My Love Affair with Maracuya

My Love Affair with Maracuya

I’m not quite sure how it started, but I fell in love with maracuya. For a while it was nispero, but in the end, maracuya won my heart.

maracuya inside and out

Was it the shiny yellow outside? Its oval shape? Could it be because it's lightweight yet strong? No, it must be the way it made an impression on my lips and mouth...luscious.

inside the fruit

The inside seeds are covered in a kind of slimy gel that is actually a delicious fruit. It's challenging to eat in fruit form with its texture as well as its tartness, but blended with some water, ice, and a tiny bit of sugar, it’s a tang-o-licious taste sensation.

The seeds get ground up and sink to the bottom. If you get it a a juice place, they'll strain them out, but I don't mind the little bit of crunch. Watching the grey seeds separate from the yellow-orange juice is also visually pleasing to me.

Maracuya, water, ice, and a little sugar

The shell almost looks like a lamprey when the insides taken out.

Is it a lamprey or some other sea creature? No, just a hollowed out maracuya.

Tropical fruit is something I’ve liked trying in every country because I can be rest-assured that it’s vegetarian. I know for sure maracuya will be something from Colombia that I will dearly miss. Maracuya juice, I love you. I'm sorry to say that one day I will have to leave you for another. You may be replaced by my former love from Oregon, the marionberry.

mmm, ambrosial

Spellinfg

Spellinfg

Spelling is one thing that remarkably my entire class of English as a Second Language students here in Colombia is good at. I have been consistently impressed by the quality of spelling I've seen from my students here, much more so than in the United States.

Another thing my school does well is make huge colorful posters that are hung all over the school. They are always done professionally, and I shutter to think what they all must cost.

The school decided to have its first ever spelling bee. Because I am one of only 3 North American teachers in the school, and I teach English, I was chosen to be the announcer for this event. Besides the loud audience, I'd say it was a rather successful spelling bee. I would imagine they will do it again next year.

Oh, but there was one little thing...





... Always remember to spell check your final draft.

Bouncy Bouncy*

Bouncy Bouncy*

It was another Playa Verano at Climandiaro and Hotel Prado Mar. This is the beach right outside Barranquilla where I go surfing most weekends (not to be confused with Mt. Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, that shares the same pronunciation). This time the focus at Playa Verano was on fitness. My gym, Bodytech, had aerobics classes, dance classes, and my favorite the bouncy thing. I have no idea what the bouncy thing is called in Spanish or in English. Picture something between a trampoline revved up a few notches, to bungee jumping, to being on the flying trapeze, it was kind of a combination of the three.

Yoyi flips. You can see how high in the air we were here.

I was very keen to try this contraption. I got up on the trampoline and first was asked for my weight as they belted me in with the old car seat belts. The seat belt straps were attached to some carabiners that were then attached to several huge rubber straps (picture gigantic rubber bands) and these were hooked up to ropes. The amount of rubber bands needed depended on your weight. Then there was a machine that wound the ropes to the right amount of tension for optimal flying experience.

Getting strapped in with old seat belts

Up up and away!

I started jumping and the tension of the rubber bands would gently catapult me higher. It was fun, exhilarating, and a little bit frightening all at the same time. I wanted to do a flip, but when I was up there, literally about 40 feet in the air, I got slightly intimidated. Eventually I figured, “What the heck? I’m already jumping this high, I’ve seen other people doing flips, just do it!” And I did. It was great.

"OK, I think I'll do a flip this time."

The onlookers

¡Sí, yo puedo!

I was probably on the bouncy thing for about 10 minutes and wanted to keep going, but it a absurdly sweltering day, plus jumping like that was tiring. I had already attempted surfing that day with limited success due to the gargantuan size of the waves. See Wavelength. Now was the time for a lemonade frappé and spending some time in the shade.

I had no energy for dance or aerobics after surfing and jumping

Apart from fitness, there was also musical entertainment. My favorite group from Barranquilla, Doris Vespa, a reggae funk band, played a set after some of the dance classes. It’s always nice to see them. Another band went on next who played covers in Spanish, except for Clocks by Cold Play with a salsa beat. I’d heard this version of Clocks before – apparently Cold Play and Buena Vista Social Club played this together. I quite like the mix and would have never put the two together.

Doris Vespa

Only the best surfers were in the water that day. I acted as photographer for the pro surfers. Being at the beach is always great. That day the bouncy thing was my favorite part.


*the title for this piece comes from the Bouncy Bouncy song by the Mighty Boosh. Take a look and listen. It has nothing to do with my life in Colombia, but it really cracks me up.

Oh the Pressure

Oh the Pressure

It’s true, here at my school kids can fail the year and they sometimes do, but the pressure for grades is a bit much. Many students have outside tutors to get work done. Some tutors are absolutely fantastic and students learn a lot from them. Other times it seems as though the tutors do the work for the student. One of the reasons that this happens with tutors is because they get pressured by the parents to make it perfect for their child. To a degree parents hold the tutor responsible for the student's success. I have seen papers that were obviously done by a native speaker and what can I do about it? Just talk to the student. I can’t really make them redo it.

The best example of this kind of pressure for perfect grades was when a friend of mine called to ask me a favor. He wanted me to correct his 5 year-old daughter’s English story. First he said it was the pronunciation of the story, but he read it to me, she didn’t, she wasn't even there. Then he decided it was the grammar I needed to fix. He asked if there were mistakes when he read it to me over the phone. There were. He asked me to fix them and I said, “No. She is 5 years old. 5 year-olds make mistakes. They should make mistakes, they just might learn something from them.”

I let him know that it’s not that I didn’t want to help, but it shouldn’t be perfect. Five year olds don’t speak perfectly, (or read perfectly) even it’s in their own language. I’m a native English speaker with a Master’s Degree. I don’t speak the way a Colombian 5 year-old speaks English as her second language. It makes no sense to me to correct minimal errors when the student doesn’t even know who I am or why I changed anything. She goes to a different bilingual school here. If the child makes a mistake, maybe her teacher can teach her something. A teacher teaching children so they may learn, there’s a novel concept.

Although in the past I had wished sometimes that students were a bit more motivated by grades, but I think this push to have children be high achievers sometimes has the reverse effect. Instead of learning to learn something, all they care about is grades. Sometimes it gets to the point of cheating for the grade, and that’s obviously not learning anything.

No, I will not correct English grammar errors for your 5 year-old Spanish speaking daughter who I've never met, who isn't my student, and who wasn't even there. Children learn by making mistakes. Call me mean, but I remember when learning something by not doing it perfectly the first time was a valuable lesson.

Wavelength

Wavelength

The sound of the ocean is soothing. There is some primal instinct that draws so many of us to watch the undulation of the waves. Then sometimes surfing is just extraordinary. Here is one exquisite wave:










The beauty of the sea always lures me to it. Sometimes surfing is art. Thanks Yoyi for making a magnificent wave even more elegant.

Concierto por Doce Horas

Concierto por Doce Horas

It was Sunday, February 14th, Valentine’s Day, but that means nothing here. The main event was Carnavales and every Latin American band that you’ve ever heard of, and many you probably haven’t, was playing in concert. There was the exclusive (Read: elitist and expensive) Ruben Blades concert Friday, Daddy Yankee on Saturday night, and on Sunday there were a ton of groups playing with the headliner being Juan Luis Guerra.

I couldn’t afford Ruben Blades, I thought Daddy Yankee might be dangerous, even though I would love to see him in concert, and that the Juan Luis Guerra concert would be the best value give the sheer number of bands playing. Also, my favorite Colombian band, Dragón y Caballero, was at this show. There were 11 bands in total.

Kären and I getting the tickets is kind of a funny story itself. We had gone to SAO, our grocery store with the magic cashiers, to purchase the tickets, which were on sale if you had una tarjeta de plata - a grocery store card. We paid for our tickets on February 10th and they gave us a receipt. They said the tickets would be ready the day before the concert. I went on Sunday morning to pick them up and there was one employee who had the keys to the safe that the tickets were in. It took a while to locate the right guy. Then the keys didn’t work. They ended up having to call a locksmith to get the tickets. We went home to wait for a delivery person brought them to us at our apartment several hours later. This seems to be the way things work here, and all you can do is laugh.

Around 2:30 Kären, Yoyi, and I took a taxi to the Metropolitano, the stadium where the futbol team Junior plays. We were going to go with our friend Tania, but there is something here called pick y placa – depending on what number your license plate ends in, you can’t drive that day. It seems like a good idea to me to reduce emissions and traffic, but unfortunately for us it was her day not to drive.

Approaching the Metroploitano, which I have heard called beautiful, I realized it looks a lot like a dead spider. Click on the link above and look at it. Can you see its dead spider legs?

When we arrived there was one of many vallenato bands playing. After that came some salsa band. People were dancing even where there is really no space to dance. Not just concert style dancing by yourself, no, no, I mean salsa dancing. It was rather impressive.

Dragón y Caballero played and were as fantastic as ever. Yoyi and I sang and danced a lot to them. After another salsa band, after dark there was a long pause between performers. Some emcees were trying to soothe the crowd, but it was no use. People were yelling, “¡Callate!” – shut up! “¡Hijo de puta!” – son of a bitch, and oddly, “¡Puro hueso!” – only bones. Yoyi explained to Kären and me that it means that it means boring, like if a person is too skinny and they don’t have any curves it’s boring. This put a smile on my face thinking of the cultural differences. Here calling someone gordito/a is not offensive at all. I don’t think it would go over very well calling a woman (or man) ‘fatty’ in the US.

Upon our first trip to the bathroom and waiting in line for half an hour we realized this was not something we’d want to be doing again if possible. You had to pay 50 cents for a small amount of toilet paper, to go into 1 of 4 bathrooms, two of which had broken doors, none had seats or flushed, and all had tons of water on the floor. The woman taking our money must have laughed all the way to the bank. We stopped buying beer and water as to not have to deal with the 20 – 30 minute disgusting bathroom situation. Another reason I didn’t want to go was because after Kären’s camera being stolen at la Batalla de Flores, I had taken to keeping my wallet safely tucked in my underwear. I didn’t want to chance it falling on the soaking wet floor or, even worse, the toilet.

Juan Luis Guerra did come on around 10 pm and put on an amazing show. I was surprised that I knew as many of his songs as I did (I thank Multnomah County Library’s CD collection for that). At the end of his incredible performance there were fireworks that were equivalent or superior in quality to any 4th of July celebration.

That seemed like it should be the end, but it wasn’t. Another salsa band Ritchie Ray started playing afterwards. There were some vallenato bands, but we were waiting for Peter Manjarrez, of “estoy enamorado tragado de ti” fame. I used to hear this song everyday when I first got here. We ended up leaving around 12:30 because we were exhausted. I was surprised at that so many people were still there, although many were sleeping. The concert went on for over twelve hours.

This is the last piece I will write about Carnavales. It is really a non-stop fiesta for 5 days to a week. I thoroughly enjoyed many different parts of it and at the end I almost felt like I needed a vacation afterwards. Barranquilla put on quite a show…and then it was time to go back to work.

I Wonder If They Know

I Wonder If They Know

While carpooling home yesterday, I noticed the 12-year old daughter of the woman driving looking at a teen style magazine full of pictures of the likes of Taylor Swift, the cast of Twilight, Justin Bieber, and other teen icons that I’m too out of the loop to recognize. She was shuffling through a CD of pop tunes from Latin America and the US. I am certain that American movie stars and famous musicians and know of their mass allure in the United States, but do they have any idea of their popularity abroad?

The first time I traveled to Europe in 1988, when I said I was from Chicago, people would talk about gangsters like Al Capone. In 1992 when I returned to Europe and said I was from Chicago people would say, “Michael Jordan, the Bulls!” and sometimes in Spain, “Los Bulls!” In Southeast Asia in 2000 the music of the Back Street Boys, In Sync, and oddly Tracy Chapman filled the air in guesthouses. There, saying that I lived in San Francisco didn’t elicit much response. However, mentioning the state in which it is located would often prompt the Asian style singing of, “Welcome to the Hotel California”. In Australia in 2001 a big TV hit was their version of ‘Big Brother’.

In all my travels, nothing from TV seems to have such worldwide appeal as ‘The Simpson’s’. Matt Groening is from the Pacific NW, where I usually live, and I bet he has no idea how popular his show is in Colombia after more than 20 years. I for one am glad ‘The Simpsons’ still is making people laugh.


Do the celebrities know? I have no idea. My advice: if you’re famous make good choices, do the right thing, you might just end up on a t-shirt in Colombia someday.

Making Ajiaco

Making Ajiaco

Ajiaco, a national dish of Colombia (regionally from Bogotá), is more than a glorified chicken and potato soup. I first heard of the dish from my Colombian Spanish teacher back in Portland who was salivating at the description of it. When I first tried it here I definitely liked it, but didn't think that much about it...then I started getting cravings for it. There is something about the mixture of flavors that really sates the taste buds.

While shopping one night, Karen bought a cookbook of Colombian soups recommended by one of Yoyi’s friends. It looked interesting by the cover, but like most all of the books I’ve seen for sale here, it was sealed in plastic so I couldn’t look inside. When Kären saw the contents, she was not disappointed. It isn't exactly a vegetarian cookbook, but I also have not yet met one Colombian who is vegetarian either.

Our ingredients

Yoyi reading the recipe

Kären peeling potatoes

After our 5-day trek to Ciudad Perdida (blog to come), with my swollen and blistered feet, a nice bowl of hearty soup sounded like it would hit the spot. Since we weren’t 100% sure of what all the ingredients were, we decided to go to the store with Yoyi. We bought 3 different kinds of potatoes. Unfortunately, two kinds of potatoes only came in 5-pound bags, so we ended up buying 11 pounds of potatoes for a recipe that requires 5 pounds. The recipe was for 8 - 10 servings, but still that's a lot of potatoes.

Upon returning Kären and I set to work peeling potatoes and left Yoyi in charge of the chicken. Have you ever peeled potatoes? It is a thankless job. The peel peel peeling made me marvel at our amazing kitchen staff who make ajiaco from scratch for about 150 people on a regular basis.

Yoyi in the kitchen with the chicken

Sweating in the kitchen, time for an Aguila break

Other ingredients include corn on the cob, cilantro, and another herb called guascas. It’s topped off with suero and capers, and served with avocado and rice on the side. I thought tallos de cebolla just meant some way of cutting an onion, but Yoyi let us know it really means green onion, so Dave had to pick those up on his way over. Like all Colombian meals ajiaco goes well with Aguila.

ready to be served

Ajiaco with all the fixins

After a little over 2 hours of preparation and cooking it was the moment of truth. ¡Exito! It looked and tasted just like ajiaco and it was delicious. The thing about ajiaco is that it’s even better the next day. Mmm lunch.

Kären, Dave, y Yoyi para la cena de ajiaco.¡Qué rico!

Although I'm hoping to return to my pescetarian ways, I can't help thinking that this will be a perfect soup for when it cools down in the fall in Portland. Maybe I'll have to become a pescajiacotarian.

Here’s the recipe:

3 libras de pechugas de pollo
16 tazas de agua
1 libra de papas criollas, peladas y cortadas en rodajas
2 libras de papas pastusas, peladas y cortadas en rodajas
1 1/2 libras de papas sabaneras, peladas y cortadas en rodajas
3 tallos de cebolla larga
1 rama de cilantro
4 dientes de ajo triturados
4 mazorcas tiernas partidas en trozos y cocidas
1 ramo de guascas
sal y pimienta al gusto