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Published: August 27th 2012
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Today I moved to new residence (una casa nueva). It is not that I am a sissy who couldn´t handle the trek home every day (although it was not handled without profane mutterings at times), it was that I did not feel safe. The walk or a.k.a hike was a dark one into the mountains and since my blond hair stuck out like a beacon in the night, I never felt very comfortable walking it alone. Not to mention there were some unsavory characters in the area and let us not forget the snakes. I realized the walk home occupied my thoughts daily and were a big part of my stomach issues so I requested change an am now closer to downtown .Being closer affords me the opportunity to enjoy the town in the evening.
My new host family consists of a mother and her son. She, Olga, is known for her cooking around town. Without the exercise of the hill every day I may be in trouble as each meal has been like Thanksgiving dinner. Upon my arrival i talked to my mother about my intestinal war with rice. She nodded in understanding. Ignorantly, I thought the warning would
eliminate all starches and carbs on my plate but it actually has increased the volume of other starchs from mashed potatoes to yucca and even panckaes and tortillas. And of course the never ending supply of bananas. Aside from th starch there is the meat. The meat in Panama is d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s but meat or carne in Spanish can be any part of any animal so one must be specific when ordering or inquire in advance. Pig is quite popular but again you should ask from what part on the pig the meat originates if you care or simply not inquire at all.
Sometimes when we are out to dinner we play "guess the carne" but ee almost are never brave enough to want to know. I have just been eating what is laid in frot of me and kind of hoping for the best. I did ask for less pork at dinner recently, due to the salt content. So what do you think is the obvious back up meat for Pork?? SPAM! That is right boys and girls and SPAM comes in 7 different flavors here in Panama so you can have a different one each night. Mmmmmmmm.. Not!
In an effort to find a happy medium for meal at my house, I am quickly learning the words for food. This morning as requsted my host mother made me only coffee then paraded me into the kitchen to show me the buffet style breakfast she was making or her son and sarcastically said to me " Looks good right?? "Well Tasha no want so Tasha no get" then she chortled afterwards.
Today my laziness backfired at the library. I was using the computer and did not know you had to sign in first. A woman came by and asked me something in Spanish which I did not quite understand. Getting the jist of her inquiry bu too tired get out my dictionary, I asked if she spoke English. When she shook her head no, I then explained to her, unbenownst to me, in perfect Spanish "that I did not speak Spanish and that I was learning it at the school up the road and maybe she could excuse my not understanding her and not speakinfg her language". I swear to God I thought I was speaking in English to her. The woman next to me
says,"why you say you dont speak Spanish when you speak Spanish?" I skulked away embarrassed but laughing. I guess I do know a little more that I thought.
This afternoon we ent to another student home to learn how to make Panamanian style Tortillas and carne empanadas from scratch. Six of us trudged in the pouring rain to her house to learn. The host mother´s named is Maria, she is the sweetest and jovial woman. She lived for 1 year in Miami but returned to Panama to care for her ageing parents. She speaks some english which was helpful since none of us are chefs by any means.
For the emapandas, we manually ground two different kinds of corn that had soaked over night then hand rolled the dough. The grinding looked easy but all of us fatigued quickly and Maria had to step in an show us how it was done. For their holidays, they make over 25 punds of dough this way. We only made 5 and quite frankly you could have fed the entire street with the end product.
Maria has 13 siblings (thus the reason for 25 pounds of dough). Her and her
parents are well in their late 90s. The father, who refused to eat the food we had made because they looked nothing like Panamanian fare, told us he had kept his wife pregnant becaue she was a beautiful woman and hewas worried other men might try to take her away.
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