Of Baking and Brigades

Just under a month ago, a medical brigade from the U.S. came and visited my town, which was big news for all of us, and a great opportunity, because they asked me to give health talks in their public health section while the patients waited to see the doctors.

My audience is enthralled with what I have to say.

The brigade was there for four days, and every day saw more and more people coming in, most of them from the many outlying communities, so that by the end of the brigade I had given charlas to about 500 people.

Most everyone in the brigade was really nice, and all of them seemed amazed with the conditions of my town, often asking me how I can possibly manage to live here.  And it was really only then, looking through the eyes of other Americans, that I realized that I can live here because I am happy here now.  I really am.
It hasn´t always been easy.  The lack of paved roads, and drinkable water, and a varied diet, and general hygiene all take their toll, as do the occasional funks of boredom, loneliness, and self doubt, but most of that is behind me.  I have friends here now that, granted, took me a long time to make, but are real and true.  I play soccer and practice English with them almost everyday, and whenever I feel unsatisfied in my work, I can always go to the Casa Materna to talk and do crafts with the women.  So when the brigade left on their last day, and my friends teased me, asking me if I wanted to go back to the States with them, I smiled and said, "no hombre, I´m staying here for now."

In celebration of this revelation, I bring you the photos of the Great Baking Extravaganza that my host family and I had the day after the brigade left.

Danelia, Maylin, Esmeralda, and Marlen.

Our handiwork, ready to be baked.

This first involved cleaning, boiling, and grinding the corn, which we then formed into rings, or into tortillas which we then filled with the sweet dough and folded in half, like an empanada.

On the left is the sweet corn dough, on the right is the savory.

Since this process would have taken so long in our gas oven that it probably would have used up the majority of our gas, we had to invent our own.  What we ended up doing was putting the hornada (baked goods) in a pot, and then covering that pot with a piece of metal, on which we lit a fire.  This distributed the heat evenly throughout the pot so we could bake.

To take them out of the oven when they were done baking, someone other than me removed the burning metal sheet, placed it on the ground, and scooped out the hornada, still resting on their now burnt banana leaves.












Afterwards I ate so much hornada it hurt.  It was awesome.