Peruvian tradition wants that on Good Friday (or Thursday) all families spend the day at home preparing 12 traditional dishes, and eating them. So this morning we went to the market, where all the food had changed to adapt to the holiday, and bought the ingredients for our lunch. Since this is Semana Santa, or Holy Week, you don't eat meat, and the 12 platos are to commemorate Christ's Last Supper and they are 11 for the apostoles and one for Christ himself. |
| Shopping for the 12 platos |
Most people only cook about 4 or 5 dishes, because it is quite expensive to prepare so much food, but we had almost all of them. There are no set rules on what you're supposed to cook,
but most people prepare something like what we had: 1) a soup of vegetables and shellfish, 2) a second course of pumpkin and fava beans to eat with white 3) rice, 4) another dish made with fries, tomatoes and codfish, 5) another soup made with potatoes, 6) arroz con leche (sort of rice pudding) with 7) masamorra--a purple sweet sauce with berries and apples, 8) empanadas (a flat biscuit), 9) corn cake, 10) homemade peaches and pears in syrup... and to reach #12 we had merengues and other biscuits. Plus wine and orange juice...intense!
It was really nice and we had Maria's friend, her son and daugher over.
I needed today's break to relax from the (work and touring-related) stress of the last few days. It looks like we're going to leave the the Andean food project aside for a while, until the volunteer project is well-established. I'm not working for the World Bank but in the last few days I've remembered so many times Dr. Hall's words: "Say what you think now that you're in an academic environment, because when you'll be working often you won't be allowed to"...right.
On Tuesday I had a meeting with the primary and kindergarden teachers from the 5 communities in the Valley. Only 2 elementary school and one kindergarden directors showed up--because the mayor had sent out a letter notifying them about the meeting that same morning. Note to self: avoid politicians whenever possible, but make them think they are central to any action. Anyway the teachers are excited about receiving volunteers and will help me identify host families.
Here are pictures from last weekend's tour of the Valley and trekking.
but most people prepare something like what we had: 1) a soup of vegetables and shellfish, 2) a second course of pumpkin and fava beans to eat with white 3) rice, 4) another dish made with fries, tomatoes and codfish, 5) another soup made with potatoes, 6) arroz con leche (sort of rice pudding) with 7) masamorra--a purple sweet sauce with berries and apples, 8) empanadas (a flat biscuit), 9) corn cake, 10) homemade peaches and pears in syrup... and to reach #12 we had merengues and other biscuits. Plus wine and orange juice...intense!It was really nice and we had Maria's friend, her son and daugher over.
I needed today's break to relax from the (work and touring-related) stress of the last few days. It looks like we're going to leave the the Andean food project aside for a while, until the volunteer project is well-established. I'm not working for the World Bank but in the last few days I've remembered so many times Dr. Hall's words: "Say what you think now that you're in an academic environment, because when you'll be working often you won't be allowed to"...right.
On Tuesday I had a meeting with the primary and kindergarden teachers from the 5 communities in the Valley. Only 2 elementary school and one kindergarden directors showed up--because the mayor had sent out a letter notifying them about the meeting that same morning. Note to self: avoid politicians whenever possible, but make them think they are central to any action. Anyway the teachers are excited about receiving volunteers and will help me identify host families.
Here are pictures from last weekend's tour of the Valley and trekking.
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| Touring and Trekking |
P.S. I am infinitely gratefuly for internet, MSN, gmail chat, skype and all the people I talk to every day--it would be so much harder without you :)
5 comments:
How amazing places, the lakes look like gems. I'm sure the beauty makes up for all the stress and trouble connected with your work and the need to mediate (how right are Mr Hall's words!...)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BRAVE, WONDERFUL GIRL
PS: I'm very grateful to internet, skype, gmail etc too...
foto stupende!
ma quante ore avete camminato?
Papà
I found a nice piece that I like to send you for your birthday; it's perfect for this period of your life and possibly for ever.
Listen
With all my love
Mom
I want to ask you a question, and that is: What is your life's blueprint?
Whenever a building is constructed, you usually have an architect who draws a blueprint, and that blueprint serves as the pattern, as the guide, and a building is not well erected without a good, solid blueprint.
Now each of you is in the process of building the structure of your lives, and the question is whether you have a proper, a solid and a sound blueprint.
I want to suggest some of the things that should begin your life's blueprint. Number one in your life's blueprint, should be a deep belief in your own dignity, your worth and your own somebodiness. Don't allow anybody to make you feel that you're nobody. Always feel that you count. Always feel that you have worth, and always feel that your life has ultimate significance.
Secondly, in your life's blueprint you must have as the basic principle the determination to achieve excellence in your various fields of endeavor. You're going to be deciding as the days, as the years unfold what you will do in life — what your life's work will be. Set out to do it well.
And I say to you, my young friends, doors are opening to you--doors of opportunities that were not open to your mothers and your fathers — and the great challenge facing you is to be ready to face these doors as they open.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great essayist, said in a lecture in 1871 "If a man can write a better book or preach a better sermon or make a better mousetrap than his neighbor, even if he builds his house in the woods, the world will make a beaten path to his door."
This hasn't always been true — but it will become increasingly true, and so I would urge you to study hard, to burn the midnight oil; I would say to you, don't drop out of school. I understand all the sociological reasons, but I urge you that in spite of your economic plight, in spite of the situation that you're forced to live in — stay in school.
And when you discover what you will be in your life, set out to do it as if God Almighty called you at this particular moment in history to do it. Don't just set out to do a good job. Set out to do such a good job that the living, the dead or the unborn couldn't do it any better.
If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. But be the best little shrub on the side of the hill.
Be a bush if you can't be a tree. If you can't be a highway, just be a trail. If you can't be a sun, be a star. For it isn't by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.
— From the estate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Che bello quel discorso...mi ricorda quando la nonna al liceo mi diceva che suo padre le diceva che anche quando si mettono i tappi alle bottiglie bisogna farlo nel miglior modo possibile!
Papa': abbiamo camminato pochissimo, in 3 ore si arriva al Lago Nero camminando tranquilli, la gente di Huayocari va su e giu' con le mucche tutte i giorni (infatti noi saremo sebrati piuttosto ridicoli con tutta la nostra attrezzatura!)...E' che la Valle Sacra e' tutta bellissima, non c'e' bisogno di camminare molto
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