Lessons from tortillas...

I have spent the last week and a half learning tortillas - white corn tortillas to be exact.  The experience of learning this art has taught me a lot.  

Good things take a lot of work.   The corn is picked, shucked, and taken of the cob to become Maize (it’s called Elote before that).  Then the bags of Maize come to Xela (my new home) and we beg someone to take us in their car to go pick it up.  50 or 100lbs a night… measured into the bag by 3lb increments.  That takes a long time.  After we get the Maize, we return to the house and rinse the corn with limestone (Cael) until about 40 lbs of it and cael and water are in a giant pot.  Then, the pot is put on heat overnight and the house smells like cornbread.  In the morning, the soaked corn is put in a basket and on a trolley and we walk a decently far way and grind the corn into a mud-like thing called Masa.  The masa is what tortillas come from… it’s not until then that you start getting to play with the circles and clapping!

The Trolley that carries the Maize to the mill to become Masa!

The super cool grinding machine in a super bad photo because it's awkward to take a picture of just the machine...

Making the tortillas

 Patience.  Patience.  Patience.  My goal has been to learn to make tortillas and to roll my rs.  This has resulted in my spending 2-4 hours a day in the tienda, standing around the table-sized equivalent of a gas-heated frying pan, clapping my hands together (looking often like an idiot) and attempting to roll my rs (aka spitting, choking, laughing, and occasionally jumping with joy).

Kenya... who is 4 and able to make tortillas

SEE!??!?!?

I am the entertainment!

Looking like a fool adds to the experience.  Besides accomplishing my goal of learning tortillas, I feel as though I have also been performing a service for the people I live with… I am their entertainment and the town attraction.  The Gringo who understands 50% of the conversation, drops the Masa occasionally, and simply struggle with something that comes so simply to them.  When it gets boring, my host sister and I also begin singing songs from church – me in English and her in Spanish – simultaneously and in the standard Guatemalan key (not in any key… it’s actually quite a feat) or we have a dance party where she attempts to teach me to dance and then laughs her head off when she realizes that I really wasn’t lying when I said that I don’t have rhythm and then I break out the classic 80s Sprinkler.

It’s okay to stand around and not say a word.   My Spanish is at the point where I can talk conversationally with people who know me and are relatively well educated and know a bit of English.  Aka, my host sister.  For everyone else, she has to translate for me.  So, when she’s occupied, the other tortilla lady and I just stand around and enjoy each other’s presence

The 25 year old peer... with a family.

Small talk can spur big thoughts.  In our enjoying each other’s presence, the tortilla lady asked me how old I am, I told her 25, and she said she is too. That caught me off guard.  She looks relatively young, but she has an 11 year old and a 5 year old and a husband who looks like he’s in his late 30s/40s.  He is.  He was 28 and she 14 when they started their family.

Sometimes you just have to take a break and wash your hands.  Tortillas are easier to make with clean hands, minus the tortilla dough.  In my intense desire to learn, however, I tend to forget this helpful fact and either my tortilla lady friend or host mom has to remind me.  After that break, it suddenly comes together.  Sometimes we just have to step back, wash our hands, become less intricately involved in the situation, and after that, we will be much more successful.

 The USDA Food rules are a lot stricter than here.  As in, they exist and are followed and enforced.  That doesn’t happen here.  I’ll keep my details to that.