Babies, Gardens, and Giblets

Julia Kathyrn Rodriguez

William David Flemming

Derek Richard Cotterill

First of all, I want to say Bienvenidos to all my new baby cousins! The first, Derek, was born December 16th, Will on June 1st, and most recently Julia on July 8th! I must say that I was a little disappointed that all my cousins decided to have their babies while I was in Guatemala...but I'm SO excited to get to meet them all when I go home! Congrats to Liza and Jeff, Ella and Justin, Angela and James, and families!

Things are going pretty well here in Guate. Last weekend I attended the All Volunteer’s Conference and 4^th of July party. It was a great excuse to catch up with friends, meet other volunteers, and celebrate Independence Day, American style (including hotdogs, hamburgers, potato salad, the singing of the national anthem, speaking English, and lots of red, white and blue). Almost all the volunteers in Guatemala ( I think we’re up to almost 200 now) got together, along with staff and their families, to celebrate.

A couple of highlights from this week:

Wednesday I helped one of the ladies in my group, Delia, plant her garden. Instead of planting right by her house, we went to a parcel of land that her father had left her as her inheritance. We planted a good-sized plot of radishes, cilantro, onions, carrots, and Swiss chard. On the way back, we stopped by Gina, her sister-in-law’s house, where Gina asked me to look at her compost pile. And it was lovely. Almost completely decomposed and ready to use. She said she’d been wanting to learn, and her son, who is in my class at the middle school here, taught her how! It’s so wonderful to see that what I’m teaching in the school is actually sticking with the kids. And what’s more, she showed me where her sons (13 and 14) had planted a bunch of radishes and cilantro, presumably for the family to eat and to sell some as well.

Thursday I spent the day in Pino Dulce, as per usual. We made a pasta salad in the morning, and, also as per usual, doña Yolanda invited me to lunch. I agreed before asking what was for lunch (although there’s not really any polite way to refuse food in rural Guatemala, as far as I can tell…). And to my dismay, I found out that lunch was caldo de menudos, or basically giblet soup. In other words, they made soup out of all the “edible” guts from a chicken they had made soup out of the day before. Yup, that’s right, heart, liver, head, feet, and who knows what else. And then they added noodles, tomato, and potatoes to liven things up. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not usually squeamish when it comes to food, and I’ve learned to eat a lot of different things here in Guatemala. But I still haven’t learned how to enjoy menudos. I can eat them, if necessary. But I don’t like it. I looked apprehensively at my bowl, wondering what the fates had in store for me. Phew, I thought, looks like I only have one menudo. But what on earth is it? You’d think that somebody with an Animal Science degree would be able to tell a heart from a liver. But it didn’t look like either. I cut it open with my spoon, and it was just a tiny little egg yolk! Apparently it was a laying hen that they killed. Gracias a Dios! And now I know that there’s at least one part of caldo de menudos that I can actually enjoy!