Hola, well I said I would write about Guatemalan food so vamos. Premiero, queiro dicer que WINDOWS SUCKS. Again I´ve just wasted a half hour trying in vain to get Windoze to recognize my camera. And this is even XP. What the fuck? Why can´t they get shit right, still? when you plug any camera into a mac, it just automagically knows its there. with windoze i waste time downloading a driver, installing, and it still doesnt work. godammit. I got lots of good photos too.
Anyway: With food, I think i will end up writing more about eating customs than food itself. First, Guatemalans, like Mexicans, at least non-rich ones, have the following daily eating habits: medium-small breakfast, which is usually, for my host family, 2 or more of the following: some kind of eggs, cereal (in warm milk), fruit, tortillas or bread, and sometimes pancakes or mosh, which is a guatemalan thin hot oatmeal dish. Then for almuerzo, lunch, they have their biggest meal. Usually some kind of meat, maybe soup, vegetables, and of course tortillas or bread. Since I told them i didnt eat red meat we´ve been having lots of chicken, and once we had fish because they went to visit a town near the lake where you can get good fresh fish. For dinner, its almost the same as breakfast. often some kind of eggs, maybe vegetables, and once we had these things like tamales called chuchistes. but dinner is small, and eaten at about 7:30 to 8:30.
I like this arrangement a lot. Its much more healthy and logical than the way a lots of norteamericanos eat, and way way better than the way porteños (people in Buenos Aires) eat - almost no or no breakfast, large lunch, huge and very very late (like 10pm) dinner. No no no. you dont eat a lot before you go to bed. thats how you get fat. also breakfast is neccesity, totally, you have to have fuel to start your day.
Anyway, i am happy with the food mostly, here, and my gut hasnt been rebelling too much. Oh the thing I forgot to mention is all the meals come with black beans. Lots of black beans. Which is hard to deal with. But, my host family has been really good. It was sort of surprising to not find myself in a large family with little kids. This one is just Aviel, who is an accountant, and his wife Pilar, a law student, and her mother Yolanda, who is a schoolteacher. And sometimes other family members show up for meals, like an 18 year old nephew named Julio, or a couple other men who I havent figured out what relation they are.
Often at dinner Yolanda is watching a soap opera on TV from mexico called Un Apuesto Por Un Amor - A Wager for A Love. Its just as cheesy as any gringo soap opera but its on at night, and its more violent. This week one of the stars stabbed her guy in the chest with some scissors after he found her in bed with another hombre and threatened them with a gun. Then the other hombre accidentally killed her banging her head against a wall, and stole another woman's baby. Tommorrow night is the 'gran final', but i think i might miss it.
Its sort of good practice of spanish listening, though since its mexican they speak a lot faster than guatemalans, so its hard.
okay thats all for now. off to study some more. Tommorrow is my last day at the school in Xela, and I take 9 days off to travel, then i have 2 more weeks at La Escuela de la Montaña, the other school PLQE runs, on a former coffee plantation out in the country. chao.
Posted by steev at Abril 21, 2005 05:35 PM