Last Saturday in Antigua

Today, for our last "Saturday" in Antigua, I baked two loaves of zucchini bread* this morning and then we picked up 3 large pizzas from Dominos and headed to the town of Pastores, about 15 minutes north of Antigua.  We had lunch with the Valle family--we have loved getting to know them--Corina, one of my teachers, Jose, her husband, and their 4 beautiful daughters, Melanie, Andrea, Michele and Gabriela.  Stephen found time to teach the girls Cribbage, while Corina and I visited with her in-laws in the house next door.  

This picture is on the steps in their house.  Above them and to the right is their kitchen.  Corina cooks "camp style" over wood.  

This is their living room, dining room and bedroom.  There are 3 twin beds (for the family of 6); they rearrange them to make room for the tables you see.  There is one large free-standing piece of furniture which serves as their closet.

This is Clemencia, the girls' grandma.  She makes and sells tortillas Monday through Friday--she uses 20+ pounds of corn flour every day.  On the weekends, she makes tortillas and traditional Guatemalan food to sell on Sunday evening, including Chuchitos ( a typical type of Guatemalan tamale made using the same corn masa as a regular tamale but they are smaller, have a much firmer consistency and are wrapped in a tuzas, dried corn husks, instead of plantain leaves), Atol de Elote (a drink that typically includes masa (corn hominy flour), water, unrefined cane sugar, cinnamon and vanilla), Arroz con Chocolate (rice pudding with chocolate), enchiladas (flat tortillas layered with refried beans, meat, diced beets, carrots and topped with a slice of hard boiled egg), and Rellenitos de plátano (small balls of mashed plantains filled with sweetened black beans, fried and sprinkled with sugar.)  We stopped by last Sunday and I sampled the Atol de Elote and took some Rellenitos de Platano to go.


Today, Clemencia cut some of her beautiful roses to make a bouquet for me.  She is one of the sweetest women I have ever met.  She's always smiling and laughing even though she has a very hard life.

 We are excited to get back home to El Salvador, but it is going to be difficult to say goodbye to our new friends!


*Learned something new last night as I was searching for baking soda in the local grocery store.  Who'd a thought that in Antigua, baking soda is only sold in pharmacies because of it's "medicinal" uses.