Next time you make Banana Bread…Do not forget the wood for the oven.

Doctors came to visit my school for check up´s and my delicious dinner one evening...

I have been living in my community or known as “the campo” for three weeks now. It feels like…2-3 months to be completely honest. There has been a lot of highs-getting to know the people in my community, finding out a truck of produce visits my community twice week-hello grocery store outside my door! Being given large amounts of limes, oranges, bananas and copious amounts of coffee. I also finally have a key to where I live too. There have been a lot of lows too, feeling homesick after missing my Grandfather’s 90th birthday celebration; missing Amanda’s first family weekend at University of Arizona, STILL not having electricity (supposedly this week) and finding out my broccoli I had bought 2 days ago is yellow and slightly moldy. But, I thought I would instead tell you my experience on Wednesday when I attempted to bake in the campo.

dish washing area

preparing the bake!

oven
As many of you know, or if you do not, I will tell you, I love to cook, but especially bake. Cookies, brownies, cake, pies, (I made a homemade apple pie for Rosh Hashanah when I stayed in San Salvador with a guy named Zaks who works at USAID and offered some PCV’s his place to crash, so much fun) and other yummy treats. I decided early this week that I had bananas and I wanted to make banana bread. I told my mom, who then told me the gas oven we have apparently she does not really use and it uses a lot of gas (also expensive here, they just hook up a tank, you don’t get a monthly bill or anything). So we would be using our mud thwacked wood oven outside our house. I was skeptical, but whatever.
I started collecting ingredients, no one sold flour (harina in Spanish) in my caserio, but the woman who sells bread (pan Francis) gave it to me for free. :-) I used a vegetable type substitute for butter that did not need to be refrigerated. Bought sugar (easy to find), I had cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder I had bought in San Vicente during training. We were delayed one day as the hens would not lay their eggs and I was two short. Then we did not have wood to heat the oven another day. So finally today was the day. It took about 2 and ½ hours to burn the wood to heat the oven, but my mom’s sister made bread as well so it was all worth the trouble. 8 loaves of sweet and banana bread later, dripping in sweat from creaming the butter (ish) with a fork and mixing in the cooking pot, the bread actually came out great. The oven cooked them in only 20 minutes too! My recipe using an oven said 1 hour. So my mom was right.

my mom´s sister and I...with the final product!

Just an average day in the life of a PCV...eating banana bread on my porch.
Everyone said they enjoyed the bread too. :-) We had our volunteer conference this weekend outside La Palma and it was a blast. It was so great to see my training group again and meet other volunteers. I also have an address now! Finally! You can still send stuff if you would like to the old one until the end of October and I will still receive it. L’shana Tova to those who celebrated this week as well! I participated in my first Spanish and Hebrew Rosh Hashana service last week! Four hours later, I appreciate my services in English and Hebrew, but glad I had experienced it. :-)
Here are a few photos of my school and the kids!