If they taste good we’ll say we made them.

April 9, 2012

As many of you may or may not know, I love to bake. I usually stick to cupcakes and other desserts, but at times I also bake bread. After falling in love with arepas (the Costa Rican version of a pancake), I couldn’t get enough. Since my host mom works a lot, she usually comes in too tired to make them for cafecito, so I decided to try my hand at it: mistake number 1.

I thought it would be nice if my sister and I had everything ready for my mom when she came home from work, so I enlisted her help with preparing the cafecito: mistake number 2. I asked her if she knew how to make them, but she didn’t, so she ran next door to ask her aunt how it was done.

I told myself after my greasy cake baking faux pas, which I have yet to live down, I would be extra careful in the kitchen and never make another baking error; apparently that pledge didn’t apply in Costa Rica. Since I feel like this is a safe, judgment free zone, I will briefly retell the tale.

When I was about 11 years old I was allowed to make a box of cake mix for the very first time solo. I believe it was for someone’s birthday, so I was so excited to be given such a huge responsibility. I added the three eggs, the 1/3 cup of water and 1 1/3 cup of oil, mixed up the ingredients and baked my cake. I was so excited. When it was time to come out of the oven I had help from my mom and we noticed that the cake seemed extremely moist and it slid right out of the pan. When asked how much oil I put in I answered 1 1/3 cup. My mother laughed until she cried. When she finally stopped laughing at her perplexed child and showed me the discarded cake box, I realized that I had confused the water and oil measurements. I still hold firm that it tasted just fine. My mom and aunt to this day won’t let me live it down. Clearly I have yet to recover.

Back to the arepas.

I remembered that my host grandmother in Orosi had given me the recipe for arepas before I left, so we just had to find the ingredients. The eggs, milk, sugar, butter, vanilla and baking power were easy. The only thing missing was the flour. We found a small Tupperware with a white substance that looked like flour, we weren’t sure so we tasted it, we agreed that it was flour and dumped it in. My sister and I had a mini food fight which ended quickly when she threatened to put an eggshell in my newly flat ironed hair, sorry sis, that is where I draw the line.

After we added all the materials, and it tasted great, I turned my back from the mixture and my sister to heat the pan. When I turned back around I heard my sister laughing nervously and saw a puddle of vanilla in our batter. Oh Daniella! So then I frantically tried to re-add the ingredients to balance out the vanilla. We looked in the cabinet and found another unidentified container with what appeared to be flour. Once again we tasted it and after agreeing that it also had to be flour, we dumped it in. We remixed the ingredients and tasted it; gross! So we added more sugar until it finally tasted decent again. It wasn’t as good as the first time, but it was acceptable. After going back and forth for a while about who would claim success if they were good and who would get blamed if they were bad, we compromised. If they taste good we’ll say we made them, but if they don’t we’ll say someone snuck in the house and left them. I reheated the pan and poured the batter in. When I tried to smooth it out, it tore; it was definitely not like my mom’s arepas. Luckily in the midst of our disaster my Aunt came in to help us. She asked us what we added and after showing her the containers that we used she tasted the white substance in the one that was partially full and chuckled. She said it was cornstarch used for gelatin and not for arepas. How were we supposed to know? She added lots of oil to the pan, and basically made fried dough. I continued with the batter, adding a lot less oil of course, and made what appeared to be arepas. Each time I attempted to flip them, they broke.

Meanwhile, I left the coffee making up to my sister. It is not a hard process so I didn’t feel nervous leaving her with the task. All you do is throw the ground coffee in a filter bag and pour the hot water in the bag, and the coffee filters down into the mug. First she threw in too little so she decided to add more. I turned my back for a second and the mug was nearly overflowing with unfiltered coffee inside and lining it and the filter bag was so full that she could make a pot for about six people. Oh Daniella!

When my mother got home we had everything ready for her. She ate her broken arepas and drank her coffee with the undisolved beans mixed in with pride, because her daughters made them for her. That had to be the sweetest and bravest act of love that I have ever seen. I take my hat off to her.

After bringing back up a good part of my arepas later that evening, I learned two things: 1) Don’t trust a nine year old in the kitchen, no matter how mature they may seem, and 2) Some things, such as baking arepas, require adult Costa Rican supervision.

A Much Needed Descanso, Well Sort of….

Although I love my school, students and family, Semana Santa couldn’t have come at a better time. The week leading up to the break was full of lots of late nights, exams and pereza: I’m sure my students felt it too. Therefore, when Thursday finally came I was ready to do back flips. (I wonder if that is how my teachers felt went spring break rolled around.) We had our sports day on Thursday, which was really just a free day for the kids to race the English teacher and then chase her around the soccer field. There were other activities too such as the physical training session the gym teacher had me and the moms do (I really felt like I went to the gym), the soccer game where the students could use their hands and tackle each other to get the ball, and the octopus relay with the students against the adults.

On Friday I officially began my Vacation. I took the day off from school so I wouldn’t have to go to Mary Clark’s site late at night, being that it was my first time visiting. The journey from Turrialba to Cartago was great except for the fact that I have an extreme case of narcolepsy on buses. Had the guy next to me not been getting off at my stop, I might have ended up in San Jose a day early. After asking about 4 or 5 people where to go, I made it to the bus stop for Frailles. I had some time to kill so I went to lunch. I had Wendy’s and it was awesome. It was about $5 for a happy meal but I did get some I spy cards that were in English, so I’d like to think that I got a good deal. I got on the bus and about an hour and a half later arrived in Frailles, where I was instructed to call a cab to get to La Violeta. The cab driver was very nice and we had a good conversation. He dropped me off in front of her school and just when I thought she was wrong about him going to hit on me, he says “Too bad I’m not younger, I like the morenas.” Mary Clark and I had a pretty tranquil time at her site. She showed me around her town. She has a lot more hills then I was accustomed to, but it was great exercise. She took me to the Beneficio (Coffee plant) that her town is famous for. It was really cool to see how coffee is processed. Later we took a walk with her little sister Carolina. She is adorable; full of energy, much like my sister Daniela. I was impressed by how much English she knew. These kids are like sponges. Mary Clark also lives next door to a panaderia, so she gets so much baked goods. I am glad I didn’t get her site; otherwise I would have to buy two seats on the plane for my return trip. (I have yet to learn how to say no to pan)

We began our journey to San Jose fairly early and even got a ride to the bus stop in the back of her uncle’s pickup truck. This is living! After about an hour and a half we got the San Jose took a cab to San Pedro and made it to our hostel. It was really nice. We did lots of walking around. We went to a bookstore, a teacher’s store (you never stop being a teacher), and the famous Pequeño Mundo, which is basically a discount clothes, houseware and food store. It was awesome and I may have gotten a bit carried away. Later Cassandra surprised us by showing up at the hostel. We ate dinner then ice cream and went to see a movie at the mall. We saw “This Means War” which actually was in English with Spanish subtitles, score! The next day Cassandra and I went to church and then Mary Clark and I went back to the mall. I spent more money that I shouldn’t have, but I can justify every single purchase, so don’t judge me. Later we got on the bus to Monteverde. It was a five hour bus ride on a packed bus (apparently it is okay to sell tickets for long bus rides even if there aren’t any more seats) in extreme heat. I guess I was lucky to have a seat and also be near a window, even though there was no breeze. When we got to the hostel we were greeted by a fellow volunteer Drew and his girlfriend. We ate dinner then basically passed out.

The next two days went by so fast. We went to the Monteverde Cheese Factory, a Ranario and Mariposas exhibit and did lots of walking around. Mary Clark and I stayed behind when they went on the “Extremo” Ziplining Excursion. Plummeting through the air on dental floss wasn’t on my bucket list. I saw lots of nature: frogs, butterflies, a lizard, a snake, a toucan and the tail of a sloth. I say it was a pretty successful trip. I still get mistaken for Tica wherever I go. In the souvenir shop I asked for stamps and I was told “Sorry we only have for the United States” and at dinner I was asked several times where I was from because apparently I cannot be from the U.S. When the waiter finally accepted that answer he told me I had to be either Dominican or Puerto Rican. (Clearly I’m not over my identity crisis.)

We came back yesterday on the 6:30 a.m. bus. Luckily this ride was a lot shorter and cooler. From there I took the 2.5 hr bus ride from San Jose to Turrialba. Then I made my photocopies and headed to the station to take the bus into town. After arriving back home at about 4:00 p.m. The only thing I could possibly do was sleep. I woke up and ate dinner with my family and talked to them for a little while before going to sleep again. I woke up this morning with my body feeling like putty. Thankfully I still have 4 more days left of this vacation and maybe then I will get some rest, because so far the only rest I have gotten has been mental. Not joking, my brain has been on vacation since Thursday. Hopefully I get it together before school starts again otherwise it’s going to be a long couple of months before the two week break.