi didn’t hurt either and once we got dessert of Frosty’s at Wendy’s everyone was completely satisfied.

At immigration getting my residency card

When the bus finally pulled out to take us back to Los Planes I was so excited to see Rosa and Gustavo again! After hauling two backpacks, one rolley-bag, and one laptop back down the muddy road, I finally made it up the hill to their house where they were waiting with open arms. I dropped my bags right away and immediately noticed how clean my room was and I thought I was at the Hilton. It was so beautiful; I took a SHOWER with hot water! I remembered how I used to take only three minute showers here, but tonight I took a ten minute shower and it was like heaven after seven weeks of bucket baths. Then, I talked to Rosa and Gustavo for two hours about everything I hadn’t told them in the last three weeks (I came for a visit during FBT) and finally went to bed early at 8:00 PM where I slept for 11 hours. My body was drained after the last few days.

Sunday, September 05, 2010

This morning I woke up and Rosa had French toast with homemade guayava jelly. She is the only person I know in Honduras that knows how to make French toast. While catching up over breakfast, I took out my computer and showed her all the pictures from FBT. She really liked the La Tigra and Easter egg hunt photos and in one day I can tell my Spanish is improving here. In the afternoon, I took off to Valle de Angeles where I sought out new shoes for the swearing in ceremony Friday at the embassy. (God willing I pass my final Spanish interview and don’t get put on probation). Valle is a small town, mainly popular with tourists going in/out of La Tigra. So, they’re not exactly known for their shoes. When I finally found some they were really flip flops with flowers on them, but they would have to do, this is Honduras not New York City.
When I got back home tonight I was sitting around after dinner talking with Rosa and Gustavo when they started talking about brujos again. The whole conversation was fixated on how these brujos are going to come in my house in Orocuina and get me! Also, Gustavo said they are in the church, too…then he told me some story about how his friend was sleeping and heard a brujo come in at night and walk through his house. Then, Rosa said she thinks it was a cat. But, then Rosa asked if we had any famous brujos in the States so I told them about the Salem Witch Trials, which they seemed to like; then, we started talking about ghosts and they told me there are a bunch of those around, too. So, I have not yet decided whether or not to be scared as hell in Orocuina or just really on guard. Because, then Gustavo told me there are brujos here in a little city near their house and I asked if they were friends with my witches in Orocuina and he said yes…that they would fly to my house and visit. If you don’t hear from me, please send Toto and Dorothy.