Call it Middling

On August 11, 2010, I left the US for Guatemala. One year ago.


We usually talk about the Peace Corps as a two year commitment, but really it is 27 months. So now that I have reached the one year mark, I feel a little strange. Like I´m going into halftime in a sporting event, or intermission at a theater. I´ve been counting up how many months I have been here each step of the way, and now I´ve been here a year, but have more than a year to go. In November I´ll head to my Mid Service Conference and I suppose my mental clock will start ticking back downward… only 11 months to go… 8…. 3…. Etc….


I don´t want to seem like I´m counting the days in any sort of ¨get me out of here¨ mentality, but because this experience has such a defined timeline, it´s hard not to note the passage of time. I hit six months in country and thought, huh, that went fast. I hit six months in my site in Sololà and thought, shoot, I haven´t made it very far. Now I´ve been in country a year and all expectations or benchmarks have been smashed, so I don´t know what to think.


In some ways these next three months are like the turn of the tide. I feel I am in stasis… things are not coming closer nor pulling farther away. Unlike intermission and half time, things will not be standing still in my site… indeed I am busy dawn to dusk and hope to make a lot of progress on some tangible projects as well as relationships, language skills, and the rest of intangible things that add up to be development work. Still, mentally, I think I am now going to disengage from counting down or counting up the months, weeks, and days. Here I am. I might as well be here. I think I´ll call this the Middling Season.

Week in San Marcos

After IST, Wendy and I headed back to site for just over a week, only to turn around and leave again.  During IST we had connected with a Food Security PCV one year ahead of us who has done a lot of work on estufas mejoradas (improved stoves), which is one of the projects that we are working to implement up in A.V. (replacing cooking over an open fire).  So, we arranged to spend a few more of our training days out in his site in San Marcos.  It took us two days to get there, we spent two days constructing two stoves, one day delivering construction materials, and then headed back to the PC Office again for the All Volunteer Conference and 4^th of July festivities. 

One of the stoves we built, approaching the finish.

Dolled up for the 4th

Black Bean Burgers!

In the third week of June, I joined Wendy for my first cooking class in Alta Verapaz. Wendy hadn’t actually tried the recipe before, so she stayed late at the co-op with me one night and we tried them out to work out any glitches in advance. The Guatemalans who were passing by on their way home all thought we were insane for having a meal without tortillas (honestly, we didn’t have buns, either – the bean patties were pretty much the whole menu). Wendy’s counterpart, Irma, was so concerned about our tortilla-less situation that she went and found someone making tortillas to give some to us. Even when we try to cook for ourselves we have people looking out for us.

I really liked the burgers, and they were a hit with both groups of women we taught the recipe.  So, I thought I’d share them with you.

The women mashed the beans on the same piedra de moler where they prep their corn dough for tortillas.  You can do it however you want, just get them kinda paste-y (not liquid).

The women don't seem to have cutting-boards, or consider them necessary.  They are pros with wielding knives mid air.

No spoons for mixing for them, either... just kneading with their hands.

Pans over an open fire... forks instead of spatulas.

Filomena showing off some of the burgers once cooked.

Ingredients:

Black Beans (one can)

Oatmeal (3/4 cup)

Egg (one or two)

Garlic (3 small cloves)

Onion (one small onion, diced)

Carrot (1/2 cup shredded)

Bell Pepper (diced)

Salt (to taste)

Pepper (to taste)

Oil (for sautéing)

Take half of beans and mash them into a paste, then add the other half.  Add the veggies and spices.  Scramble the egg and add.  Add oatmeal to reach desired consistency.  Form burger patties by hand… this takes some practice and the mixture sometimes needs some encouragement to stay together. 

Fry the patties in a small amount of oil in frying pan (just enough to keep it from sticking… this was a hard point to get across to the women).  Trying to flip the patties too soon may make them crumble apart.  They’ll still taste good, but will be harder to serve. 

All the proportions are guidelines only.  Trial and error is the best way to work out what combo makes things stick together best for you.  We haven’t tried radishes in there yet, but we bet they would be good in place of (or as well as) the carrots.  Also, for those of you who have access to them, I’m sure leeks would be delicious!