Sunday

The sun finally showed itself today, and for the first time in what feels like weeks, it wasn't raining when I went outside to brush my teeth after breakfast.

This morning, post coffee, I headed up to Tzibal to meet with the women about getting the pila drainage systems done so we can finally finish the project.  We had the meeting in Estella's main room (living room, I suppose) even though most of the room was occupied by a giant mound of corn.  Because of the rain, she's been keeping her corn harvest inside to keep it from molding--when the sun finally does come out she'll lay it out to dry before storing it in the rustic corn loft built into the roof beams of her kitchen.  As I was sitting there waiting for the women to show up, I just stared at the corn mountain before me, thinking back to childhood when we would rake leaf piles so huge we could swim in them--this corn mound had that same astonishing effect.  And it struck me that here, in front of me, was a literal visual representation of this family's foodstuffs for the next year (Peter Menzel would love it).  This mound of corn, with a diameter of perhaps three meters, will nourish Estela, her husband, and her three children until next year's harvest.  Little by little the dried corn will be plucked from the cobs, boiled, ground at the molina and cooked on a comal, and would be the family's daily tortillas and the bulk of each meal.  Sure there would be some beans, some eggs, perhaps some meat once in a while.  But tortillas are pretty much it.  People living up here are a bit luckier since they also benefit from seasonal fruit--mandarines, watermelon, oranges, bananas, occasionally apples--Guatemalans living in colder, less fertile areas of the country aren't so lucky.  Because I cook for myself I don't really eat tortillas unless I "eat out"--they're a filler, after all, and I earn more than enough money here to buy beans and eggs and vegetables from the market to fill myself up, and I own a refrigerator to store perishables.  Whenever I eat with Guatemalans they have a habit of counting how many tortillas I eat from the communal tortillas basket or gourd and then making fun of how few (usually I eat between 3-5), boasting that they eat 7, 8, 9, 10 with their meals.  A favorite question I always get asked: "What do you eat instead of tortillas in the United States?"  And there's really no easy answer.  We eat so much meat and such an astonishing variety of other foods that we don't have a staple filler-carb that's on the table at every meal.  Sure, maybe a basket of bread, but it's eaten as a side, not as the bulk of the meal.  Nonetheless, according to Michael Pollan in The Omnivore's Dilemma, Americans actually consume more corn than Central Americans due to our extremely large intake of packaged foods that are essentially processed corn products; corn in disguise.  And sitting there in front of that mound...I'd much rather eat tortillas every day. 

Once back from Tzibal I took advantage of this miraculous break in the rain to catch up on laundry.  Despite the fact that my knuckles started bleeding only halfway through my load, I finished it all and plan to reward myself with a nice afternoon nap.  Later on I'll eat my tortilla-free dinner, and as always, remind myself how extremely lucky I am to have never worried where my next meal would come from.