Teaching/Learning Opportunities

Since my family is at the finca (their farm) and my host brother and I are stuck at home, we’ve been learning some things about each other. I’m very clean and like to keep things that way. I’ve been trying to help him learn some things about that too haha He can’t really cook either. I’m not saying I’m a great cook, but I can manage. I think my host mom was worried about him not eating or being able to cook anything while she was gone. There are several bags of cooked beans in the freezer and a lot of leftover food in the fridge. Also, apparently my host aunt keeps telling Yasser that if we’re bored or hungry, we can visit her haha

Today, Yasser was going to make something and asked me if I knew how to make refried beans. I said, yeah and joined him in the kitchen. He had one of the bags of beans out and had chopped a little bit of onion and pepper. I got out the blender and poured the beans in and a little bit of water. He was going to put the pepper and onion in the blender too, but I thought it would probably be better after. After blending the beans, I told him we needed to heat them in a pan with the pepper and onion. I started looking at the onion and he hadn’t peeled it or cut off the end part. I started laughing and said, you don’t eat the skin. I asked for more onion and then showed him how to peel it. Then I got the pepper out again and he had cut off a piece from the tip. So, I showed him that you should cut the top part off and then remove the seeds before cutting the pepper. This was really funny because I’m not used to teaching in the kitchen—I’m usually taking instruction there.

Anyway, Yasser did make something. He took the corn tortillas we had and make tortilla chips and he boiled some platanos. After the beans were done cooking with the peppers and onions, we ate our homemade tortilla chips with them. He had to add cuajada (type of cheese) to the beans. I teased him last night about having to eat something without tortillas and cuajada sometime because I had made fried rice and he put cuajada on it and ate it with a tortilla. Someday I’ll get him to eat something a little out of his “food box”. I was pretty proud of myself for making the fried rice though—it was delicious and we’re kind of taking turns making food because we wanted to try out some new things and it’s entertaining.

After we ate lunch today, Yasser asked me how he can lose weight besides exercise. I laughed and asked him if he didn’t want to exercise, and he didn’t seem very interested in that. Then, I said that you should eat foods with less oil and less fried foods, to which he gasped. Oil is a staple here and Nicas use way too much of it! Then, he asked me what he should eat and I told him vegetables and fruits. He said he didn’t like soup. I thought this was kinda funny so I said that he could eat vegetables outside of the soup. He didn’t know how he would do this. I told him he could eat raw vegetables or cooked, but raw is better. He was a little surprised by this and asked about raw potatoes. Well, I said you wouldn’t eat potatoes raw, but carrots, etc. And, I made sure to say that potatoes aren’t really a vegetable—he should look for something else with vitamins. When I mentioned carrots, he said, oh in a fresco? They make frescos here with carrots, which I recently discovered, but I’m sure there’s lots of sugar added because if he doesn’t like vegetables, he wouldn’t be drinking carrot juice. This was a very funny conversation, but it made me realize that a lot of people here don’t understand nutrition very well and it’s a good thing that a new group of health volunteers are coming down here in a few weeks. They certainly have their work cut out for them.

After the whole food situation was done, Yasser asked me if I knew how to clean the blender because he didn’t know how. I said yes and that he had to watch me so he could learn how to do it. I know a lot of people “clean” their blenders without taking the pieces apart (here and in the States) and that grosses me out because it leaves food particles. So, I showed him how to take it all apart and clean it out. He had washed some dishes earlier and I saw two plates staked on top of each other face down. I asked him how he thought they were going to dry as they were stuck together… It cracked me up. It’s a good thing we can joke around like this, but hopefully he picks up some of these things. Last night I was washing dishes and he had gotten a glass of water and then poured out the last bit in the sink and put the glass on the dish drainer. Um, yuck. I wonder how many glasses I’ve used that he hasn’t cleaned. I took it and cleaned it.

Later we visited Yasser’s aunt (Ruth) and Yasser told her about the fried rice that I had made and she said it sounded really good. So, after we left, Yasser wanted me to teach him how to make it so we could give her some. We bought the ingredients and I pretty much did everything—he was a little distracted wanting to get ready for New Years. I kept calling him into the kitchen to show him each step. I finished cooking and then we took the food over to Ruth, who lives with her mom and dad. They all said it smelt great and I guess they had already eaten. Ruth ate some and was asking how I made it. Then, the grandma asked to try some. Ruth gave her some and she ate it all, even though she already ate dinner. They were so surprised that I could cook, and that the food was good. Not sure if that’s a complement or not haha They teased Yasser and told him that he needs to learn to cook from me. It was pretty cute—makes me feel like part of the family :)