Iron Chef Honduras: Grittin' your teeth

So I survived the week, and the weekend for that matter. Some of the other volunteers and I hiked up a nearby mountain called Boqueron. Beautiful views, but I am a bit sore today. We have Monday off on account of it being Columbus Day (a Honduran national holiday) so I got to sleep in. Thankfully no one set off fireworks at 3 am to celebrate this time.

The week to come should be relatively uneventful as we have half days in order to receive training from a group of teachers coming in from California. I hope they know something about uphill battles and how to avoid total mental breakdown in the classroom.

Anyhow, I thought I would take this opportunity to bring you a few posts I would like to call “Iron Chef: Honduras”. Here I will attempt to take you through the gastronomical side of my adventures, and the colorful local cuisine! I may even finally stop being lazy and try to post a few photos (this entails using another computer, as mine apparently can’t handle the resolution on my new camera), and maybe use it as an excuse to eat out a bit.

Today’s special ingredient is…DIRT!

That’s right. A major part of every diet down here, either from lack of running water or not-entirely-clean cooking surfaces (you try to keep all the dust out of the kitchen!) you are guaranteed to have your daily mineral requirement with every meal. Currently you will receive all the minerals you need with each breath, as we have not had rain in over a week and most of the nearby roads are not paved. You literally leave your house in the morning, and by the time you get home anything left in the common room is covered in a fine layer of brown dust. As several of our window slats (glass panes which open in the same way as wooden shutters) we cannot actually stop the constant insurgence of grime. I swear I washed the table on Saturday and already you can draw a smiley face on it with your finger.

I find that dust pairs best with Plata, a brand of cheap rum you can buy in most places in Honduras. The Plata masks the flavor of the dust, and with enough of it you forget that all the dust in your mouth makes it feel like you haven’t brushed your teeth in three days.