Ecuador 4/23/2016 - 5/15/2016 |
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Sunday, 5/8/2016 - Mother's DayToday was a wonderful Mother's Day in Ecuador. The kids gave me a lovely card that they made in school.Before breakfast, Rosa sent Sisa and Tayanta to the community store to buy bread and milk. They walked off hand-in-hand, accompanied by Max the dog. Not wanting to be left behind, Yupanqui and Peluchin ran to catch up with them. Craig and I laughed; what could go wrong sending three little kids and two dogs to the store? Craig recounted a story from his childhood when his mother sent him and his brother to walk to the store to buy 2 bottles of Bosco chocolate syrup. The two little boys bought the (glass) bottles, and during the course of their walk home, one ended up being broken. When they returned home, their mother admitted that she had only asked them to buy two because she had anticipated such an accident happening. Lo and behold, a while later, the kids came into view in the driveway. The girls were carrying a bag of bread. Yupanqui was carrying a bag of milk, swinging it and teasing Peluchin. Craig and I looked at one another knowingly. Peluchin then snapped at the bag, making contact with his teeth, and sending droplets of milk emanating from the bag. Rosa sighed, took the bag from Yupanqui, and salvaged what she could of the milk. For breakfast we had potato quiche, bologna, bread, juice, and coffee. We were determined to try to lessen the day-to-day burden for Rosa today while Aida was at work, so we did the dishes after breakfast After the dishes were done, we did some laundry by hand at the outdoor sink. The kids have been very hyper, especially on the weekend. At one point, Sisa was being extra energetic, and I said in English, "Who wound you up?" They latched onto it and it has become a catchphrase. The kids approximate the sounds ("Whooowowyouuup") and then laugh hysterically. At their ages, they are total sponges! They have also picked up the phrase, "Be nice!" by its context, and Sisa now uses it with Yupanqui, LOL! For lunch we had a delicious carrot soup with popcorn, beans, cabbage, rice, and plantains. Craig and I did the lunch dishes and put them away. Then we got started preparing a Mother's Day eggplant parmigiana dinner. We wanted to give ourselves plenty of time. We first had to go through the kitchen and find whatever cooking utensils and dishes we would need. We had already determined that they had a casserole dish, though we had never seen it in use. If they hadn't had one, we would have bought one in Otavalo yesterday. We had bought all of the ingredients at TIA supermarket yesterday. We couldn't find breadcrumbs, so we used the blender to pulverize some Melba toast-like bread we had bought. Craig sliced the eggplant and I battered and breaded it. We used jarred sauce, and Craig shredded two packages of mozzarella cheese. It took us about two hours to get the casserole part of it prepared. We put the casserole in the fridge, and cleaned up the kitchen and dishes. Later in the day (5:45 p.m.), we heated the casserole in the oven. We cooked ground beef on the stovetop and added it to a pot of spaghetti sauce. We also cooked spaghetti. Luckily for us, the tank of cooking gas held out, so we were able to cook the entire meal. We served the meal to the family, along with packaged garlic toast. We were quite relieved that everything had turned out as intended. Well, almost everything. The sauce was bland. The adults immediately doused their plates in salt. Craig and I are not generally the type of people who add salt to anything. But I hadn't taken into account the fact that altitude affects taste buds. Things taste more bland, and therefore require more salt/spice than they do at sea level. We joked about it with the family, and now we realize why sometimes the food here tastes extra salty to us. The adults liked it well enough. The kids weren't as fond of it, which we pretty much expected. They were very excited that we had cooked for them, but the flavors and textures of the casserole are very different from what they are used to. Sisa enjoyed the spaghetti and meat sauce, though, as well as the garlic toast. But all in all, it was a big success. We managed to largely give Rosa a day off, and to treat her and Aida for Mother's Day. After dinner, Rosa was able to sit down and do some embroidery while the rest of us cleaned up after dinner. |
 Craig shredding the mozzarella  Steph takes the eggplant parm out of the oven  Mother's Day dinner See all photos from this day |
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