New books and cooking adventures...

After work and Spanish school today I walked down close to the lake to go to my favorite little bookstore. I ended up spending way to much on books which isn't a change from what I do every time I go to Barnes and Noble back home. I have a little system down here for money. The wallet that I carry has 2 pockets in it. One pocket is money that I use for Spanish school, groceries, rent... pretty much necessities that I have and that money comes out of what is donated to me. The other pocket is money I have taken out of my savings that I use for personal purchases (pretty much anything that I don't feel comfortable having a donor pay for). For example the $40 I spent on unnecessary books today.

Anyways, here are the books I bought... fascinating blog I know.

I bought the Spanish for Gringos (which is not a derogatory word like I first thought when I moved here) because I am not able to go to Spanish school as often as I need to now because of working so much, so I really need to step up the studying I do on my own time.

Speaking of studying more I decided to challenge myself with reading a book in Spanish. My brother's favorite book is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and I have started it a few times, but have never finished it. The little bookstore had it in both Spanish and in English, so I decided to buy it in both. I think i am going to read it paragraph by paragraph (or maybe sentence by sentence) and translate it as I go. I also think I am going to read it out loud (at least when I am reading it at home) to help me with my pronunciation and speed at which I can pronounce Spanish words. We'll see how long I stick with it. Hopefully it will be a good learning tool and fun exciting way to read his favorite book.

Lastly, I bought a cookbook for Guatemalan food. I bought this book for 2 reasons. First off you have to cook EVERYTHING from scratch here, so I am constantly looking up recipes online and it is annoying how many of them have ingredients that you can't find here and I knew I would be able to find everything in this cookbook in Pana. And second my roommate and I have been talking about how we want to learn how to make traditional Guatemalan food. We even thought about hiring a Spanish tutor that a lot of the volunteers use to come to our house and teach us how to make tamales. I still hope we do that someday, but I also think it will be fun to learn myself.

Anyways, the cookbook is in Spanish (obviously), but it was my favorite that I looked at because every recipe has a picture to go along with it (which is extremely helpful when you don't know what anything means). I brought it home and Heather and I decided that the first recipe that we should make is Paches. We then spent about an hour translating it into English. I had to google a lot of the ingredients because I had no idea what they were. Here are some words I learned...

Cucharada - tablespoon (or actually it means spoonful).

Cucharadita - teaspoon

2 dientes de ajo asados - 2 teeth of roasted garlic

1 manojo - 1 handful

1 libra - 1 pound

Sal al gusto - Salt to taste

I am planning on going to the market on Friday morning before school and buying all the ingredients then make it on Saturday. I'll let you know how they turn out. I am a little nervous about buying everything in the market, but now that I have googled all the spices and veggies that I need to buy it should be easy.

Here's an update on work... Today I went up to the clinic to help Heather set up the operating rooms along with the rest of the clinic for Surgery week that starts on Sunday. There is a team of doctors coming in for the week to do eye surgery. Sunday is triage day which is apparently crazy. Over 400 people usually show up hoping to get surgery, but they can see about 150 patents and then maybe only do less than 100 surgeries. I am excited to experience my first surgery week starting with helping schedule surgeries on triage day. Also next week we have a dentist team coming in and staying in Pana and working across the lake. I am going to spend the day with them on Monday to experience what our rural medical teams look like. Then on Tuesday I will be back at the clinic helping out with surgery week. Maybe they will need some help in the operating rooms... I mean I did set them up today, so I'm pretty sure that makes me legally a doctor. :)

On another random note ASHLEY GETS HERE IN 10 DAYS!!! She is coming to visit me in Guatemala then we are going to Belize for a few days (another good example of spending money that would come out of my savings wallet pocket). It has been more difficult that I thought it would be planning the Belize part of the trip mainly because you have to take so many different travel precautions that you wouldn't have to even think about back in the States. For example we are not allowed to travel at night. Not on a bus or on a plane. One because there are not many street lights in Guatemala, so it's really dangerous to drive/fly at night and two because Gringos have a curfew here because being out at night when you're not in a busy populated place isn't a good idea. It's been complicated, but we finally figured almost everything out and I can't wait for her to get here! I am most looking forward to a family hug (sounds so cheesy, but it's what I miss most here), great conversations, and showing her everything I love so dearly about Guatemala. I know I am blessed that she wants to experience this with me.

I'll let you know how the shopping/cooking goes. I mean what are the chances I can mess up a very complicated recipe all in Spanish? :)