La Comida

I just got back from two weeks of traveling. Looking ahead to this month, we've got a week in Santa Clara, a week at our sites, another week in Santa Clara, then a week in Ciudad del Saber, and finally Swear In when we become official Peace Corps Volunteers. It's a lot of traveling and moving around, but I can't wait. Catching up from where I left off last, I headed out to the mountains of Chiriqui for my Cultural Week. Think lots of coffee, lots of mountains and trees, lots of rain, lots of mud, and more rain. I walked through a coffee plantation to get to my host family every morning and night.

You might be thinking that with so much Arabica coffee growing, and home to the most expensive coffee in the world (that hasn't passed through an animal's digestive system), we would be drinking some pretty fine coffee. Well, just about all of that coffee is shipped out to customers such as yourselves. Panamanians drink Duran, which I've been told by an organic coffee grower contains a mix of roasted coffee beans not fit for higher grade brands and burnt corn for added volume. Yum! I'm not the connoisseur yet, and still can't taste much coffee regardless due to all the sugar each cup contains. Every morning my cup also had a nice surprise of cheese hidden in the bottom. We're talking a chunk of cheese (queso fresco) about half an inch thick, an inch wide, and another two or three inches long. I don't think it flavored the coffee too much, and I couldn't bring myself to eat more than a nibble of the cheese. Therefore the family dog could probably tell you how it actually tasted better than I can.


Panamanian dogs have been indispensable in maintaining my relationship with host families. Anything I can't or don't want to eat goes to the little guys. I have a rock at my house in Santa Clara where I can dump off any leftovers for the dog. My Chiriqui host mom took the bus to work before I woke each day, leaving me free to feed the dog any fried Spam or coffee-cheese I didn't want to consume. The dinners were all great, so I didn't have to worry about sneaking food away when the family was there. In Herrera, I ate all my food, no matter how full I was since my host family was so great to me. I did have several theme songs running in my head as I was eating. For example, the morning when I was served two whole hotdogs for breakfast (in addition to several tortillas, a cup of coffee, and a cup of crema), I had the song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" stuck in my head. They just reminded me so much of Ballpark Franks you can buy in the States. Hehe. Then on another morning when I was served a monstrous portion of alhaldres (fried dough), I kept thinking of my high school field hockey coach yelling "Finish It!" from the sidelines. Growing up we got to draw a line down the middle of our plates and only eat half if we couldn't finish. Too bad the same rules don't apply here!

My first experience with crema deserves a word. Evidently there are several types of crema.
However, I have only been served one type, appropriately named crema de harina, aka cream of flour. Basically, you pour some milk and flour into a pot, heat it up until most of the flour dissolves into the mixture, and are left with a thin yet chunky batter. Yum! There are also cremas made with strawberry, others with oatmeal, etc. Speaking of oatmeal, I also had my first taste of oatmeal chicha.

Chicha is the all encompassing word for juice here. It can be blended fresh from pineapple or mixed up from a packet of Tang. We made some chicha de caña, squeezed right from the sugar cane stalks. It is quite a lot of work, but well worth it especially with a bit of lemon juice mixed in. I even had banana chicha made by cutting a banana in quarters, popping it in a glass, adding a bit of milk, sugar, and cinnamon. This one is eaten with a spoon and was by far the most delicious concoction that I have tried. Best of all, I had banana chicha in Chiriqui, which means there is a very good chance of having it in my community many times over the next two years!

These last two weeks were filled with activities. I toured and worked in organic farms and school gardens, introduced to the Ngobere language which hopefully I´ll be adding to in site, shown many medicinal plants, learned how to make sombreros, taught in the schools, had an amazing Despidida (goodbye party) and can´t wait to see my Herrera host family again.