Getting Adjusted - Learning to Cook

I can't believe I've already been here 12 days...I also can't believe it's only been 12 days. I definitely feel more at home here now, which is great. I feel pretty adjusted to living in this apartment with my roommates. I also feel more like I'm a part of the team. The thing I'm still not ready for is doing ministry/going on campus/talking to people. At least I got the first step down! I've mostly been hanging around in the house and with my team though, so hopefully once I do more ministry I will like it more and be more excited about it. (Pray for that!)

The biggest prayer concern each day continues to be having energy. Life is just exhausting when you are getting used to living in a completely different place. Going out always wears you out, even if you just go out for a little while to get groceries or whatever. Especially with the heat! Yesterday it was 99 degrees. Whoa. However, today I felt much more energetic and active - I was even feeling adventurous enough to cook! So the following is a look into my Venezuelan life with all its difficulties and peculiarities:

I made a super cute small recipe book to bring here that includes some of my favorite easy recipes, plus some new ones to try. I haven't wanted to think about getting the book out and trying to figure out what I could make based on the ingredients they sell here. I decided that I should make real food instead of baked potatoes and peanut butter sandwiches though, so I decided to start with something simple enough - tacos!

The first rule about Venezuela is forgoing all expectations. I didn't get all the usual ingredients that I would have if I was in the states, and cooking took way longer than I would have preferred. They don't sell shredded cheese, and cheese really grosses me out (well at least the kind here), so I passed on that. It would be really silly to buy a whole head of lettuce just for some tacos, so I also passed on that. So I had tortillas, some kind of ground meat (I'm pretty sure it was beef, but I'm not sure which kind), rice, and beans.

I pulled my meat out of the fridge today and it was turning brown. :( sad! It had only been in the fridge for about 2 days, but there are less preservatives here. I decided that it was probably fine, though disappointing. While my meat was cooking, I remembered that I needed to clean my tomatoes if I wanted to eat them. The water here doesn't have flouride or bleach, so we have to use mouthwash or toothpaste with flouride, and if you want to eat the skin of any fruit or vegetable, you have to soak it in water mixed with vinegar or bleach. So I set that up, and then I rememberd that I needed to make rice or beans, otherwise my tacos would be very modest. I couldn't read the instructions for the rice, so I asked a roommate. However, I figured that the instructions were for the entire bag, and another roommate had the instructions memorized (2 cups of water for 1 cup of rice), so I let her help me. She learned from a Venezuelan, so I ended up making Spanish rice.

To make the rice, you just add a little bit of oil (about 1 tablespoon so that the bottom of the pot isn't entirely covered), add the rice, and stir until the rice becomes white instead of transparent. We did that for awhile until I received these instructions: "You need to make sure to stir often so that the rice doesn't burn." So we had been stirring for a few minutes over no heat, because the pot was over a burner that doesn't work (2/4 work). Once we turned another burner on and stirred the rice for ahwile longer, I realized my meat was almost done, so I needed to find a container to put it in.

The state I live in, Zulia, is the most anti-Chavez state. Therefore we have theories that he is slowly cutting our state off from water (and other things). Our apartment building is under a water ration, which just got worse yesterday. We are allowed to use the water from 6:30-9am, 12-2pm, and 7-9pm. All the other times, the water is shut off. (This is VERY inconvenient because you can only flush the toilet once in between those times unless you have a bucket filled with water to add). So, I started cooking before the water shut off (at 2), but then didn't have any water to wash an extremely sticky and dirty and old tuppeware container to put my hamburger meat in. We had backup water though, so it was okay, it just took awhile to find a clean-ish, correct size container and then wash it (without running water!!) while I had to occassionally stir the meat and rice.

I was getting very frustrated with the rice, because it was taking a very long time to turn white. I did not trust my roommate's instructions. I left the room for a little while and came back, and of course when I came back the rice was burning. I added the water and thought about the situation. I forgot how to normally cook rice, but I think that you usually bring the water to a boil and THEN add the rice, and then let it simmer. That was not the case today. I really doubted that it was going to turn out okay. My roommate told me that all you have to do is add the water and wait until all the water is absorbed. I wasn't so sure. But lo and behold, it turned out just right! I was very excited because it actually tasted very authentic. So for all of you who miss Dominican rice, now you know the secret recipe! I will definitely make my rice like this from now on. It makes standard white rice taste delicious.

Some more struggles: I cannot figure out how to drain grease after cooking hamburger. I am just bad at it. So I juggled pouring the grease out over the trash can while checking on the rice. I forgot to mention that during this process, one roommate was baking, and the other ones came in to fix their lunches, and our counter space is limited. So it was a little stressful, but it turned out pretty good. Another thing that was stressful was that we hadn't refilled our drinking water jugs (we have a water purifier) before the water shut off, and I was nervous that we wouldn't have enough water to drink until it came back on at 7. (I drink a LOT of water, esp. here). We did have enough though! :)

I had a few things on my list to do today, and making tacos was one of them, so I'm glad I accomplished that. After lunch, we experienced an earthquake and I couldn't concentrate on anything (because I was too busy thinking about what I would grab if we had to run out of the building in case there was a second shock) until we went out to a park. But if you get one thing accomplished in a day here, it's a pretty good day. Things just don't really ever turn out the way you plan. So praise God that I did do something productive today!