Day in the Kitchen

Yesterday, I spent the large majority of my time in the kitchen. As in the entire day. I felt very much like a B-list PD, as Dunc would say.

After making an early morning venta run at 8am to get the necessary ingredients for the day's endeavor, I grabbed my computer, speakers, cell phone and ipod and set up shop. Today (Wednesday) is the day of our Apoyo Escolar parent's party, a meet-and-greet-and-hang-and-eat with all the families of our Apoyo Escolar students. Seeing as how we now have 25 students enrolled in our course, chances are the Casa Barrial is going to be packed. Thus, I barricaded myself in the kitchen to get to work cooking for the 60-80 people we could potentially be entertaining tomorrow. Luckily, my mom is an amazing cook and has a rockin' recipe for cold linguini pasta salad (recipe can be found at the end of the post). Couple that with an enormous fruit salad and countless loaves of bread, and I'm hoping we'll have enough food.

Making kitchen matters a little more complicated (ie. dirty), the faucet under our sink now has a serious leak. For the past few months the drip has been small, manageable with a big tub under the sink to collect the occasional drip. But for some unknown reason, in the past two weeks our small drip has turned into a serious flow of water. Every time anyone turns the water on to, say, fill up a huge pot to boil water for 4 pounds of pasta, the faucet leaks, the pipes leak, and within 2 minutes the entire floor is dripping wet. Yesterday was a bit of a mess, especially since after I finally finished cooking for today's party around 4, Serena and I had to start cooking family dinner for the 8 of us plus our three boss guests AND Christian (the Ecuadorian we partner with to host English conversations with his students) and his girlfriend. We quickly found out that vegetarian shephards pie is a beast to make, especially for 13 people. This morning, circa 7:30am the plumber finally came; here's hoping that our kitchen is now a dryer and safer place.

Keep your fingers crossed for us this afternoon; sometimes the electricity in the Casa Barrial randomly disappears. If that happens, we're going to be eating dinner by candlelight, listening to Mark provide music via his guitar and pretending like we can see the slideshow I've put together on the projector. You never know down here.

LINGUINE SALAD

1 lb fresh linguine, cooked drained and cooled.
1/4 c. best quality olive oil
1 c. sliced radishes
1 small green pepper, chopped finely
1 med. cucumber, peeled, seeded, cut in halves lengthwise and then into 1/4 inch slices
4 scallions, minced
1/3 lb. prosciutto or Missouri cured ham, cut in julienne strips (I use ham -proscutto is ver $$ and not everyone likes it)
2 T. wine vinegar or tarragon vinegar
1/3 c. imported grated Parmesan cheese or more
1/2 cup heavy cream or more
salt and pepper to taste
black olives for garnishes

Toss pasta with olive oil, making sure pasta is evenly coated. Add radishes, gr. pepper, cucumber, scallions and ham. Toss. Add vinegar and cheese and toss again. Add cream and seasonings. Toss. Chill until serving time. Add more cream if necessary. Sprinkle with olives.

Tune in again later today for a guest blog!
Holly

(our newly painted shelves and fruit/veggie corner)

(the sink and leak bucket, door to the atrium/laundry room, and halloween-sticker decorated oven)

Where are the keys?

Monday: the abrupt start to every working person's week. Granted, I live in the Ecuadorian Andes and get to call playing with kids, painting stars, teaching English and working out for an hour 'work', but I digress. Today's Monday began abruptly at 7:50am with Mark banging on my bedroom door as a reminder that our weekly meeting starts at 8, and would I please actually wake up this time instead of sleep-sitting through the meeting? Right. Check. Cold water on the face.

After our morning meeting I sat down to the task of finishing the monthly update for November. And yes, I know that it's being sent out later and later every month, I'm WORKING ON IT, OK. After wrestling with the google group for about an hour (it still won't let me add everyone onto the list, something about "spamming 700 people" and "am I sure they're all my contacts" and "requests pending"...if one of my best friends in the whole world didn't work for Google I would be using a few choice words about now), I finally got the update sent out and posted on our blogger site (found here). At this point it was closing in on 1 o'clock; time for a quick bite of leftovers before bussing out to Apoyo Escolar to get down to some homework...only to find out that half of our kids have Monday through Thursday off from school. As Santiago said "No tengo debers, profe!! QUIERO JUGAR!!" (I don't have homework, professor! I WANT TO PLAY!!")...great.

After Apoyo it was time for a few minutes chillin' in 'la cueva' and then off to English and Exercise class. Upon arriving at the church where we host these programs, however, we found out that the doors were locked and no one knew where the keys were. No one seemed too worried about finding them either. As everyone milled around the gravel and dirt street in front of the church gates (did i mention it's gated with spiked fencing?) and did their best to convince everyone else they were trying to think of where the keys might be, Eliah disappeared, only to suddenly be seen walking out of the church into the gated courtyard. Apparently he had spotted an open window (think second story window) in the church, maneuvered his way up and over an enormous wall, wiggled through the window, used the speaker stand as a step, jumped down from the window ledge, walked out the front door and opened the church from the inside. Everyone was in awe (and a little freaked out that he had just successfully broken in to the community church), and classes were able to continue as planned, albeit a little late.

Pictures of tonight's break-in to come tomorrow, as soon as I get them off of Serena's camera.

Happy Monday!
Holly

The Weekend Wonders

This morning, sometime circa 4:45am, Jocelyn and I started making a list of everything I have to daily life blog about after this weekend. No, we’re not insomniacs; the overnight bus we all hopped on Sunday night at 10pm had broken down somewhere in the Ecuadorian countryside, and we were all cuddled around, cranking at each other in garbled Spanglish and trying to focus on all the good that came from Cuenca. Which was a really easy task for Jos and I once we started. Thus follows the list I have to build from this week in the daily life blog.

1. 10 hour bus ride out to Cuenca, the first 2 hours of which were spent listening/watching/avoiding Big Mama’s House, dubbed in horrifically hysterical Spanish.
2. The incredible architecture of downtown Cuenca, especially the central church.

(church arch-ways)

3. The random break-dance off we came across taking place in a gazebo in the middle of Cuenca
4. The feisty (read: MEAN) little old Ecuadorian woman who became incredibly territorial while washing her clothes in the local river, ending in her running at us with a stick.

(right before she started using the stick as a weapon, photo taken from inside my purse...)

5. The Ecuadorian election which happened this weekend, deciding whether or not to pass the new constitution put forth by Corea. Voting in Ecuador is mandatory, thus everyone was traveling, voting, and conversing about it all weekend.
6. Cajas National Park. Incredible.

(one of over 230 lakes found in the park)

7. Our encounter with a self-declared ‘revolutionary’ dressed up as Che, who owned a restaurant called Che, and served us a very strange almuerzo (coupled with a few anti-Bush tirades)
8. The visit to the Panama Hat Museum, and subsequent purchasing of said hats.

(Holly, Jocelyn, Dana (NEWBIE!!), and Serena modeling our new wears)

Thanks for tuning in to yet another wild week down on the Equator!
Holly