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Published: February 18th 2007
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the bus ride
there's plenty of room for everyone. No one is ever turned away! Over the last couple weeks I´ve learned about some of the traditional foods of the people of Nicaragua. Last Sat I went to the market with Yamilet´s mother, names Auxy. You can buy just about anything at several of the large markets in the Managua area. This one was in Masaya, a town outside of Managua, generally close to the project and where I am living. As you can imagine people are cooking and selling food everywhere. Including in the buses! While a bus is waiting for people to enter at a bus stop 3 or 4 people will walk through the bus selling water, pastries, fruit, small plates of meats, and special healing lotions and creams. So Auxy pointed out where they were cooking a meal called Baho. She asked me if I liked Baho. She could tell that it wasn´t something familiar to me, and from my looks I wasn´t too interested in trying it now. So we shopped for some souveneirs, and did a little "window" shopping. It was getting close to lunch time and I thought it would be nice to treat her for lunch. We stopped at a little outside cafe in the market. They were
There's room on the top
This is no longer legal, but..
sometimes people have to get places. serving Baho, so I decided to take the plunge. We split a plate, and it was pretty good! It consists of grilled beef (pretty tough), green platanos, ripe platanos, and yuca. On top is shredded cabbage, kind of like a coleslaw without the dressing.
For Valentine´s day the school director wanted to have a special meal for the kids. The school is set up like a coop. Although this Christian school is part of Chacocente, other neighboring kids come to school there as well. It´s good. It makes the classes larger. The parents of the kids take on rotating responsibilities of cleaning the classrooms each morning (as the dust is horrible there, and it really needs it), cooking the lunch meal for the kids, and doing the clean up after lunch. I was asked if I would want to make a "donation" towards the beef needed for the Baho he wanted prepared for the special meal. In the meantime, in my meeting with the adults I had suggested we have a family cena (dinner) and play games on Valentines Day since I couldn´t be with my Valentine, Eric. I was planning on spending the night on the project with
There's room for the goods
Maybe it's what you will be selling, maybe what you've bought, or maybe it's your other form of transportation such as a bike! Brenda and my two American friends. Another meal I had heard about, but had not tasted, is called "Indio Viejo." I had suggested we cook that.
So without realizing it, both meals are landing on Valentines day, one for lunch and the other for dinner. Seems like a bit of over kill, but oh well. On Wed I have a fantastic experience going back to the Masaya market with Doña Manuela, one of the older women at the project. I think she is about 44, has about 7 children, the youngest is about 6 and the oldest is 23, married and has 4 girls herself. Doña Manuela really knows how to work this market. We go in with a list. She has special booths she likes to shop at, and she has friends who have booths where we can leave some of our purchased goods while we look for more. She knows what she is looking for and what looks good, and what doesn´t look so good. I´m following her around with my camera taking pictures, video and chatting with the locals. What fun! She only almost lost me once! In the end, we bought 15 lbs of beef
This driver is getting comfortable
I found this as acceptable amongst the men...not just the bus drivers. After all, it's hot! and 10 lbs of gordura (that would be really fatty meat for the taste--don´t go there!) for the Baho and 10 lbs of beef for the Indio Viejo. We also purchased 15 lbs of special masa called maseca, tomatoes, onions, oranges, tamarinos, chiles, achiote (a red powder) and a few other items for both meals. My donation for the meals turned up to total $1047.50 Cordoba, about $60 American dollars. Not bad for the numbers we would be feeding, something like 45 children and adults for both meals. We split the cost of a cab to get back to the project--about $2.50 (American dollars) each. Thank God. I would not enjoy that bus ride!
As it turns out, Cherito is bringing in another delegation of Americans (about 15) to come visit, learn about the project, and they are bringing fried chicken, french fries and soda for all! Hmmm, who knew about that? One of those communication break downs. So we had lunch from 11:30-1 (different shifts), and they show up with their lunch around 2! I´m thinking, how will people be able to eat again. NO PROBLEMS. They line up and are ready to eat more!
Fortunately we had only boiled the meat for the Indio Viejo, so we decided not to make that meal for our special valentines meal. Do you wonder how did we store this meat in this hot dusty environment? I know I did! There´s a little "pulperia" shop near by, and for a few cordoba they kept the meat in their refridgerator.
So our Valentines Day plans changed pretty significantly. There was no reason for the families to hang out in the school area in the late afternoon as we were not fixing a meal. No one to play games with. I was disappointed. However, a few of the adult ladies had wanted to dance, so Esperanze brought her family´s boom box and speakers to the Casona (the general office, storage area, etc near the school where I also spend the night) and we end up having a pretty fun dance with most families. They come back after fixing their own dinners. While the women and children danced to Nica music (and maybe a few of the men, and Fito), the other boys got together to show off their break dancing to each other. Pretty much like the states!
The day and evening turned out pretty good. I helped to prepare the Baho on Valentines Day, as well as Indio Viejo on the day after. It was better to split up these two meals, anyway. I´ve got it well documented with pictures and video!
Additionally, last Sunday I went to Catarina with Brenda and her Mom to visit family. This is a pretty little town on the way to Granada that has cooler weather, no dust, lots of flowers, and has a picturesque view (mirador) of the Masaya Volcano and a Lagoon created by the volcano. We brought meat and vegetables with us as a surprise, and I helped to create that meal too. It was a beautiful change of environment. I don´t know why they don´t go there every weekend. Had I know about it earlier, I may have planned that myself. Oh well next time.
Watch out gourmet group. We´ve got some cooking to do!
I hope Valentines Day was good for everyone back in the states, too.
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