so i spent holy week in carasquem which is a little cantón (hamlet) outside of arcatao in the department chaletenango. we were right on the border of Honduras. I spent the week with a beautiful family, Lydia and Beto were the parents and Eduardo (20), Hector (19) and Marina (18) were the kids you still ived at home --the have three older siblings who have already moved out.
Lydia had planned a very special dinner for our first night: crab and fish soup. New this is nothing like what you would think. Are you ready? So clearly it still had to be prepared when we arrived and so the first thing I did in "my" house was "help" Lydia get everything ready. This meant tearing the claws off live crabs, then ripping the top part of the shell off, and putting everything in a small wachal (small tupperware-ish plastic circle container). Then, the fish: they were about the size of my thumb and cleaning them entailed slicing open their bellies, squeezing out the guts and fish poo, and throwing them into the same wachal. Now, innocent that I was, I figured some further cleaning was going to take place before all these mariscos (sea food) were put in the soup. Absolutely not. So eating this soup meant fishing around (hehe) in the soup and when you got a fish, the fins had to be removed, and the "espinas" (spines - bones) removed, the head... and scales and the little meat that there was eaten ... and let me tell you i am fairly certain that there were more bones then fish in those little guys! then the crabs...oh cangrejos (like how i´m slipping in all this spanish? just getting you guys ready for when i come back! lol)... the bones were everywhere and the meat was in hidden pockets... i got a little bit and then i got tired of getting crab shell in my teeth and i kind of stopped... oh my goodness. and Lydia was so cute and soo excited to be having crab.
and i have to be running so just a hint of what is to come (and a reminder to me...;)
-ochos locos y pepinos
-the bathroom
-soccer
-the river
-chicken tamales
-the hike
-mangos and pineapple
- motorcycles!
oh and some pictures here too...
a picture of the mountains
the girls (us girls and carasque girls) playing soccer and just hte beautiful view the mountains behind
my "brother" eduardo and I after he taught me how to ride his brother´s motorcycle!
julia (the other woman from my program who stayed with me) and hector in front of the sunsetting behind the mountains or our walk back home one evening.
and our family´s chicken house --they had a chicken farm and 700 chickens are in that little house!
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