Week 6: Mellow Amarillo

Last week was pretty mellow, relatively speaking. Over the weekend some folks went to Antigua, some to Lago de Atitlan, some to the beach, but I opted to stay in Xela and study at my favorite coffee shops. It is hard to quantify how much I "got done", since what I really need to improve on is my familiarity with verb tenses and ability to access vocabulary, but I did find it easier to chat with my teacher on Monday morning, so there was some form of progress.

Earlier in the week a couple things happened worth sharing. On Wednesday a group of us went up to Tierra Colorada, a pueblo about 20 minutes up into the mountains by chicken bus, to finish up a stove. Previously when I've volunteered for the stove project the original cooking apparatus had been removed, but this time the "after" was right next to the "before". Here's the before:



And here's the after:



Pretty amazing, no? The change was made all the more poignant because the family happened to be boiling corn while we were finishing up the new stove in the other corner of the kitchen, and the smoke from the fire pit covered the top foot of the kitchen ceiling. This wasn't too much of a problem if you were pushing five feet (a common height for folks living in the mountains), but if you happened to be any taller your head was stuck in it. The cough and burning eyes the smoke imparted was expected, but what was surprising was the almost irrepressible urge to drop to my hands and knees and crawl to the nearest exit. If there had actually been a door at the exit I'm sure I would've tapped on the doorknob to see if it was hot before grabbing it, too. Thank you, Safety Town.

On Friday my maestro and I and a few other folks went to San Francisco el Alto to wander around the weekly market there. The city is smallish and very hilly, but several times a week all of the streets become filled with people vending anything from baby dresses to goats to empanadas to earrings. I didn't need to buy anything, so I just took pictures. My favorite area was an open space at the top of the tallest hill in the city, where the animal market was.



At first glance it seemed like a mosh of folks slowly strolling around with animals on twine leashes, but after a bit you noticed the constant price-calling, eye-balling, and exchanging of Quetzales and handles of leashes. It was kind of exciting to watch, except I felt bad for the poor animals.



At one point I asked how much a little piglet was going for. Without bartering, and probably getting heavily taxed for being a gringa, the lady told me Q350, about $43. If you're a hard bargainer you can usually get half of their initial offer, so now I know where to go if I ever need a piglet on the cheap :)

Tomorrow a group of us are cooking dinner at the school. I, of course, am in charge of one half of the dessert. I say "one half" because for the last three weeks of dinner there hasn't been a dessert (for shame!), so we've decided to make two desserts in an attempt to satisfy the dessert gods. I'll be making chocobananas, i.e., a banana on a stick dipped in chocolate and rolled in nuts. Yum.

And, still no chinche bites! :D