December here is flying by. Homemade Christmas decorations are going up everywhere, supplies for endless and ridiculous amounts of cookies are being bought in the city, and in the missionary house you can almost always hear Josh Groban or Michael Bublé Christmas music playing. School is out—even winter school—and the kids can be found playing marbles at almost every house when they aren’t competing over best decorations. It’s certainly not a typical “white Christmas”, but I’ve lived in Florida for the last 8 or 9 years so it doesn’t really bother me too much. The cloudy and rainy weather here gives it a nice wintery touch, which is a little helpful for the others. If anyone’s started to feel homesick, it’s not long-lived seeing as there is so much to be done before La Noche Buena, or Christmas Eve.
There’s
a tradition here that starts 10 days before Christmas called La Posada (Inn). Two people dress up as Mary and Joseph and go
from house to house seeking refuge for the night. The rest follow them house to house and sing
the Posada song. The first few reject
them, all in song, and the final one lets everyone in to sing Spanish Christmas
Carols, pray, reflect on a verse, and share a merienda (snack) typically of a baked good—doughnuts or sweet
bread—and juice in a bag—a Honduran favorite.
We do it here every day around 4:00, but it’s traditionally done in the
evening. It’s a beautiful tradition to
keep alive for the kids and to celebrate the coming of Christ. Each of the kids in the houses has a chance
to dress up and it’s a great reminder of what we’re waiting for. Everyone is preparing for la Noche
Buena.
As I
said, school is out. That means all us
teachers have the week off—sort of.
Well, to give our middle school kids incentive during their 5 week
tutoring sessions over their winter break, we created this star system. They get different things for certain amounts
of stars received, but they all saved up during those 5 weeks and decided to
buy a bibliocine and pizza (yep, pizza and a movie). Next time you teachers out there decide you
want to take the easy way out and promise your kids pizza you can order up in 5
minutes and put on a movie, I hope you think about what we have to do down here
just to get the pizza out in time and then give that delivery boy an extra tip.
It
starts fairly early in the morning. I
have to collect wood in the wheel barrow from the community pile and take it
back to our fogon cooking area in front of the house. Then I take the wheel barrow back to house 5
and go to house 6 to borrow their machete.
After that, I take the machete and slice some pieces of wood to make
kindling (thanks to Patrick, because before that I had no idea what to
do). From there, I have to form a little
Lincoln log house inside the horno (clay oven) and the fogon (stove top) and
stuff it with paper and finally light it.
As the fire burns in the horno, we can start on the Pizza dough and let
that rise for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, the
salsina (sauce) can start cooking on the fogon as we grate the cheese. Once the dough has risen, we can flatten it
out into a pan, or as many pans as we may need, add the salsina, cheese, and
they’re ready to go! I just have to take
out the burning wood from the horno and leave in some coals and we can set the
first pan in. One problem with cooking
on a fire heated horno is that the heat doesn’t stay strong or last nearly as
long as a normal oven would. Our kids
get creative though…
The pizza actually didn’t even turn out that burned
either! We sat down to enjoy our work
and watched Narnia: the Lion, the Witch,
and the Wardrobe. Maybe I’ve been
gone for too long and away from TV and movies, but that is much better than I
remember it. If you haven’t seen it in a
while, add that to your lazy day Christmas list.
From our little house
to yours, the Farm of the Child wishes you
a Very Merry Christmas
and
a Joyful and Blessed New Year!
Easy (no rise) Pizza Crust
1 pakage of dry yeast
(1 tbsp)
1 tsp of sugar
2 tbsp of olive oil
1 tsp of salt
1 cup of warm water
2 ½ cups of flour
1.
Mix dry ingredients. Then add water in slowly.
2.
Knead and let sit 10 minutes.
Servings:
11g. pizza
Servings
(x2): 3 pizzas
Servings
(x3): 5 pizzas
White Garlic Sauce
Margarine
Garlic
Onion
Milk
Flour
Salt
Pepper
Basil
oregano
Shredded
cheese
1.
Sautee butter, garlic, and onion.
2.
Add in other ingredients as desired.
3.
Let simmer.
PS- Sorry for the
late delivery! Internet has been out in town for a few weeks, but we’ve managed
to find one place that got it working again! Thank for your patience.
Merry Christmas!
