Tuesday, November 25, 2008

adventures in cooking

This past weekend, there was a marriage retreat at the San Jeronimo church on Saturday afternoon. Carrie, Shannon and I were asked to make food for the event. Okay, not asked. Volunteered. We weren't that crazy about the idea, but you just do what you're asked to do.
Friday, our friend Marga helped us get massive amounts of chicken breasts, potatoes, carrots, green beans, other assorted vegetables, strawberries, and cake ingredients. Friday afternoon, I came home from school to find 3 people in the house, washing vegetables in dishpans, colanders, containers, whatever - even the mop bucket (disinfected, of course)! After we finished washing just about everything, the water decided to stop flowing from the spigot. This happens regularly at night at our house, usually mostly in the upstairs bathroom. But when we really need water for something, it always seems to turn off during the day too. This time was no exception. There was no water whatsoever anywhere. Yes, we had some buckets full of water awaiting such an occurrence, but, not knowing how long we would be without our water, we didn't want to use too much from them. We had enough water to cover the potatoes so they didn't get brown. And some greasy, nasty dishwater in the sink that we didn't want to let go down the drain, just in case we'd need it for something. And then we set to work, preparing all the vegetables. I went outside with the 25 pounds of green beans and got right down to business, stemming and snapping them. Reminded me of summer in the States. Meanwhile, others were peeling carrots and potatoes. There were various people helping throughout the evening. With all the hands working fast and furiously, we managed to make and bake 6 cakes, peel 50 pounds of potatoes, and peel and cut 50 pounds of green beans and carrots. Oh, and someone managed to drop some mostly still-wet chocolates on the kitchen floor. By the time we stopped laughing and got to cleaning it up, it had hardened on the floor. Without the aid of water, getting it up was, let's just say, difficult. So we cleaned up what we could and left the rest. Coming back into the kitchen before going to bed and seeing it sprawled out there on the floor, I took one look and began laughing. It looked exactly like a cow! In my sleep-deprived mind, it looked quite like a cow had died on our kitchen floor. So I took a whiteboard marker and outlined it so everyone else could see what I was seeing. I think we all got a kick out of the chocolate on the floor. Our kitchen was....well, a bit messy, as you can see. But what can you do when you have no water to wash all the dishes that are generated when cooking for such a massive amount of people? We decided to call it a night around 11 and slept really well!
Thankfully, the water was back on when we woke up on Saturday morning and we were able to wash some of the dishes that had accumulated the night before. Then we set to work again, cutting up onions, strawberries, potatoes, celery, parsley, and oregano and grating cheese, making stuffing, making whipped cream in the mop bucket (please remember it was clean!), filling chicken breasts, seasoning potatoes, and putting everything in baking pans. We ended up with 14 of them till we were done. Where do you bake 14 baking pans full of food? Luckily, if you're in Peru, you likely have a community oven close. Community ovens are a wonderful thing. Since many people don't have ovens in their homes, community ovens are open to anyone. Many people who have them in their houses are bread makers. But they have extra room in their ovens on a regular basis. So people can bring things and they'll bake them for a small fee. You drop them off, come back after a while and voila! You have cooked food! We lugged the 14 baking pans between 5 of us over to the oven, about a block from our house. They easily fit into the oven. Then we called one of the men from the church, who has a taxi, and asked if he could pick us and the food up when we were ready to go out to the church. That detail taken care of, we decided to go out to the church awhile to begin cooking the vegetables. When we got there, we found out that we wouldn't be eating till about an hour later than what we'd thought. So we hung out at the church for about an hour till we had to go pick up the food. Right as we were getting ready to go, it began to rain. Now, around this time of year, often when it rains, it hails. That's just the way the weather is. Yeah, you guessed it. We were running through hail to the bus stop to pick up public transportation to get home to get the food out of the oven. Well, when we got to the bus stop at the bottom of the huge hill on which our house sits, there was no rain. (Not only is rain in Cusco accompanied by hail, it is also very spotty). But till the combi came to pick us up and take us up the hill, it was definitely raining. So we ran up the last bit of hill to our front door in the rain. After changing into dry clothes, we went to the oven with Hermano Satu in his taxi and collected all our various baking pans of chicken and potatoes. Covering them with blankets in the back of the taxi, we headed to the church. In a steady rain, we carried all of the pans to the church kitchen, where we covered them with blankets on the floor till we were ready to serve the food. Hurriedly, we dumped the vegetables in pots so they could boil and be ready by the time everyone was ready to eat. And then it was a mad, scurrying rush of serving and grabbing bites to eat and serving cake. And then it was time to clean up and wash all the dishes, which took us far into the night. Around 10:15, David came back with the church combi from taking the people from Huacarpay and Lucre back to their homes. We loaded in, all our dirty baking pans in tow to wash at home in the morning. We got home around 10:45, tired, with the feeling of having done our job pretty well and now wanting to get some shut-eye! Carrie (my roommate) declared quite emphatically that it will be a while before she cooks for that many people again. It was quite the adventure and tired us all out. It was fun, in a way, but I'm glad I don't have to do it every day. It was, however, a good roommate bonding experience. :)

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Moments of Merriment and Mirth with a Mexican Christmas

Okay, I'll admit it. There are sometimes that I just want to laugh at my students. Today there were several of them in third grade. First of all, let me back up and say that we are studying Christmas around the world in both third and fourth grades right now. Last week, we spent the week in Sweden learning about St. Lucia's Day and Tomte (the Swedish Santa Claus) and their Christmas trees with edible decorations. We did several exciting projects. This week we're in Mexico learning about Las Posadas and manger scenes and how Mexican children put their shoes out so that the 3 kings can put gifts in them (I think my kids were somewhat grossed out by that little tidbit of information!). Today in fourth grade, we made a yummy Mexican dessert called Merengon. In third grade we're making piñatas out of balloons, newspaper and toilet paper. And of course paste. Lots and lots of paste. It wasn't a problem on my kitchen table...honest!
And then I took paste into third grade yesterday. Lucky for me, it's just flour and water...not a bad combination. Being the adult, orderly by nature, in my first year of teaching, never having done this with 20 kids in my charge before, it never occurred to me to have the kids bring in an old shirt or something they could use to cover themselves. The result of that was that yesterday, I had 20 kids covered in varying degrees by flour-water paste and a bunch washing out their uniform jackets during recess (the difference between American kids and Peruvian kids is that many Peruvian kids are used to washing clothes by hand). Let me just put a disclaimer on this: doing laundry during recess was completely their idea and was not provoked in any way by their English teacher. So I decided I'd get smart and tell the kids to bring in an old shirt today, for everyone's peace of mind. Well, anyone who's ever worked with kids knows how reliable their memories can be when you don't want them to be and how unreliable they can be when you want them to remember something. The end result of my announcement was about 5-7 old shirts appearing today. The rest of the kids somehow magically remembered when they walked in the school door today. Thus, I was barraged with numerous pronouncements of "Profe, I didn't bring my old shirt". I was contenting myself with just telling them "Then you'll have to be really careful not to get paste on you".
They, however, must not have been content with that (or else they didn't want to wash their uniforms by hand again). I must explain that I had given each one of them a plastic grocery bag with their name on it yesterday on which to lay their piñata as it was drying. When they came in from gym class, their piñatas were on their desks and their grocery bags were lying along the walls of the classroom so they could again place their sticky piñatas on them overnight. Jonatan was the first one to get the brilliant idea. He came up to me with his grocery bag on like an apron and said "Profe, can you tie this for me?" I marveled at his creativity. It took all of about 5 seconds for his idea to spread like wildfire through the entire class. Thus, while several were donning old shirts, numerous others were coming up to me saying "Profe, can you tie this?" Grocery bags, however, unfortunately, have an opening smaller than the waist size of your average Peruvian third grader, causing problems. And then Isaac came up with another brilliant idea. He stepped through the bottom of his grocery bag, pulling it up like a bathing suit, and putting the handles over his shoulders like straps. In the end, this (or variations of it) proved to be by far the most popular design. It didn't take long for me to have virtually 20 third graders decked out in the latest grocery bag fashions. In the midst of the madness, Ron entered to collect library books. Through the myriad rustle of plastic bags, I called "I have a class of artistic geniuses!" He looked at them, in various stages of plasticating themselves, and said "This was their idea?" I assured him I had had absolutely nothing to do with it, to which he laughed and replied "I need to get the camera!" Luckily I had mine too.
I had another interesting thing happen in third grade today - funny, yet thought-provoking too. I decided that since I'd gotten paste on myself as well (funny how that happens when you're working with kids but not when you're doing it by yourself at home...), I'd bring an apron today. So I brought this very old and thin Peruvian style apron that we have at home. I felt a little funny with it on, since I'm not accustomed to wearing aprons of any style - Peruvian or American. (Peruvian aprons, just for the record, cover the front and back and tie on the sides. In the front they have several big pockets. Most more traditional women wear them often. And I think pretty much anyone who sells in the market wears one.) The kids were at gym class when I put it on. When they came back, I met some of them in the hallway to tell them to enter the class calmly and orderly so we could get started right away on our project. Isaac ran up to me, gave me a hug and said "Profe, you look beautiful!" Later, Shally said the same thing. The only thing I can figure out is that this was the first time they'd seen me looking more Peruvian and they liked it! As I was working on putting on plastic bag aprons in the classroom Miriam came in. She came right up to me and, pretending I was a vendor in the market, asked "Do you have any tomatoes?" I played along "6 soles a kilo", I told her. "Do you have change for a 10?" she wondered. Then she wondered if I had potatoes. I told her I didn't. It was a strange, amazing and funny phenomenon all at the same time, how my kids reacted to me in the apron. I'll have to do further experiments with the apron in the future. I'm curious now. (Plus, it has nice big pockets which really come in handy as a teacher!)
Sometimes I just want to laugh. And now that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have a class full of artistic geniuses, I wonder how I can incorporate more artistic aspects into the class, especially in learning grammar.
The pictures are, from top to bottom: Isaac in his bag, Alejandra, Diana and Miriam in their bags, Bethany, Alejandra, Miriam, Yuli and Dany in their bags, Dany in his bag, Stefany and Saraí in their bags.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

And so we are coming to the end...

The end is in sight. Not that I am desperately awaiting its arrival, but I can't help but realize that the school year is winding down. I have now handed in my last month planning and we are in the middle of our last unit both in third and fourth grades. It's a longer unit, since it covers the last 6 weeks of the school year instead of the normal 4-week units. And I decided to take advantage of everything that the kids are supposed to learn and make them into 2 units about Christmas around the world. Fourth grade's focus is food and third grade's focus is...well, varied. It includes meeting people, having sensory experiences, etc... We're doing a lot of craft-type projects, which the kids love. And when the kids love what they're doing, they behave better. Which makes me happier too. The rule of thumb that applies to moms also applies to teachers, I think. "When the teacher ain't happy, ain't nobody happy". So far at least, I think we'll end the year on a good note in both classes.
I'm teaching all my students a song that I learned as a child from a tape of Scripture verses in song that we had. It comes from Luke 2:11, 12: "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: you will find the baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger." The kids seem to be enjoying it. We've talked about what the words mean, but I really want to get to what the heart of the verse means as well. Jesus the Savior was born for us. He was born humbly. He was born as the promised one sent from God for us. I was very excited the other week when I introduced the verse to my fourth graders. I was telling them that this was the last verse and the last unit for the year. Ronaldo burst out "Awwwww.....this is the last verse?" He's always the first one to wonder when we're going to change the verse (which we do every month), so I've always thought that he didn't really enjoy them. But the disappointment in his voice and the fact that, when I asked him, he told me he wanted more verses, told me otherwise. It was good encouragement to keep going.
And then last week the first graders did a chapel for the whole school based on the armor of God. Over the summer, we worked for several months learning that passage in fourth grade. Since it was so long, we put motions to it and everything. So I decided to do a little review with them after chapel. We went through the entire verse and most of the kids seemed to remember it well. I was very impressed.
This past week we studied Sweden. Fourth grade made St. Lucia buns and third grade made a St. Lucia crown of candles out of paper plates and construction paper. I'll have to put pictures on here. There are definite maturity differences between the two classes (beyond just the fact that one is third grade and the other is fourth). Fourth grade has a much longer attention span, so they caught a lot more of what I was telling them. Next up is Mexico. Should be interesting.
It's been a good last few weeks. Yes, they've had their challenges, but things have been going much better lately than they were during the summer. I'm learning a lot. Teaching is definitely a very complex and delicate process. And it all seems to happen at 80 miles an hour.
5 weeks left. 5 busy weeks. 5 short weeks. 5 weeks of teaching and learning. It's hard to believe. The year has gone so fast. I can definitely feel God's help in so many ways. And yes, I can most DEFINITELY feel the prayers of so many people. Thank you! Here's to the final weeks of the school year.