Tortillarific!

This weekend, we had both Saturday and Sunday off.  It’s the first “real” weekend I’ve had since I’ve been in country.  Yesterday, Linnea and I went with my host mom to her sister’s house to learn how to make tortillas.  It was another “gringo” moment.  The women who work there could make about ten perfectly round, flat tortillas in the time Linnea and I could each make one ugly, oblong tortilla, most likely with a hole in the middle of it.  After a while, I started to get the hang of it, and made a couple of nice looking tortillas, however I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tortillear like those women.

Linnea and I, Getting Schooled in Tortilla Making

After our lesson, I returned home to eat lunch with my own hand-made tortillas, which, however ugly, were still just as tasty as normal tortillas.  After lunch, I baked one of my favorites: coffee cake.  It was well received… at least I think it was, since, as soon as it was cool enough to eat, it quickly disappeared.  I did manage to sneak a couple of pieces into a Ziploc bag for later consumption.  Then I had time to go for a run before the whole family came over to use the temascal.  I bathed with my host sister Sheny, which was nice because I got some time to learn about her family and tell her about my life in the states.  My family’s temascal is at our “other” house, where the dog, 2 cows, and some chickens live.  Since we were all down there to bathe, my host sisters built a fire and started cooking carne asada next to the temascal, and we ended up staying down there and eating dinner together outside.  It was a really nice evening.

Today, Linnea, Brady, Elizabeth and I went on an outing to Chimaltenango.  My family owns camionetas that go from our town to Chimal, so we went on one of “my” buses and spent a couple hours exploring the market, going to the mall, and eating Pollo Campero (yummy fast food… like a good version of KFC).  We returned home around 12:30 because we have a lot of homework due this week.  On my walk home, I saw that the tailor was open, and I stopped in to ask if he could fix something for me.  He said yes, so I ran home to grab a dress that my friend gave to me.  The dress is too big, so I brought it in hoping  that he could take in the sides, under the arms.  I expected to leave it and pick it up during the week.  Instead, he did the alterations while I waited, which took no more than ten minutes.  Even better, the price was 5Q (66 cents)!  I spent the rest of the afternoon doing homework.

Next week, we leave on Wednesday for IDA (individual directed activity).  For security purposes, I can’t say exactly where I’m going, however I’ll be in the department of Huehuetenango, in the far northwest of the country.  It will probably take us 5-6 hours to get there on the bus.  I’m going with one of my friends from my training group to visit a volunteer who arrived in country exactly a year before us.  We’ll go to work with her, and spend time learning what life is really like for a volunteer.  I’m super excited for my first “big” trip in Guatemala!