A Tale of the Greatest Accomplishment of my Peace Corps Career

As many of you may have seen on my facebook status, I have not been a very productive human being since returning to Ecuador. (Or maybe you’re not even my friend and you’re just creepin’ on my blog, well, welcome! And I’m sorry.) I spent a good few days wallowing in my own homesick misery and eating everything in sight. But tonight I have done something to make up for all the wasted time of my entire life, I have accomplished a feat I never thought possible, a milestone so extraordinary, I had to immediately write a blog post about it… I made homemade tortillas! I know what you’re thinking, “what could have caused you to even attempt such a seemingly impossible challenge?” See above, I ate everything in sight. I only had half an avocado, some salsa, and some chocolate (see previous blog about living the dream of getting paid in chocolate). 

I guess I shouldn’t bluff you beloved readers (and creepin’ strangers), these weren’t exactly Mission or Guerrero quality tortillas. (God! I had to google “brands of tortillas” in order to make that reference, THAT’s how long I’ve been out of SoCal. Pathetic.) Mine were definitely not circular, but instead, a shape I can only describe as “tortillangular”. Also, the flour here automatically comes with baking powder mixed into it (do not ask me why) so the tortillas kept rising. So I suppose they’re more like pita, or naan. OH SNAP you guys, I made homemade naan! This is going in the history books. 

The taste is pretty much tortilla-esque though. If tortillas taste like crackers. I’ve already eaten three so that’s pretty much a testament to their deliciousness, not just that they’re edible. 

I took a selfie with one of my yummy misshapen tortillas because come on, who wouldn’t?! (Microsoft Word still says that “selfie” isn’t a word. It’s 2014, MS, get with the program. Literally.)

I know what you’re thinking, “didn’t you get flour on your camera?” The answer is yes. But it was worth it to document this significant day. Also I'm sure you're wondering, “can I have your recipe??” Why yes, you can! I’m about to turn this shiz into a food blog! WASSUP!

Homemade Naan/Tortillas 

Ingredients:

2 cups flour for the mixture

1 cup flour for everywhere else

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup water

3 tablespoons oil

A shit-ton of butter because I only have a

Crappy frying pan

Method:

1.      Mix the flour and salt with the measuring spoon so that you don’t have to dirty any unnecessary dishes. Dishwashers do not grow on trees.

2.      Mix in the water and oil using said measuring spoon, give up because it’s too tiny, and use your hands.

3.      Let the mixture sit for ten minutes. Or 3 and a half if you’re impatient.

4.      Get out your apple shaped cutting board that is just a little bit too small for any task you assign it and flour the board, the rolling pin, your hair, the floor, under your nails, any items nearby, and your butt. (Sometimes you get an itch that you just have to scratch.)

5.      Grab little blobs of the mixture and flatten them as best you can using an empty wine bottle as a rolling pin. A full wine bottle can be substituted but really, shouldn’t you be drinking it by now if you’re following this ridiculous recipe?

6.      Try very hard to make circles with the dough, fail, settle on tortillangular shape. Or hexagaNaan, accordingly.

7.      Transfer flattened dough to the warm frying pan resisting the urge to spin it in the air like a stereotypical Italian pizza chef. (It will fall apart. Trust me. And I only know a couple verses of “That’s amore”.)

8.      Cook each side of the tortilla/naan until it resembles food.

9.      Nom nom nom.

My Mona Lisa.

Fixed my camera

Okay, no I didn't. I just put a different memory card in and downloaded some sketchy recovery program and now it's working. Still. Chelsea:1, Camera:0.

Remember the amateur bullfighting? This is my host brother and me in the rickety 3 story shack.

That kid was probably about 16. Better view of the shacks.

That time our bitch won the shitzu show.

Purple drank and baby bread for Day of the Dead. (I threw that up later.)

My lovely teachers and their jolly blue giant volunteer.

My new room! (Note the dolphin blanket, same one I used during training. Sonia let me borrow it.)

I decorated a wall with love from home and here.

So much more room for activities!

This is where the magic happens. (Food is my boyfriend.)

The bathroom has a skylight. Yes, you read that right. When the landlords are upstairs doing laundry, they can see me on the toilet. Gotta love Ecua construction.

This is sort of the living room, but mostly the "gym" and "the only place the internet works".

Currently in many mismatched sweaters

Felt like I had to update because a lot has happened, but I have just not felt the writing itch. Or maybe it's more like when you have an itch, but you're already super comfy and don't want to move your arm out of the comfy zone to scratch it. Yeah, kinda like that.

Just had to search for my last real update because I couldn't even remember when was the last time. Over a month ago. Shame shame, Chelsea.

Since then, I went on a really awesome trip to visit some of my favorite volunteers in a coastal city called Arenillas in celebration of Thanksgiving. We spent 2 days on an island, drinking cold beer, eating seafood, and falling asleep in the sand. (Okay, I'll admit I was the only one who did that last part, but you can't imagine how much I missed the warm comfort of a custom sculpted sand bed.) We met a shrimp farmer who insisted on buying us all a crab dinner and thus, insisted on further heightening my faith in humanity. We shopped for and cooked a pretty authentically American feast like the little Peace Corps family we are and generally just relaxed and drank in the good life.

After the trip, I got back to the cold mountains, packed up my things, shed a few too many tears, and moved out on my own. Yep, Chelsea's got a big girl apartment! I got extremely lucky because the apartment was unfurnished and I don't make enough money to buy a ton of furniture to use for a year and then get rid of it, doesn't make much sense either. But, my beloved Coordinator for the Ministry of Education let me borrow pretty much everything! I've got a bed, plus BUNKBEDS!, night stand, refrigerator, dining room table, stove, everything! Plus some other volunteers and teachers at my school pitched in some stuff and now I'm completely set.

I'm ready to spend the rest of my service walking around in either my underwear or a lot of mismatched sweaters and leggings (depending on the weather), doing my "indoor cardio crusher" routine on the daily, experimenting with new, healthy recipes, and drinking a glass (or bottle) of wine occasionally. Oh yeah! And working.

Lately, I've been getting more done on the weekends and afternoons than during the "workday". Several people have started asking for either tutoring sessions or English lessons starting from the basic and I've been obliging, for their sake, and mine. Staying busy keeps me sane. Plus, guess what, guys?! They've been bringing chocolate to the sessions. Do you know what this means?! I'm finally fulfilling my DREAM... of getting paid in chocolate!

Keep shooting for your dreams, friends.

Now I'm dreaming of...

Love, peace, and burrito grease because I'LL BE HOME IN LESS THAN 7 DAYS! Do you know what happens then? This:
http://youtu.be/WIhiHeQ3kEQ
(The world exploded into love all around me)

See you soon!

p.s. if you're ever feeling down, check this out:
www.1000awesomethings.com
There is so much more awesome in the world than you think. You just have to learn to revel in it.

Lost in Translation

“Please hand me the carpet,” he said, directing the request to me with an open palm, during the routine English Area meeting. We were sitting at a desk surrounded by hardwood floors, no fiber-covered floor in sight. 

Now, some people speak English as a foreign language as if it doesn’t fit in their mouth. It’s too big and their cheeks puff out like kids who became overly excited and shoved too much birthday cake in there. Or their lower jaw just doesn’t stretch the way English sounds require. Or like it tastes bad and they have the constant urge to spit it out, sometimes spraying the listener with a mixture of words and saliva. 

But this particular teacher has better than average pronunciation and this statement was as clear as a freshly cleaned fishbowl, which is what tends to make mistakes all the more uncomfortable. For me. 

My mind and hands scramble around trying to locate anything that looks like a rug or a carpet on the desk, anything that resembles protection for a floor from feet, failing miserably. 

The teacher becomes distracted by someone else and turns his head away but his hand remains open, waiting, silently pleading for this mysterious, magic carpet. As usual, I am fighting the internal good fight between correcting/questioning people and encouraging them to practice speaking their second language, all the while, staring at his empty, expectant hand. This particular teacher also has a bit of an ego, rarely speaks to me in English, and highly dislikes public correction. I can’t possibly blurt out a “what are you talking about?!” so instead, I’m searching, when suddenly the small, Spanish-speaking side of my brain clicks! “Carpeta” in Spanish = Folder in English.

Oh.

I hand him the unassuming, green folder and mumble under my breath “ohthefolder youwanted… the folder” but he doesn’t hear me. I silently write it down on my list of “common errors” to bring up anonymously during our next tutoring session. I sigh as everyone returns to arguing in Spanish about decorations for the upcoming Open House, and I think “Yes, I will attempt to fix that another day” … again.

Day of My Death

On Thursday, October 31^st, 2013, I woke up to the sound of screaming bunnies. Do you know why they were screaming? Because they were trapped in a bag, awaiting death, while listening to the demise of their furry little friends. You probably don’t know what screaming bunnies sound like (because neither did I before this day), picture cute squeaking, but filled with terror. It’s basically a PETA member’s worst nightmare. 

And then I remembered it was Halloween and bunny murder seemed fitting. But this also reminded me that it was the last day of the month. I’ve had a strange little superstition ever since I was a little kid about the beginning and end of the month. I can’t remember where I heard it- a TV show or a movie or a friend or teacher, but the idea is that the first thing you say when you wake up on the first day of a new month should be “bunny bunny” and the last thing you say on the night of the last day of the month is “rabbit rabbit” and this should give you good luck for the entire month. It’s sort of like a new beginning ritual, I guess. I always try to do it and I can never remember. As soon as I say “Buenos dias” in the morning of the 1^st, I give myself a mental palm to the forehead. Anyway, bunnies dying on the last day of the month made me think next month might not be so lucky. We’ll see.

I said that the event reminded me that it was Halloween because I almost forgot. It is prohibited in the country of Ecuador to celebrate this spookiest of holidays because it is considered an American tradition, NOT Ecuadorian. So you know what I did?! Broke that law! Like a BAMF. In my high school classes, we played a trick or treat game and in my kids class we played “Pin the Face on the Jack O’Lantern” and Concentration with Halloween vocabulary. Arrest me. ‘Merica! (JK my co-teachers wanted to do it and the students were really interested, cultural interchange is one of the basic goals of the Peace Corps.)

Then, the 1^st of November was the start of the Finados celebrations. Also known as Dia de los Muertos, Dia de los Difuntos, or Day of the Dead. All the classes at the high school made the traditional Colada Morada and Gua Guas de Pan. Colada Morada= Purple Drank. My favorite translation. It’s a warm drink made of blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, and spices and it represents the blood of the dead people. Gua gua is the Kichwa word for baby. They make little bread loaves in the shape of babies with a lil babyface and all and it represents the body of the dead people. Because each class made their own version, I was expected to try at least 10 of the 23 courses. I had 4 cups of blood and 2 babies and felt like I was going to explode. (Said the zombie.) 

That night, my host family was also making Colada Morada and bringing big pots of it to share with our neighbors. I helped pass out the drink to neighbors and then attended Mass with the family and then we went out to dinner to eat Guatitas (cow’s intestines in a creamy sauce, really yummy actually). I hadn’t eaten lunch because I was so full from all the zombie food at school so I had gone about 7 hours without eating and then ate a lot at dinner. So when I got home, I figured my stomach ache was normal, I just sat in bed for a few hours because laying down made me nauseous. I fell asleep sitting up but woke up around 2am with cold sweats, chills, and achiness in my whole body. I was in and out of the bathroom every ten minutes and then started vomiting around 5am. I actually got really lucky because we had run out of water for most of the night but it was pumped back into town before the vomiting started. (No water means no working toilet, you do the math.) I’m sorry, this is disgusting, but I had to live it. You only have to read about it. 

So I spent the weekend lying in bed, reading, drinking salt water and tea and Gatorade. My host mother insists that this is my fault for drinking too much colada morada. It was a pointless battle to explain that food poisoning is generally 24 hours later, my reaction was about 20 hours later, and that the traditional drink is full of fresh fruits which are hard to wash, and that if it were overeating, I would have been sick immediately, not the next morning. So I gave up. I did not give up, however, when she tried to get me to eat rabbit on an empty, queasy stomach. 

I almost died on my first Day of the Dead. You can’t make this stuff up.