We slept 11 hours last night. We were tired little chocolate workers. By the time Ned and I walked over to the kitchen at 7:30 we were the last ones there. The kids had already eaten breakfast and were long gone. Abelina was very sweet and had breakfast waiting for us. Today's amazing meal was fresh farm eggs scrambled with hot chili peppers, homemade corn tortillas, and sliced bananas and cheese. Juan was all excited about something new he had tasted called "Hot Mama". It's hard to describe, but it was like sweet jelly with hot peppers. He thought it would be fun to play around with it in some chocolate today. Fortunately, no tours or customers were scheduled today so we had a day in the chocolate lab. Most of the day we were working with cacao powder or what we call cocoa. They make their own, but because the weather is so humid it isn't a straightforward process. Usually it is packaged right after the cocoa butter is removed, but we had to sift it, grind it, resift it, then weigh, package and label it. It was quite the production. While Ned and I were working on this Juan made up some little chocolate hearts (same moulds as we use) and filled them with Hot Mama. It was delicious! He also experimented with cane sugar syrup which was too sweet and some of their own homemade honey. They have 5 hives.
The Hot Mama hearts were definitely the best. Since I was predominantly working with the labeling, some things never change, I had fun helping Juan modify his label for more efficient labeling and a better adhered label. Ned became one with the cacao powder. All together we packaged 200 bags. Not bad for rookies. For lunch Abelina made us an AMAZING meal. It was ground venison (hunted by her family) in a spicy chili sauce over rice. We made the mistake of letting her know we like spicy food so she is not holding back! Lucretia comes home for lunch every day and was able to join us. She's just adorable.
We were back at chocolate production for most of the afternoon until their 14 year old son, Henry, came home from school. In the late afternoon he took us for a walk through the village. He was beyond a superb tour guide. He made sure to wear the Nevada City baseball cap we had brought him as a gift. What I really enjoyed was how seriously and proudly he took this task on. He meticulously pointed out the foliage and named most everything, most of which we had never heard of. He also gave us the history of his village and told us about some of their customs. If we hadn't been with Henry, I don't think I would have understood this was a village. It appeared to me that we were just walking along a dirt road, or foot path in some cases, passing a thatched hut here and there. Henry would say, this is the corn mill, this is the store, this is the tool shop or this is the church. This village has 6 corn mills and as many churches - for a population of 300. Go figure. At one point, while walking along a foot path, we passed a very modest looking thatched hut and an older woman who was bare breasted said something in Mayan to Henry. He translated that she was selling a fruit called Golden Plums. They were 6 for a Belizean dollar. Of course we bought them. As were walking away Henry very softly said, "Some of the elders practice the old ways." When I asked him what he meant he very shyly said, "You know, being half naked." He wanted to show us the primary school that he graduated from and Lucretia is currently enrolled. It is very modest. There is a very small building that says "school kitchen" where the children can buy lunch for 50 cents and a humble building, perhaps 40 feet that is their shcool. The actual building might look modest, but I'm pretty impressed with the amount of school work Lucretia does every night and the in depth subject matter. She's 11 years old and we've seen her do statistics, geography, and science that I'd be intimidated to tackle. She's very bright and quite the little scholar.
We got back in the nick of time since the sun seems to set quite quickly here. I can barely make it from the kitchen area to our bedroom in the dark and I wasn't thrilled about walking around the jungle in the evening. Abelina had dinner waiting when we returned, and as usual it was unbelievably delicious. She called it Kalt, in Mayan, or Caldo in Spanish. It was a soup made with a freshly butchered chicken, cassava and yams. She even saved the feet for me and her to suck on as a special treat. (Victoria, if you're reading this I think you would heartily approve of the bone broths we've been eating!)
After dinner we again spent several hours with the family watching a video that Henry made. He's quite the film maker. Very creative and talented. I'll try and find one of his movies and link to it on facebook. This family is so fun and I really enjoy how much they laugh, love each other and tease. Juan tonight said that when Abelina tells ghost stories he can't sleep and holds on to her real tight! Abelina definitely wears the pants in this family. You should see the photo of the boa constrictor she killed. As Abelina says, "The stick bounced like rubber off his head!" Dang!
One of the churches is across the street and 4 nights a week they meet and have very musical revivals. There's something surreal about being in a Mayan village in the remote jungle listening to Ranchero music being belted out with an electronic keyboard! We aren't in Kansas anymore.
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