Tuesday, July 13, 2010

mucho trabajo

Today was another awesome day in Puerto Escondido. In addition to our regular Spanish class and some shopping, we had a cooking class out our lanugage school. The class was taught by a woman named Mari. She spoke no English and I, of course, speak little to no Spanish. We chose to learn to make tamales and taquitos. We arrived for our lesson at 5:00 and didn't get done until a little after 8:00. There was SO much work involved! I have a new respect for all of the work that goes into cooking these dishes. I learned many new things. My most important lessons of the, however, did not involve measuring or cooking times and methods. For most of the time I felt very inept, ignorant and a little frustrated. When I didn't understand something, Mari would repeat herself over and over, as if that would help. This sweet, patient woman was doign what we as teachers do to our students sometimes. I wanted so much to please her and to coomprehend what she wanted me to do! Yet i wasn't always able to figure it out. When I asked the school owner for help he laughed and said, IMMERSION! That's how you learn. Throughout our time there, we laughed and joked a lot and managed to make a delicious meal. The 'kitchen" was in a hut with older, minimal appliances. It was raining and very humid while we were there. There was no air conditioning so we had the windows and the door open. We could see the cliffs and ocean and greenery as we laughed and sweated and cooked. It was truly an amazing experiences that I'm not sure I want to do again. Ha ha!

1 comment:

  1. Awesome! That's so how we felt trying to get around Moscow!

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