Beans

The beans-and-rice experiment continues. I have to say this is fun, so far.

I made breakfast rice--parboiled in butter, sweetened with dark brown cane sugar. It turned out perfect! Much better than last night's experiment.

Beans--did the obvious thing and made chili.

Now to focus on a different bean--the cacao bean. Oaxaca is known for both coffee and chocolate. And stir-fried grasshoppers, but we won't go there right now.

Mexican chocolate is fun to make. You heat the milk on the stove and add solid tablets of rich chocolate until it looks right. To truly do it the Oaxacan way, you serve it in pottery bowls instead of mugs. Ancient Mexican civilizations believed chocolate was the food of the gods, and it's easy to see why.

I'm making some right now, and when it's done, I'm going up four stories to the roof to enjoy it with the city lights spread out at my feet.

Rice and Beans

Given the store of rice and beans in the house, I decided that once I was alone, I would experiment with them and see how many ways there are to prepare rice and beans. Dave Ramsey (the famous financial guru known for telling people to eat rice and beans until they get out of debt) would be proud of me.

First of all, people, DO NOT MISUNDERSTAND. Those are NOT the only things in the house. This is not a financial crisis. It is an experiment.

I found out two days ago that cooking beans takes forever under normal circumstances, and it takes even longer at this altitude (5,500 feet above sea level). After two days of trying, I finally got them right--a blend of black beans and pintos, boiled with bacon grease, a can of green chilis, a chopped tomato, and "chili salt." Chili salt is dried peppers and dried cactus worms ground together for a unique flavor.

Tonight was my first rice experiment, and it was terrible. I often parboil rice in olive oil and tomato paste or chicken bullion. There wasn't any olive oil, so I substituted vegetable oil. I tossed in rosemary, chicken bullion, and a fresh tomato--diced.

It was awful. The flavor was just right, but (maybe because of the vegetable oil) the dish was very greasy. It was hard to eat, but I did it.

Better luck tomorrow.

Staying Home Today--August 6, 2010

She followed us down the street, shouting at us and cursing us in English and Spanish.

Rod and I had stopped at a tourism booth downtown to get a map of the city. When Rod asked for a map, the tourism lady turned to her children and said, "These disgraceful people want a map." That was the beginning of her outburst.

Now, she was following us, getting in our face when she could, cussing at us and shouting that we should be deported.

We finally managed to shake the helpful tourism department worker and buy the things we came to market for--mostly coffee and chili salt.

The day had begun well. Benito walked us to the bus stop. We crossed paths with an innocent man sweeping the sidewalk, and Benito gave him a good barking--just in case.

That was where the good times ended.

After we bought our coffee, a protest broke out in the middle of town. Protesters blocked all the bus routes out of town, so we couldn't catch a bus home. Bus or no bus, we knew we better leave while we could. Rod hailed a cab and paid a ridiculously inflated price for the cab driver to somehow get us out of town. The driver believed he could do it, if he took a back way.

I felt better when I saw we were really going to make it out of town. We zipped down back roads and past out-of-the-way shops. This wasn't so bad. We could still make it home and go to the orphanage to volunteer this afternoon.

That's when we ran into the soldiers.

A regiment had set up a checkpoint, and they were there in full force. The cab driver's eyebrows shot up and he said, "Soldiers? What are they doing here? Something must be going on."

Rod turned to me and said, "We probably better just plan on staying home today."

Here I sit. We made it home an hour ago, and I still feel pretty shook up. I wish I had some yarn or something, so I could knit. Yarn was on my shopping list today, but I couldn't find any.

We planned on coming home from the market, eating lunch, and heading to the orphanage. Now, I guess we can't.

Just another day in beautiful Oaxaca.

Clinic: Day 2

Yesterday, we visited a Zapotec village 7,500 feet above sea level. We were there all day, so there is a lot I could write about. I like to keep these posts short, though, so I'll just choose one thing--eye clinic.

Dr. Susan brought boxes of reading glasses, and she set up an eye clinic on a balcony. The Zapotec elders would come and try on glasses of different strengths and try to read a Bible story from a child's picture book.

They were so proud of their new glasses, and we saw tears of joy more than once. The ladies prepared soup and coffee for us, as a way of saying thank you. The coffee is boiled in a clay pot with a cinnamon stick thrown in. When it is ready, they pour it into pottery bowls to serve. One lady brought a sack of peaches from her tree and gave them to Dr. Susan as trade for the glasses.

We take so much for granted--glasses, flavored coffee creamer, even running water. It can be shocking to see how grateful people in other culture's are for things we consider basic necessities of life.

Clinic: Day 1

Much to my surprise, I am working as a medical registration clerk again. This time in a makeshift clinic in a Mixteco village high in the mountains. Yesterday, I sat in the yard with two nurses. They checked everyone's vital signs; I recorded the information, directed the patient to a place to wait for the doctor, and gave each patient a copy of the gospels of Matthew and John. There was a doctor in a concrete room and another doctor working on the porch.

The Mixteco villagers gathered under a shade tree to wait. They are quiet people. The men wear straw hats and button-up shirts with slacks. Most of the women wear cotton dresses or skirts and blouses, many with embroidered aprons and shawls. Nobody is over five feet tall.

At lunch time, some women from the village prepared rice, beans, and corn tortillas for us. Everything was cooked in big clay pots over a fire in the yard. I don't know if it was because we had been working all day, but those were the best black beans I ever tasted! Rod told me the clay pots give them that flavor.

The Silent Monday

We visited a Mixteco village yesterday, high in the mountains. This was my first encounter with Mixteco people, and what impressed me most was the silence. Whenever we arrived at a different house, we were greeted, then a young woman brought chairs outside. The chairs were apparently hand-made, and they were short and narrow.

The family formed a circle, and conversation proceeded quietly. I lost all sense of time by the second house.

At one house in particular, Rod Johnson took the opportunity to really pull for souls. A grandmother, her daughter and daughter-in-law and several very small girls sat and listened with wide eyes. I couldn't identify the feeling in the air--tension? fear? It was intense and unlike anything I had felt before. Flies crawled all over us, from the grandmother to the chubby baby boy, who was also silent. The mood lightened when the subject changed, but the best we got was a promise to think about what Rod had said.

Rod told me the fear of their traditions causes change to take place slowly. These people still live in huts of cane or tin, sometimes block, with dirt floors. They plow with oxen and sacrifice chickens to ward off evil spirits. Those who become Christians are often persecuted. Sometimes the tribal leaders even seize their huts and gardens, driving them from the village where they lived for generations.

It's a lot to take in, and I am definitely in culture shock right now.

Pack Light

Pack light. You don't need that much stuff.

Oh, yeah?

I'm sitting in Houston airport and one of my shoelaces snapped through the hole that holds the shoelace. These are the only tennis shoes I brought. If another lace gets hungry and eats through its home, I will be hiking all over Oaxaca in either leather flats or a pair of strappy, high-heeled sandals perfect for special occasions.

Oh, yes. I packed light.