Tuesday, May 22, 2012

guacamole and community mapping

i've realized that i talk about food a lot on this blog. food is a big part of my life. i'll try to expand to other things soon.

my tia marlén. she indulged me with a smirk for the picture.
we made guacamole last night. i was thinking of the guac i always made at home. i was super psyched to have some good aguacate. i volunteered to help and was ready to start mashing up the avocados and then found out that nica guac doesn't have mashed avocados.  it's more of a salad.  similar incredients though: onion, lime juice, cilantro, and a little chili if you want it spicy. the key difference is that they add a hard boiled egg. we had a discussion about how i thought this was absolutely crazy, and they just laughed at me.


guac nica style
i split a little of the avocado off and made guac mexican style to show them. it was delicious. we ate it with fried tortillas and gallo pinto.  it was a cultural exchange of sorts. my aunt said she liked it a lot, and i made everyone else try it too. they all said they liked it, but they may just have been polite.
my guac

since i keep talking about food all the time, my family has decided that i have to make food sometime. tonight we discussed tortilla española and pizza.  two things that i will have to make in the near future i guess. it's a good thing i love cooking and have been making french bread pizza since i was about 8 years old, so it should be fun.  what brings people together more than food?

the boys' map
on monday we did a community mapping exercise with our youth group.  i was a bit unsure about the activity and what it's purpose was related to starting a small business, but it turned out to be a pretty fun thing to do with the kids.  the idea is to figure out what is important to them and identify resources in the community.

the girls' map
we split them into boys and girls and had them map the places they thought were most important, places they visited the most, places they visited the least/dangerous places, and what types of businesses there are in the community.  as you can see from the pictures, the boys and girls had different styles on mapping.  my example of an important place to me was Eskimo, an ice cream shop.  they all got a laugh about that, and then eskimo ended up on both of their maps. my question: who doesn't like ice cream?  it was a good way to bond with the kids a bit and make them a little more animated.

next post will probably be about the upcoming festival in masatepe. complete with dancing horses! 

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