Food Glorious Food

Something I often forget is that all the things I now find normal after seven months in Honduras are probably still at least a little strange to a lot of people at home. To help with this, I have a series of blogs planned to so you can understand some everyday parts of my life a bit better. First up is a food diary from the 13th to the 19th of February. It just so happened to cover my birthday weekend so there's a bit more cake involved than my average week but I'm not complaining!

MONDAY

Breakfast

* Frijoles, ricissimo, green beans and egg, plantain and tortilla 

* Banana licuado

* Mora juice

Frijoles and torillas are a very important part of any meal. We eat frijoles at least twice a day, with breakfast and dinner, and a torilla with every meal. Frijoles come in many different ways such entero (the whole bean) or revueltos, meaning refried (as shown in the picture).

Merienda

* Tamal de frijol

* Coffee

Merienda is basically when the kids get a snack at school, although sometimes it's more like a meal. We uesd to eat it every day but because of timetable changes since the holidays they have it later, just as we're heading home for lunch.

Lunch 

* Frijoles, rice, chimichurri, beef and tortilla

* Mora juice

Lunch is our most standard meal of the day. It is usually composed of chicken, rice, salad and a tortilla. Once a week we get beef, as we did today, once or twice a week it's spaghetti (the best days) and occasionally fish or soup.

Chimichurri is a salad of tomato onion and coriander.

Snack 

* Pan de piña

Pan is a very loose term in Honduras. In Spanish it literally means bread but it encompasses so much more. Pan is usually eaten with coffee and can be a sweet bread kind of like brioche, more cakey, or basically a biscuit.

Dinner 

* Frijoles, ricissimo, green beans and egg, courgette and tortilla

 I have to admit here that I'm not actually sure if ricissimo is actually called ricissimo. It is kind of like cottage cheese but softer and smoother. We also have something called cuajada which is very similar cottage cheese too. The actual cheese that we eat here is very different from back home, not a bit of cheddar in sight. It is very hard and tastes a little bit like parmesan. I really like it but Amy's not a fan.

 

TUESDAY 

Breakfast

* Frijoles, plantain, egg and ham, tortilla 

* Black coffee and sugar

* Banana licuado

 Licuados are basically milkshakes but so much better (for no specific reason). The most popular is banana followed by strawberry but I have to say I'm a banana fan. Very refreshing.

Lunch 

* Chicken, rice, cucumber, tomato, tortilla 

* Mora juice

We are very lucky that we have fresh juice to drink every day. Mora means blackberry and is surprisingly nice. Other flavours include orange, melon, lemon with chia seeds, passion fruit, a green one (not sure what it is but has to be healthy, right?), and mango.

Snack 

* Pan de piña

Dinner 

* Green beans and frijoles enteros, cuajada, beetroot, avocado and tortilla

* Water

* Kit Kat 

We usually have a stash of sweets that have either been sent over by kind friends and family or that we've brought back from weekend trips. Especially with chocolate, you've got to get it when you can.

* Cake! 

We were invited over to a friends house to celebrate El Día del Amor y Amistad (Valentine's Day) and there was cake! I know what Valentine's Day needs at home now.

WEDNESDAY 

Breakfast 

* Green beans and frijoles enteros, cuajada, avocado, plantain and tortilla

* Coffee

Plantain is like a sweet banana you can only eat when it's cooked. This is my least favourite way to have though the softer it it, the nicer. It can also be cut into strips and pan fried, which is delicious. When the strips are deep fried they become kind of like chips and are called tajadas and if you deep fry thin slices they are like crisps!

 

Lunch

* Spaghetti in a tomato sauce, frijoles, ricissimo, tortilla

* Mora juice

Today was a good day - spaghetti for lunch!

 
Dinner 

* Frijoles, cuajada, avocado and tortilla 

* Mora juice 

Avocados are a blessing of Central American cuisine. I don't eat them much avocado back in Scotland but I don't think it will stay that way once I return. Sometimes they're a bit hit and miss but more often than not it's a home run.

THURSDAY

Breakfast 

* Frijoles, ricissimo, scrambled eggs 

* Mora juice
* Coffee with sugar

People who know me at home know the closest I get to drinking coffee is getting a nice big whiff of the smell. I don't really like coffee but here it's a different story. I do need a lot of sugar with it but seeing as we don't have milk to go with it I think that's allowed.

 
Lunch

* Chicken, rice, tomato, cucumber, tortilla

* Mora juice 

 
Dinner

* Frijoles enteros, ricissimo, scrambled egg with tomato and tortilla 

* Fresh orange juice

FRIDAY 

Breakfast 

* Frijoles, cuajada, scrambled egg and ham, fried plantain, tortilla 

* Fresh orange juice

This is my favourite type of plantain to have!

Lunch 

* Chicken, rice, tomato, cucumber and tortilla

* Fresh orange juice

 

Dinner 

* Baleadas (with frijoles, cheese and egg) 

* Plum

* Mora juice

Ah, baleadas. By far my favourite food in Honduras, baleadas are made of a different type of tortilla to our usual, filled with refried beans, Honduran cheese and mantequilla (kind of like a mix between mayonnaise and sour cream) and then folded in half. This is called a baleada sencilla or you can have con huevos (with scrambled eggs). The king of Honduran food.

SATURDAY

Breakfast

* Frijoles, spinach and egg, plantain, cuajada and tortilla 

* Mora juice

Ever since I got a touch of anemia in October (coupled with the flu which made it look worse than it was), our host mum loves stuffing me full of spinach and I must say I have a new found taste for it.

Lunch

* Chicken enchilada (crispy tortilla, chicken, potato, tomato and shredded cabbage) 

* Banana licuado

If you've read my previous blog about my birthday weekend, you'll know we climbed a mountain next to Candelaria so thought we were well deserved a treat. We went to a local cafe and got some enchiladas, which are thin, deep fried tortillas with toppings.

Dinner

* Cena tipica from a comedor (frijoles, scrambled eggs with onion, chicken, cheese, plantain, avocado and tortillas) 

* Coca-Cola

 I actually forgot to take a picture when we were out with Jesse and Lucy at a comedor (a restaurant that kind of looks like it's in someone's front room!) on their last night with us so this is from another day but just imagine this plus a slice of avocado!

An interesting thing about drinks in restaurants is that as well as buying cans and plastic bottles of juice they also come in glass bottles that you return at the end of your meal. It's obviously much more eco-friendly and I personally think that Fresca (a grapefruit flavoured fizzy drink) is never more refreshing than out of glass.

* Cake!

It was my birthday weekend and we decided to have the cake a bit early. Cake in Honduras is another weird one. After baking the cake, it is usually soaked in milk to keep it moist (more like sodden). At first we were repulsed by this but over time have come round. I did still opt for a milkless cake for my birthday though.

SUNDAY

Breakfast 

* Frijoles, cauliflower and broccoli, plantain, cuajada, tortilla

* Water

Lunch

* Fried chicken and tajadas with salsa

* Pineapple juice (in a bag)

We went out into our weekly market and were treated to a free lunch by our friend's parents as a birthday present. An interesting thing with this meal was that our juice came tied up in a small freezer bag. You bite the corner off and suck it out through the hole. This is not uncommon and bags of water are seen in most shops which actually saves on money and plastic if you already have a bottle.

 

Dinner 

* Frijoles, mantequilla, avocado and tortilla 

* Orange juice 

Bonus!

This food diary was supposed to be a week long but I knew our dinner from the Monday after I finished it had to be featured because it's one of my favourite meals.

Dinner
* Tacos flautas (topped with a tomato sauce, shredded cabbage and grated cheese).

These tacos are unlike any I had had before coming to Honduras. Instead of typical taco shells or soft tortillas, it is a tortilla curled into a flute shape and stuffed with, for us, chicken. The best way to eat tacos, in my humble opinion.

¡Queremos Pastel!

As most of you probably already know last weekend saw me celebrating my birthday here in Honduras. I had decided I wanted to spend my birthday weekend in Candelaria and then go to Santa Rosa this weekend to celebrate with some of the other volunteers (though has been postponed until next weekend now). Unfortunately Jesse and Lucy, our buds from Tomala, had said they couldn't afford to go to Santa Rosa which was disappointing but after three months on the road understandable.

So what a surprise it was when, on the Friday before my birthday, who got off the bus from La Esperanza to Candelaria but Jesse and Lucy! Apparently they had been planning a surprise visit since Christmas! I thought Amy had been acting a bit suspicious... We showed them around, to the schools and our favourite spots, introduced them to some of our friends and then took them home for some baleadas! They were tired as they had come quite a long way that day so we had an early night, all curled up with two single beds between us.

The next day, Amy and I had plans to climb Cerro Cerique with our friend Alex so we took Jesse and Lucy along with us. We had thought it would be an easy wee climb but it was several hours of scrambling up and then down treacherous slopes covered in dust and loose gravel that caused a few cuts and scrapes, one tumble and almost concussion and worst of all a ripped pair of leggings. It was very hard but satisfying to have done considering you can see it from basically anywhere in Candelaria.

We thought this was the top...

Oh, how wrong we were!

The view back to Candelaria

The view from the VERY top

Because our morning was filled with more physical exertion than any of the four of us are used to we were pretty dead for the rest of the day but did manage to rouse ourselves to go and get dinner and then pick up a cake! Seeing as Jesse and Lucy had to leave very early the next morning so they unfortunately wouldn't be able to be here for much of my actual birthday but that doesn't mean we couldn't still eat cake!

A smile as big as the cake on my lap

Even after our draining morning we all managed to make it to midnight and see the 19th of February come in. Only a few hours later we were dropping Jesse and Lucy off at the bus and waving goodbye. Because we'd spent yesterday doing nothing it did mean that I had some work to do on my birthday but it wasn't so bad. We did get free fried chicken and tajadas in the market and of course there was plenty of cake to eat.

To end the day we went to mass at the Catholic church, which we had never been to before. Some girls from my sixth grade class had invited me and even had it announced that it was my birthday during the service. It was a very different experience to when we've been to the Evangelical church but nice to see the other side of religion in Candelaria.

A Honduran birthday tradition (I'm just glad I avoided the eggs in my hair!)

Overall, it was a very different birthday to my previous 18, not least because it was spent in Honduras! It was also the first time I've spent my birthday away from Amy (that would be twin Amy) and I think that was weird for me and her but also for my mum. We all managed though and hopefully next year we'll all be back together eating more cake!

Back to the Day Job

Two weeks have passed since we arrived back to our home in Honduras and I was extremely happy to find it truly did feel like a homecoming. It wasn't until we left and came back that I realised how comfortable I've grown here, how much a part of our host family we are and how many friends we actually have. These were all things I wanted out of being immersed in a community and Candelaria managed to deliver that without me noticing.

Another thing that happened without me noticing is that we are now six months in. These past six months have undoubtedly been some of the best of my life and I wouldn't change them for the world. A lot of this time has been taken up by traveling during our holidays but now that we're back in our project I'm looking forward to doing as much as we can and using the time we have left to make as a big a difference as possible.

In the three months or so that we have been outside of Candelaria it has seen some significant changes. It's summer here which means that instead of afternoon rainstorms we just get more sun. The river now consists of various pools of still water and the roads are basically made of dust meaning an approaching car now signals a coughing fit and the need for a shower. It should start to cool down and, more importantly, rain again in May but until then it's mid-day siestas and dust blown hair for us. 

We were thrown right back into things when we arrived back, and were making torillas for baleadas barely half an hour after getting off the bus. Candelaria was also in the midst of a fería which meant for the next few days we had concerts in the park, stalls lining the streets, the coronation of the Queen of the Fería and a singing competition held literally right outside our door.

Crowning the Queen of the Fería

I'm not going to lie, our first week back, before our lessons started, was spent not doing very much. We did manage to for ourselves to unpack (which wasn't actually that hard seeing as it's a luxury we haven't had for a few months) and do some planning for classes and the rest of the year but that was about it.

Once school started it was easy to get back into the swing of things, the hardest part being remembering that all the classes are now a year older so when I say 4th grade I probably mean the new 5th grade. Or do I? Very confusing. We had some changes to our timetable, the biggest being that we know have 4-6th grade for three lessons a week instead of four which is disappointing but despite our efforts there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it.

Working hard?

Or hardly working?

What we have managed to do however, is finally organise teaching some classes in the colegio. We went to a teachers meeting to introduce ourselves to everyone that works at the high school and then the next day we sat down with the depute head to make a timetable - easy as that! Instead of watching our afternoons drag by as we try and amuse ourselves, they will now be filled with an hour and a half each of English classes with students in the last year of their studies. The way it works means we still have some spare time so we're going to see how this goes and then possibly try and fit a few more classes in. They might as well make full use of us!

View from the new workplace!

Outside of school we've made a few trips to the river, if it can really be called that right now, gone on a few walks up to a point on the road where you can see El Salvador and played football with Candelaria's girls team. While we may have more friends than we realised, it's not really an even split so we're on a mission to find some amigas!

Amigos

That right there would be El Salvador, off in the distance

Since being back we've also celebrated everybody's favourite holiday, Valentine's Day. In Honduras it's called El Día del Amor y Amistad which translates to the day of Love and Friendship. Much more inclusive and it makes me feel better about the fact that the only interested party I had to fight off was Amy wanting a selfie and the only gift I received was a highlighter from a 2nd grader. I did get cake though!

It's always a felíz día when there's cake!

Survival Guide: Travelling

It's that time again. Another big milestone has passed and we now have as much time left in Honduras as we have spent here. That sparks a whole range of feeling, from anticipation for what's still to come to excitement at going home and sadness at the thought of leaving a place that has become home too.

I'm trying not think about that yet so in the meantime, to mark this anniversary I am continuing what I started three months ago. I have gathered all the lessons I've learned from a hard three months on the road, ready to help any more intrepid adventurers on their way.

Survival Guide: Travelling

• Cheap food, street food, never gonna eat food - the mantra of a traveller on a budget. Whatever is cheapest, that's what you're eating, street food is a necessary but also delicious risk that must be taken and when times are tough, two meals a day will have to do.

•  Take free water wherever you can - the bane of my existence was having to buy water everywhere we went (apart from Costa Rica where tap water is safe), especially when the rest of Central America doesn't sell bags of water as widely as Honduras does.

• You can't beat a chicken bus - don't be enticed by the offer of a direct shuttle even if it has air conditioning. A/C's not all its cracked up to be and you'll have to pay an arm and a leg for it.

•  Missing your bus is not the end of the world - there's always another or at least another option and worst comes to the worst you spend one more night where you are. No use getting your panties in a twist, as I've learned.

• Approach borders with care - don't make any sudden movements and never show any signs of fear.

• A portable charger is mans best friend, not your dog - a seven hour bus ride is a lonely thing with a dead phone. 

•  Nothing is truly your own - when travelling in group all resources are communal. This ranges from food to headphones to socks. Be prepared to share.

• Pack your bag and then take out a third of the clothes you have - I can promise your shoulders and your wallet will thank you when you neither have to carry it all or wash it all. 

• 1 bag, I repeat, 1 bag - 4 bags is never a good idea no matter how essential they seem before you leave. 2 bags at most BUT NEVER 4 (not looking at anyone in particular, Lynch).

• No daredevil stunts without medical insurance - that is unless you've got your own private plane to fly you to the nearest hospital.

• The unexpected adventures are sometimes the best - case in point, we had a hitchhiking competition to a cheese factory in Costa Rica because we're lazy and it ended up being one of my favourite things we've done. 

• Say yes to everything - ok, maybe not everything because that's how you end up taking part in a Mayan human sacrifice ritual but in general good things happen when you take a chance. 

•  Use whatever Spanish you have whenever you can - people will be pleased and possibly surprised but also much more likely to be friendly and help you out, even if you're butchering their language.  

• Talk to people - whether that be locals to make sure you're not being ripped off when you go to buy your traditional Guatemalan poncho, the people who work in your hostel who might be able to help you with the next step of your trip or other travellers to share war stories. Remember, it's the people that make the place.

•  Be ready for the time of your life - I couldn't have imagined how much I would love travelling when we started. I had hopes but thought they were almost too good to be true. And I never knew how much it would change me. I get less stressed, am more likely to go with the flow, say yes to the chances I get given, I'm more outgoing, more social, more adventurous. I mean, I got a tattoo, old Sara would never have done that but I have no regrets, about anything. I will always remember the amazing, crazy, surprising, unbelievable three months I spent backpacking around Central America.