As you can imagine, all of us will have experiences in our 27 months of service that can be defined as quintessential Peace Corps moments. I was lucky to have one quite early on. What follows is an email I sent to some folks after my first week in-country: "this evening, i was hanging out with my deaf/mute 'tia' maria on the back porch (the adopted 'aunt' of my host family). she was pressing corn tortillas and frying them on a wood-burning stove. every now and then she would point out different fruit trees in the yard, making the only noise she's capable of making, sounds kinda like 'peh, pehhhh.' meanwhile, i was standing at the pila (a concrete structure that includes a basin for water and a washboard) washing my clothes by hand, trying my best not to scrape all the skin off my knuckles. every now and then, the two of us would chase the two dogs and one cat away from the stove, and die of laughter. it was right about then that i realized my life's not gonna be the same for quite some time..."
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| Tia Maria readying the masa for tortillas |
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The fogon, a wood-burning stove found outside of most houses.
Very useful for when the power goes out, which happens often. |
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I luckily only had to do battle with that pila a couple of times
before Marcela let me use the washing machine right next to it... |
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