Guicoy bread

Today was Sunday, always a great day because it's our only day off...no classes or planned training activities. It's really been a struggle for me to go from living a fairly independent lifestyle to having no independence whatsoever. So Sundays are nice. I got up early, took a run up the mountain, and after breakfast took the short bus trip into San Lucas to go to the supermercado, where I bought a few things I can't buy here in my village (baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, measuring cups). I enjoyed a Cortado at a European-style cafe before riding the bus back home.

After attending a baby shower in the afternoon, I went about making Guicoy bread with my host sister Flor. A traditional Mayan vegetable, I recently discovered Guicoy is simply weirdly-shaped zucchini. So I got the idea to make zucchini bread for my host family, using Guicoy instead. Their oven doesn't work (which they didn't tell me until after I had made the dough, of course) so I had to use their tiny toaster oven. It took forever, but my loaves rose and cooked through, and they tasted like home! We had eaten late at the baby shower, so Dona Eva, Flor and I ate Guicoy Bread and hot milk for dinner. It was delightful. I already have requests for Banana Bread and Carrot Cake.

Once in my site, I'd really like to start up some kind of baking collective. I think it would be a great way to bring people (especially local women) together.

All in all, today was a good day. Hope that the relative freedom I had today will last me out this week.