How to Clean a Yoga Mat and Other Tales From a Typical Sunday in Blue Creek

Note: The story that follows is not only true; it is just one day, much like all of the other days that constitute my life.

I woke up late, around 7:45am, after hearing English speaking voices walking down the road towards the river. The tourists at the guesthouse are always so ambitious, setting off for the cave as soon as they've inhaled their tortillas and downed their Nescafé. I respect that. I lay in bed for a few more minutes since I was bit tired after the late night last night. It was movie night at my host-family's, translation: I bring my laptop and any DVD that I can find and 12 people crowd around the screen on any old bucket that they can find. Last night's feature flick was a pirated copy of The Brothers Grimm, complete with bad sound, dark picture, and the occasional interruption of someone in the theatre walking in front of the hidden camera.

Before that, however, they wanted to show me some scenes from "Kung-Fu Hustle," the most terrible movie I have ever had to watch in my life. I won't go into the details, but I will go off on a little rant about the curious obsession with Kung-Fu movies among residents of the Mayan villages. I thought it was an anomaly among people in Blue Creek, but apparently lack of electricity does not stop people from firing up their generators or solar panels out in the bush so that the family can crowd around and watch some 2nd rate Japanese Kung-Fu that has been dubbed into Spanish and may or may not have English subtitles that may or may not matter since most people can't read much English. Anyways, the terrible Spanish dubbed Kung-Fu and pirated Brothers Grimm kept me out past 9:30pm.

Where was I? Oh yes, tourists walking to cave, me laying in bed. I got up and decided I was going to do nothing and was pleased with the plan. Oatmeal and coffee for breakfast, washed dishes and then set out to get caught up on some sewing I had been meaning to do. Just as I was threading my needle, a small face popped up at my back window. Well, hello Sandra Mas, I said a little surprised. Up to this point, my home-made curtains had kept the kids from peeping into my windows, but apparently my neighbor kids have now discovered that they are just tall enough to get their chins on my window sill. Sandra stared me down, then looked around my room, and when I asked her what she was up to, she just responded with a casual nothing. Oh, I said, well maybe you should come around to my door to visit, it's not polite to peep in people's windows. Oh, she responded as she kept staring around my room. She left to go sell at the river, but about an hour later she was back, at my window, peering under the curtain. I tried to explain again that if she wanted to visit, she should come around front, but to no avail. Three times during the day she stopped by my window, looked at my pictures, played with my cat, and stared at me.

I finished my sewing and moved on to cleaning and then lunch. More tourists walk by just as I am sitting down to eat my left-over tamale, beans, and salad. I don't mind the tourists, but I'll be honest, I don't make much of an effort to be friendly. Occasionally I will be walking down the road and strike up a conversation, but when you have a hundred or so people coming and going each week, it gets a little tedious to have the same conversation over and over again. So I have taken to doing as the locals do, sitting in my house, blatantly staring at the visitors without expression on my face as they walk by to go look at birds, monkeys, or small Maya kids. The rest of the afternoon was spent fixing up my latrine a little (I finally got a toilet seat) and taking a walk to go visit. Around 4:00pn I worked up the energy to go for a run, the 4th one in the past 8 days, aren't you proud? I stretched out and set out down the road. I hadn't got but a quarter mile before I crossed paths with a muddy gringo on a serious mt. bike. The bike had a number on it and he was all decked out like he was in some race. I was sufficiently confused, you just don't run across too many American Mt. bike racers on the dirt roads leading out of Blue Creek. However, I did give him a confused smile and a hello before continuing on my jog. Thirty minutes later I was at the end of my run just as the rain was beginning to come down. I made it back to my house as it started to pour and did a good stretch and cool-down on my yoga mat. I needed to go bathe, so I changed and strolled out into the rain with my plastic bag full of shampoo, conditioner, soap, and red shower poof. My yoga mat needed a wash, so I hung it over my clothesline on my way to the river.

What a glorious way to end a relaxing, uneventful day. Dusk was coming as the rain came down in sheets. The surface of the river bubbled with the water and I stood waist deep, letting the rain wash through my hair. I laughed at my friends across the river as they were also enjoying the rain and the river. I realized as I looked up at the jungle, the birds, and the iguanas in the trees, how much I love my life. Bad Kung-Fu, peeping kids, weird tourists and everything, this is my life and it's not too bad.

From the Seattle PI: Tortilla Uses

I just came across this article and it spoke to me for obvious reasons.
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Apple pie, lasagna and 8 more inventive uses for tortillas

By HSIAO-CHING CHOU
P-I FOOD EDITOR
The recipe called for six corn tortillas. The market offered them only in packs of 50. Even though the tortillas didn't cost much, I had more than 40 tortillas to use up and I wasn't in the mood for tacos, quesadillas or the ubiquitous pinwheels.

With sincere apologies to Mexican-food purists, here are some atypical ways to use tortillas.

1. Make "toast"

Heat them up either directly in a skillet with no oil (for slightly crisp) or wrapped in damp kitchen towel and microwaved (for soft and moist). You can eat them plain, top them with butter and jam, or use them to sop up egg yolks.

		Paul Joseph Brown / P-I
	Eggs are baked in tortillas placed in a muffin pan.

2. Make egg cups

First, nuke the 6-inch tortilla in the microwave for about 10 seconds (20 to 30 seconds if you're heating three or four at a time) just to soften. Gently place the tortilla in a muffin tin to make a cup; the edges will flute. Crack an egg in the cup. Add salt and pepper, a dash of cream (optional), chopped herbs of your choice and grated Parmesan. Bake in a 350-degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes, depending on how done you like your eggs. Serve the egg cups with mixed greens for brunch.

3. Make apple pie

Cut four peeled and cored Granny Smith apples into 1/4-inch slices. Toss the apples with 1/4 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, 2 teaspoons cornstarch, 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice and 1/2 cup apple juice or water. In a pan, melt 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat. Add the apples and cook for about 5 minutes, or until soft. Set aside. Fill 6-inch tortillas with the apple mixture and fold in half like a taco. In a skillet, melt a little butter over medium heat. Add the pie and brown on each side, about 2 minutes per side.

To serve: Dust each pie with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

4. Make "Beijing duck"

Buy a roast duck from an Asian barbecue shop. When you get home, remove the bones from the duck pieces. Cut up some green onion stalks into 2-inch segments.

		Paul Joseph Brown / P-I
	An apple mixture turns tortillas into pies.

How to eat: Spread some sweet bean sauce (available in cans at the Asian market) on a warmed tortilla. Add duck and some green onion. Roll up like a burrito and eat.

You can do this with a roast chicken from your neighborhood supermarket, too. Instead of sweet bean sauce, you can use, say, apricot jam or orange marmalade.

5. Make pita substitutes

For some reason, great pita bread is not always easy to find without going out of your way. Cut tortillas into triangles and use them for Mediterranean favorites such as hummus, baba ghanouj and tzatziki. Or, use tortillas as wraps for skewers or gyros.

6. Make naan substitutes

If you have Indian takeout and you run out of naan, tortillas can save the day.

7. Make crepes

Heat up the tortilla, spread with Nutella, fold, dust with powdered sugar and eat. Consider other fillings, such as jam, fruit compote, ice cream. A drizzle of chocolate sauce is the icing on the "crepe."

8. Make lasagna

Layer tortillas with seasoned and cooked ground meat, black beans, tomato sauce and shredded cheddar. Continue layering until you end up with cheese on top. Bake in a 400-degree oven for about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the cheese is hot and bubbly.

9. Make tuna tacos

Instead of sliced bread, use a tortilla to make a tuna fish sandwich. Take a warmed tortilla, add lettuce and the tuna mixture, fold in half like a taco and eat.

10. Make panini

This is a glorified quesadilla, but indulge me. Between two tortillas, add ham or prosciutto, mozzarella, fresh basil and tomato slices. Heat in the panini grill. Cut and serve. The fillings can vary according to your whims.

ABOUT TORTILLAS:

Typically, tortillas are available in 10-inch and 4-inch sizes and are made from either corn or flour. Some companies make even larger ones for American-style burritos.

Tortillas are a staple of Mexican cooking and are used as a vehicle for just about anything, which is why Mexican brands are available in packs of 50.

Flavored tortillas (spinach, tomato, etc.) are an American affectation -- similar to the salsa-flavored hard taco shell.

The proper way to heat up a tortilla is on a comal, which is a thin cast-iron plate/pan. An ungreased skillet also will work. Steaming, microwaving, grilling and other such methods are not traditional and often are frowned upon by purists.

P-I food editor Hsiao-Ching Chou can be reached at 206-448-8117 or hsiaochingchou@seattlepi.com.

On Integration

You may or may not know this, but the Peace Corps has three goals: 1) To meet the technical needs of a country through qualified volunteers; 2) To allow the host country to learn about US culture through the volunteer; 3) To share the culture of the host country with others in the US once the volunteer returns.  That means that 66.667% of what I am doing here in Belize has nothing to do with how many meetings I hold, how many grant applications I assist with, or how many business and computer training classes I conduct.  I just have to make friends, be myself, and bring a little of Belize back to the good ole USA.  No problem, I'm on it.

In Peace Corps lingo, goals 2 and 3 are roughly translated into the favored buzzword "integration."  So that is my job, integration.  This week, as I hone in on month 7 (can you believe it, seven months?!?), I started to think of all the ways that I am integrating.  Here is a rough list:

• Tortilla making - While I don't/can't grow or grind my own corn, I did recently discover that I can buy fresh ground corn at the corn mill (go figure, right?) which has greatly improved the quality of my tortillas.  I was using corn flour to make the masa, but fresh is oh so much better. For some reason the women here are genuinely shocked when I tell them that I make tortillas, as if all white people are incapable of preparing food, which makes sense since most of the tourists they see are not in a hurry to prepare their own meals. Fact for the day: A corn tortilla is nothing more than dried corn, boiled, ground with water and pounded into a circle.  It is placed on hot comal and cooked without any oil.  You know it is done when after flipping it twice, it puffs up in the middle.
  
• Insects - I remember when I first arrived in Belize looking at the current volunteer's legs and noticing how very few bug bites they seemed to have. My legs, on the other hand, looked like a before picture on a acne medicine infomercial.  Everyone assured us newbies that eventually we would get used to the bugs and heat.  Well, as I glance down at my bite-free legs today, I am can see how far I have come. I don't even think it is that the bugs have stopped biting, I'm sure they are still feasting away, I think it is that my body has stopped reacting.  Great, I'll take it, but I'm warning those who are planning on visiting, you WILL get bit and you WILL stare in jealously at my legs and wonder why the bugs don't like me.  And I will laugh at how cool and integrated I have become.
  
• Language - OK, I will admit, I am not even close to accomplished at any of the many languages you can find here in Belize.  My Mopan and K'etchi are limited to about 25 combined words, my Spanish is conversational, my Garifuna exactly nil, and my Kriol is at a barely eavesdropping capability. But I am learning, and am less scared to try everyday, so if you need me to pass the tortilla's in a Maya village or cuss out a sexual harasser in Belize City, I'm your woman.
  
• Children - Once the bane of my existence, I am learning to embrace these small, pestering beings as the key to my success here in Belize. My first day of teaching was maybe the worst day in Belize, but each time I work with the kids, the more I get to know them, their strengths, personalities, and games, I feel better about my place here.  They like to tease me, which is understandable, but they also like to learn about me.  I have all but given up on change through the adults, it's hard to change thousands of years of tradition and hierarchy, but the kids here are eager to learn and bring positive change to their community.  But Mom, don't think this means I am going to be bringing any of them home with me. 
  

Integration has not come without challenges.  I have certainly been laughed at, teased, and have done culturally inappropriate things left and right.  But I have learned, and will keep on learning. It's a humbling process, and one that is certainly worth the challenge. 

7am: Celine Time

Yes, it's true, I live in the jungle.  Away from the bothers and annoyances of modern life, right?  My closest neighbors live in a traditional thatch house, wash at the river, and cook over a fire, but they have one rocking stereo system and a massive TV antenna coming out of their thatch.  That's cool, to each his own.  I've learned quite a bit about Belizean Maya taste in music thanks to these neighbors.  For instance, they can play the same CD, at the same time everyday and never ceased to be enthralled by the capability of their sound system to entertain the entire village.  When I first moved in to the teachers house, their music was of the predictable reggae tone and punta rock, but I think someone got a new CD for Christmas and is attempted to wear it out.

That's right folks, Celine Dion's "A New Day" and I have been reunited.  I say reunited because back in the days of PLU, I had these wacky roommates who were slightly obsessed with Ms. Celine, and would spend hours singing into an inflatable mic to the very album that now serenades me EVERY SINGLE DAY. So, to those roommies who shall remain anonymous for their own coolness (hey, I think that you're cool), I think of you each morning at 7am as I drink my coffee to Have you Ever Been in Love.

In other news, on Sunday I traveled out beyond the reach of electricity and modern life.  Nick, a fellow PCV, lives out on the border with Guatemala in Dolores village.  A girl that is working down here with a research farm was driving down that way, so Jeff and I tagged along.  We were lucky enough to arrive in Dolores on the Alcalde's (village leader) birthday, so to celebrate they were having a greased pole contest.  The village erects a 40 ft. stripped log that has been greased with lard and then men from the village take turns trying to climb to the top, where two Cokes and $20 was placed a plastic bag.  After a few hours, the winner used two ropes to tighten around the log and then created footholds with the ropes, loosening and tightening his way up the pole.  Afterwards another village came over to play a soccer match, though I regretfully cannot report the winner since I had to leave before the match was complete.

I put some pictures up to go along with the day in Dolores, so enjoy. 

So this is the New Year?

So tonight is New Years Eve. However, by the time this email is sent, the eve will have come and gone and 2007 will in full swing. 2007 will be the year that will be spent wholly in another country. 2006 was begun on a hill overlooking Seattle and I can guarantee you that 2008 will end north of the 45th parallel. 2007, however, is all about Belize, beginning to end.

So I say goodbye to 2006, and what a dandy year it was. Moments before it began I found out that I was going to Belize. The first half of the year was spent wondering what life was going to be like during the second half, and the second half was spent wondering what life would like if were back where I spent the first half. Confused yet? In any case, I am done wondering about these unlived lives and am now just living. That, I just decided, will be the theme of 2007. Just living. In 2008 I can begin wondering what will life after the Peace Corps life be like, but until then it just all about the moment.

So this is the New Year, and I don't feel any different (ala Death Cab for Cutie). Joelle, do you remember me playing this song on my ipod last New Years at Gasworks Park? Actually, I do feel a little different, but maybe that's because this is the first New Years in a number of years that has not included cheap champagne, mediocre wine, or expensive beer. Lets just say I made up for that on Christmas Eve.