Sunday on the farm

8.29.10

We spent the day in San Antonio (near Chone) at one of Pastorita’s daughter’s house, I think her name is Mariana. It's about 45 minutes away from the house, more inland, and the house is pretty isolated and at a higher altitude, it's a big farm. There are tons of flies, and you can smell the pigs, they have soooo many! There are lots of cows and chickens, pretty typical farm. We went for lunch, and I tried to be part of the cooking clan of women in the kitchen, but at first they wouldn’t let me do anything really, just told me to eat the papaya they had cut. Then I was allowed to help make tongas, like tomales where you use these big tree leaves and put some rice, chicken, peanut butter sauce, and a platano maduro in the middle and then wrap it all up.

Parts of the day were frustrating because everyone talks really fast and asks me questions that I don’t always follow, so I feel stupid. Then they say stuff like “She doesn’t understand some words”, I’m thinking that I would understand better if I could make out what they’re saying, and OF COURSE I don’t understand everything because I’m still learning! Then people continued to ask if I cook, what I cook, if I wash clothes, etc, always surprised that I know how to do certain things. It just gets me irritated sometimes even though I know they just want to talk and have good intentions. I have to look at it as my chance to correct misunderstandings or stereotypes of American girls. One of the teenage girls in the family asked if I had servants in my house, because I had told her I could wash my plate when she was trying to do it for me. I told her that might be true in some households but the majority of families teach children to help out and they have to do chores to do their part to keep the house clean, and to learn the value of hard work and responsibilities.

Funny thing: I told my host mom that I love platano maduro, it tastes the best, kinda sweet, and I just like it. It looks like a banana, but you can't eat it raw. It has to be fried or boiled I think. Of course now I eat maduro pretty much daily, and I think if she doesn’t have anything to give me or doesn’t know what to feed me, she just picks maduro as a safe option. It’s also easy to make and cheap, but hopefully I still like it after a few weeks!