Colombia in my kitchen

One beautiful warm and sunny day, my friend Doris and I were out running errands.  We stopped for a snack and ordered buñuelos (fried dough balls made of cornstarch and cheese.  They're way better than they sound, take my word for it).  Doris ordered "avena" to go with hers.  Seeing as avena is a direct translation for oatmeal, I shied away from that and ordered a soda.  But then, Doris' avena came.  I tasted it.  It was cold, creamy, sweet, almost milkshake like.  I changed my order- who would drink soda when they could have avena?

You can find it made in giant vats on the street in Bogotá, served from peddled carts, or sold at the grocery store prepackaged in yogurt-like containers or single serving bags. Avena isn't always served cold,  it's also a common enough breakfast drink served hot.

Now, unfortunately, my avena doesn't turn out quite as delicious as the avena I tried with Doris.  But it is a tasty treat.  So, if you're looking for something different here's my "recipe"

Start with some pre-cooked oatmeal

In a blender mix about 1/2 cup cooked oatmeal, 2 cups milk, 2 TB sugar and 1/4 tsp vanilla (I'm really guessing on the measurements. . . I just eye balled it and tasted to see if it seemed right).  Add some ice and blend until smooth and creamy.  Stick it in a fun cup and enjoy!  You can also add cinnamon instead of or in addition to vanilla.  Skip the ice, and just stick it back on the stove to heat through after blending if you want to try it hot.

Let me know if you try and make it!

Pray for Venezuela

Tomorrow, Venezuela is holding presidential elections.  While I can't call myself an expert, my month in Venezuela was fascinating and eye opening.  Maybe just because there were recently elections and their elected leader was in critical condition outside the country, or maybe because political beliefs are so strongly held in Venezuela, I heard many people's opinions on Chavez and his government.

A car outside a restaurant "Chavez, heart of my homeland"

I heard the good stories- The Chavez government was building a house for my friend's mom (and I saw it with my own eyes, had a cook out on the front porch, helped clean the dust from finishing the walls). They were providing school books for the kids (those were taken out and showed to me too. And, this is a bigger deal than it sounds.  In much of Latin America a "free" public education isn't so free since parents typically pay for school books and 2 different uniforms, costs that can be difficult for families struggling to get by).  One cousin of my friends is as pro-Chavez as they come, involved in a government position of some sort.  And I saw the popular support Chavez had.  His image was plastered everywhere, homes had posters of him on their walls, cars had messages written on them in support of him.

Chavez's face is ubiquitous on billboards 

But I also heard the bad stories.  The way trash pick up was always a problem now that the local government wasn't Chavista.  Funds from the state no longer funneled down to the local level since their political parties weren't the same, with the goal being to make the opposition party look bad and drive votes back to Chavez.

"Faith in Father God for Chavez" sign on a car in a small town.

 There were also stories about the new parallel university system.  It was churning out graduates in 3 year programs.  You want to be a doctor or a teacher?  Just go to the new boliviariano universities, and after graduation you had a guaranteed job.  Maybe it sounds good on the face of it- higher education for more citizens at a low personal cost, a booming job market.  And those are the facts that the government manipulates to show success.  But the truth isn't always so pretty.  A school teacher told me how she had a student teacher in her class who was barely literate, but who schools would be forced to hire since all graduates from these state supported universities are mandated to be hired by state run institutions.  The doctors can be just as bad- I heard one horror study about a "doctor" who graduated from one of these institutions who didn't recognize symptoms of heart attack in an elderly patient and sent her outside to wait to feel better after administering a muscle relaxant shot.  When she didn't feel better the doctor gave her an echocardiogram, but apparently didn't know how to read it, because still seeing nothing wrong she was told to wait outside again.  Only when the cardiologist arrived in the morning was the problem identified and she was attended to.

"Forward, forward, commander.  The people are with you.  Love is payed with love"

 But one thing everyone had in common, those who loved Chavez, those who had voted for him despite not supporting him in all his policies, and those who opposed him, was the acknowledgement that he was a strong and charismatic leader.  They worried about the vacuum of power their country would fall into when he died.  And now he has died.  And Venezuela is holding elections.  Chavez's hand-picked successor and former vice president, Nicolas Maduro, is not seen as a very strong leader.  Henrique Capriles, the opposition candidate, actually had a fair amount of support in the last election, and I have friends in Venezuela who strongly support him.

"Chavez with Alexis"- campaign slogan for the Chavista governor Alexis of Mérida state.

All I know is Venezuela is a beautiful country, full of wonderful people and rich in resources.  There is so much potential and I don't want things to spiral into chaos.  I have friends there.  So please, join me in praying for their elections tomorrow.  Pray for a government that will be honest and not corrupt.  A government that will care for the poor, but not neglect liberties.  A government that will wisely use the resources that they have.  Pray that God's kingdom will come and his will be done, in Venezuela as it is in heaven.

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will. Proverbs 21:1

Anticipation

Spring is coming.  I love the feeling of expectation, the knowledge that something good is just around the corner- it might delay in coming, we might have to suffer through a few more wintery days, but the evidence that spring is here and warm weather around the corner peeks out.  It peeks out from the trees in bud, and from the branches of a bramble, just beginning to sprout leaves.

That same sense of anticipation, of hope waiting to be fulfilled, makes me think of this passage.

"No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised."

Romans 4:20-21

I want to have that active kind of faith; faith that hopes and rests in the present, confident that God's promises will be fulfilled "in the fulness of time" So, as I wait, in this time of transition, I will wait with hope.  Just as spring will surely come, so will all of God's other promises to me be fulfilled.  

Life in present tense

Transitions are tricky.  I know I'm only here for another 5 months, and then on to somewhere else (Boston?  Turku, Finland?  Chicago?).  The transience of that, followed by yet another transition time makes me just want to put my life on hold.  Sure, I'm going through the motions- work, meals, time with family-but I'm not really investing myself in what I'm doing.  I'm not

Five months though, I remind myself, can be a life changing, unforgettable amount of time.  I spent 5 months in Ecuador and in Costa Rica.  I made some amazing friends during those 5 months, some I still keep in touch with.  They helped form who I am today.  So, what makes me think that these 5 months don't potentially have the same value to me?  And besides, what's the point of living half a year of your life in-between, neither here-nor-there, not quite fully present.

The problem is, I'm not really sure what I need to do (or think, or be, or whatever) to fully engage and not feel like I left my life behind in Colombia, will hopefully pick it up when grad school starts, and in the meantime wander around as a ghost of myself.  I want to live now, not in the past and hypothetically in the future.

The wedding crashers (or,Three weddings and a pick-up truck)

We ran into Georgin at the bottom of the hill, and hitched a ride with him when a friend of his with a truck passed.  "My brother's getting married on Saturday, you should come" The comment was mostly directed at Edwin, his cousin, but I was included too.  "Do you know what I'm thinking?" I asked Edwin.  He started to say he didn't, then I think he realized he did.  "Yes, there will probably be dancing,"  he answered my unasked question.  That was all I needed to know.  

It turned out that the wedding was the day after Evie and everyone else arrived, and since Evie actually had known the groom for years, we all decided to go.  What better way to arrive in style than to stand in the open bed of a pick-up truck?

Admittedly, I felt a bit awkward at first.  I didn't know the bride, or the groom.  At least I had met a fairly large percentage of the guests- I came with them, and most of them were family of the groom.   

I still hesitated to take any photos, until we almost burned the house down.  There's nothing like a near catastrophe to break the ice.  It started with a Chinese lantern.  We lit it, and sent it up into the sky with good wishes for the newly weds.  

Or at least, that was the intention.  The only problem was, there must have been a hole in the lantern.  It started off just fine, then drifted towards the roof of the house. We watched as it gently bumped the roof, and then, landed there and fell to its side.  

A hose was found. . .  It didn't reach the roof.  They climbed on the porch, and stretched it a bit further. The trickle of water that came out would have been laughable, except (despite the fact that I thought the roof was made of tin) apparently these roofs are highly flammable. . . 

Just as it was getting a bit tense, the lantern burned itself out.  Disaster averted we did what I'd been wanting to do- we danced.

Take-away for my own hypothetical wedding someday?  Chinese lanterns and dancing salsa?  Yes.  Burning down the house? No.

(Oh, and just to keep the title accurate, here are the other weddings I was at in December and January.)

 Claudia (from Colombia) and Lukas' (from Switzerland) wedding on December 1st
Take-away (again, for my own hypothetical eventual wedding) Beautiful outdoor location? Yes.  Starting 3 hours late? No.

Emily (from the US) and Julio's (from Venezuela) wedding on January 19th

 And, one last take-away- Flowers in glass jars hung from twine look really cute.  Wearing heels on a hillside is a decidedly bad idea (ok, that one is just common sense, but sometimes I need to prove things to myself even when I know they're true.  Like the time I touched the electric fence. And then did it again.)

reverse culture shock

I was out the other day, running errands, it was lunch time and I was hungry, and already in a grocery store, so I decided to buy myself a snack.

I thought to myself that I'd get some raisins and peanuts, and maybe a yogurt.  I headed to the aisle with the nuts.  There were no raisins and peanuts.  Do we not eat them here?  You know, mixed together, in a little bag?  That's my number one go to snack when I want something healthy and cheap and with enough protein that I don't get a headache. They almost always sell them in the checkout line.  I settled for a trail mix with raisins and peanuts along with other ingredients, and headed towards the yogurts feeling a bit disoriented.

I hadn't even gotten to the yogurts when I realized I had a problem- I'm used to drinkable yogurt.  That's the norm in Colombia.  They didn't have even one drinkable yogurt at this grocery store.  And I was reasonably sure that unlike Colombia, where they have disposable spoons at the checkout that they give you if you ask and have something like a yogurt, they don't do that in the States.  I stared at the yogurts, wondering what to do with a non-drinkable yogurt and no spoon when I thought of the deli department.  Problem solved with a spoon where they were selling soups, I was on my way, but still feeling not quite at home in my own country.

Beyond words

Sometimes, there are no words.  Or really, it's just that they aren't adequate.

And that's how I feel every time I think about posting to my blog.

I left Colombia.  I'm back.  And even though I made the choice, even though I still think it was a good choice, even though I'm excited to see where God leads me, it's those first words that echo in my heart as the tears roll down my cheeks.  I left.

Leaving is hard. So hard.