What's cookin' good lookin'

Last Saturday I cooked chilate and nuegalos with the woman's group in my site. Chilate is a corn based drink and nuegalos are like deep fried yucca puffs with honey. Everything turned out delicious and now I know how to make something new for you all when I get back to Chicago!

Prep work: cutting up yucca so we can mix it with fresh corn kernels to make the 'mash." 

So much yucca!

Mixin' the yucca shavings with the corn. 

Adding fresh cheese into the mix. 

Squishing it all together. 

Carrying the yucca/corn/cheese mix on my head in the salvadorena way. On to the molino!

Pouring in the mix to make mash. 

Everyone in town pays a couple bucks to use this molino. It's the cleanest one I've seen here!

We made a ton of mash!

Deep fry that mash!

just to give you an idea of how much smoke there was in the kitchen. Respiratory infections are common among women here. 

Stirring the chilate.

Raw and fried nuegalos. 

Pour in some honey, and presto! 

I forgot to take a picture of the chilate, and I also forgot to taste it. My host mom was so excited I brought home chilate that I gave her the bag!

Celebrate!

Congratulations y'all, my blog hit 5,000 page views!

Thanks for following my great adventure :)

I almost forgot!

Did I ever tell you about the time THE Rosario Dawson gave me some words of wisdom?

Thanks, Christi :)

NYE 2014

I love New Years. I always have. I love getting dressed up and spending outrageous amount of money, because duh, it's the last sheebang of the year and the first of the new! You gotta bring it in right!

I decided to spend NYE with my host family because my host sister's birthday is on December 31. I honestly didn't have high expectations what with the lack of Christmas celebrations. But everyone kept talking about how fun NYE is, so I let myself get a little excited.

We had the whole family over for some fun. We spent the first 3 hours in darkness because, apparently, they turn the electricity off every year so homemade fireworks don't explode the lines? Something like that. We played dinamicas (short ice breaker type games) and destroyed two pinatas. After the pinatas, around 11pm, everyone moved to another family's house. I counted down the new year with my immediate host family and watch Wil shoot off some fireworks.

I got to call home for a few minutes after the new year. It felt good to hear my family. Luckily, Chicago and El Salvador brought in the New Year at the same time!

Our homemade pinatas.

Tamales, of course.

Some of the family after a dinamica.

Poor Santa. I thought we didn't celebrate Christmas?!

They really wanted the gringa to participate.

I broke it.

Mad rush!

I did it!

Me and my host sisters. Who's from the conservative culture?

Belky and Aysel, who stuffed all her candy in her shirt.

My cute old host parents.

The fam.

One picture Salvadorena.

One picture Americana.

Everyone wanted to take pics with me.

My Aysel!

Waterfall

I have a bad case of FOMO. Instead of trolling the interwebs, I fear of missing out on great cultural experiences because I'm scared for my well being or listening to common sense.

So that's why I decided to climb up the waterfall. You might recall my first trip up the mountain. It's a favorite hike among young people in my community.

Once I saw my host sisters climbing the ledge of the waterfall, I knew I had to do it too. Luckily I didn't fall or crack my head open!

Safe on the ground.

Oh, it's on.

Getting wet!

Ever so carefully...

I DID IT!

One foot! Because I like danger!

Uh, how do I get back down now?

So much fun!

Christmas 2013

Hi everyone! I know this is a bit late, but I'm running on hora Salvadorena. Christmas in El Salvador was an interesting experience. Whereas for Thanksgiving I escaped to a magical Americana bubble, I was compelled to spend la navidad in the spirit of my host country. That being said- nearly everything was different. I'll try to recap. 

If you were to pass by my house in the month of December you wouldn't notice anything special to indicate the upcoming holiday. No Christmas tree, stockings, cookies, ornaments, classic Christmas music, favorite Christmas movies. Definitely nothing that alludes to Santa. No snow, no hot chocolate, no xmas anything.

Honestly, it was a little depressing. My mom owns way more ornaments than any household should have a right to and hanging them all up can be a pain, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss them terribly. I missed my dad's fresh bread in the morning and the fires he'd make for the family during movie nights. I missed my grandma's cookie jar and Christmas sweaters. I even missed my kid sister's Justin Bieber cut out wearing a Santa hat.

My host family doesn't celebrate Christmas in any way due to their religion. Well, most families here don't celebrate Christmas the way we think of it in America but my host fam most definitely abstains from any celebrating. I tried avoiding a major homesickness melt down by spending Christmas with my PCV friend Maria in her host site.

We had each other to balance out homesickness and... disappointment? Longing? Whatever it was that cast a gloom over our first Christmas away from family. We made the most of our navidad and I have some good memories. Maria's host family is kind and generous, and welcomed me into their home.

We went to the annual "giving of the crappy plastic toys" sponsored by the mayor's office. These are typically the only toys kids get for Christmas. The event usually includes a male and female pinata and refreshments. I attended my toy event the week before Christmas and noticed how much it differed from Maria's. Her entire municipality has about the same amount of kids as my canton, so our experiences where different.

The male pinata in San Fernando. The kids ate crackers and juice as a clown gave out dolls and trucks.

The female line in my canton. The males were whacking the pinata.

I was asked to help give out toys by the new Alcalde. Of course, I said yes.

The toys I gave out to the boys. They got a little ice cream cone, too. They had to put their finger in inc as they left the assembly line so no one got two crappy plastic toys. 

I went to Catholic mass... for a while. Grandma would be proud!

Some of Maria's friends from site. We went to a dance and only me and Maria were dancing!

 Maria's host mom's birthday is on December 25. We celebrated her birth by going to La Margaritas, which is not a margarita bar but a pool and restaurant near Perquin. We got lunch and some yummy papaya liquados instead of swimming.

Merry Christmas! 

 We watched Elf at night and reflected on how no part of that movie would make sense to a Salvadoran. We took turns calling home and hearing about all the good food and fun our families were having without us. Boo. And because Maria's my awesome friend, we went to sleep after some silent Game of Thrones reading.

There you have it, folks. That was Christmas 2013. I had a good time in all, but I'm looking forward to being home next Christmas.

Long time, no see

HELLO! I'm sorry, but this won't be a triumphant return post. I've been bouncing around northern Morazan, going to end-of-year meetings, lacking internet, and I've been fairly sick. So, I'm sorry I've been neglecting my blog. But here's a promise of the posts I have to come:

• Climbing the waterfall
• Christmas in San Fernando
• New Years 2014

Hmmm that's actually a pretty short list. I think I can knock those out by the end of the week! If I get some reliable internet first. 

Well, this IS my first post of 2014. I'll be living this whole year abroad, from January 1 to December 31 (and beyond, but let's just focus on 2014 now). I'm excited because I know after a whole year in site I'll have projects going and my spanish will be awesome and everything will be a little more scheduled. Scheduling is goooood, it makes the time go by faster. 

This past year was pretty interesting. It went by so fast! I can't even believe I was struggling thought grad school this time last year and now I'm still struggling to write my capstone, but now I'm writing under a mosquito net. In January of last year I didn't even know where Peace Corps was going to send me. I'm happy they sent me to the little thumb of central america. I've met great new people, Volunteers, staff and host country nationals alike. They're what make this process worthwhile. 

I'm excited for 2014. I think it's going to be a year I'll never forget!