But It's Been So Long...

I guess I should start by apologizing for my brief vacation from the blogosphere, but alas it was unavoidable. I think what kept me away the most was the fact that I've had very little to report. The past week I've spent doing mainly administrative work for ProMexico but it is all good work. We're working hard to set up manufacturing capacities for out water purification process in conjunction with Potter's for Peace. The system uses clay, impregnated with colloidal silver, mixed 70%/30% with sawdust to make pottery that can be used to clean water. To the right are the instructions on how to use one; its beauty is in its simplicity (click on the picture to make it bigger).

Right now we are working with a collective of coffee growers (some three hours West of Oaxaca) to set things up for a group of volunteers to come help them. I have to say I am not envious of the work that the volunteers will be doing; it's not working the fields but once you see the size of the burlap sacks they use to transport the coffee, you'll be sure that there is going to be some heavy lifting involved. Not all of the work is going to be that hard, luckily, and it looks like it will be a good experience for the group and the community. Oaxaca is known more for its coco than its coffee; in fact I think that this might be the only one.

Away from work though we move to the homestead. Everything here is going well. The little puppy that is here has gotten massive and now constitutes a large yellow loaf instead of his previous small yellow loaf.

The weather here is never bad enough where you would need to move anything indoors. While there are hurricanes less than 100 miles away, Oaxaca is in the center of a valley. The valley is almost like a crater with us dead center. The locals say that the mountains protect the city from the storms. The apartment that I live in is within a compound of other rooms and apartments. Downstairs from where I live there is an outdoor seating area, a semi outdoor kitchen (covered but with no doors), and a semi outdoor living room (same thing). The kitchen is modern with a side-by-side refrigerator that makes ice, an oven with a range, etc. I think you get it.

My kitchen has a stove too but I had never used it. The one time I tried it just made the place smell like gas. Clearly something was wrong because the range has an electric starter so I figure the whole thing is gas electric; it is clearly (and awkwardly) plugged into the wall. It happened, that weekend, to be the birthday of one of the people that live in the compound. I hesitate to call it a compound because that makes me think of a cult and those who know me know: that I would never live with a cult unless I was running it. Everybody had some special ethnic dish from their respective backgrounds and I had only a few special birthday recipes: cake, cigars, and probably cards. I worried because most of them don't know how to play gin (one of them is a Communist so I guess that explains why he doesn't, but I have trouble believing the game didn't saturate this far south), even when called by its Spanish name "ginebra." So cards were out and she didn't smoke so I defaulted on cake.

Now listen, I'm not about to give you some long yarn about how I made the perfect cake; we all know that the perfect birthday cake is a train cake and that's mine, I don't want to show up at any of your birthday parties and see a train. I went the way I knew how: find an oven, find a pan, buy some mix, and borrow some eggs. I had it all planned out. Cake mix is not as hard to find as you might think (Sara Lee and Betty Crocker are thriving down here) but you have to know where to look. Soriana is the store, or chain of stores, that bought Gigante, which previously, was the major chain of supermarkets. Of course, the party was on Sunday so I went, on Sunday, to Soriana. Listen, I've been down to the Ralph's on a Sunday, there's no parking; hell, I've been to a Costco on a Sunday (I was dismayed by the parking but loved the samples), but there are like twenty Ralphs' (still with no parking) for maybe 10,000 people. There are 2 Soriana's in Oaxaca for 3.5 million people (2005 estimate).

So it was pretty busy down at the Soriana on a Sunday. It I was in there for a long, long, time and the worst part of all of it: no samples. I battled to the checkout line with cake mix, oil, and eggs, and a six pack of Coca Light in my hand and made it out just in time to find an empty taxi; finally things were turning my way. I got in the cab and he knew the way, the windows were down and finally I could relax. Then I realized that I didn't have a pan. That's the worst when you are kind of dreading doing something and every step you take towards completing that goal just screams: "this is stupid, you should quit."

I didn't go back, I wouldn't. I was sure, and right I was, that there was something I could use in the communal kitchen downstairs. I went to preheat but when I opened the oven it was full of pans. I found my landlord and asked him how to turn it on. He lit the stove and pointed. When I told him the oven specifically, he laughed and said: "that's just where I keep the pans." So now I was stuck with my gassy oven. I looked at it tried the same thing that didn't work before. Then I defaulted to the Internet. I searched for the model specifically and found a forum of expats that were living in Latin America and had been stuck with a Mabe oven (no joke that's the real name). They all said just lift up the bottom panel and light it, there's no pilot you have to light it every time. I have regular matches but I did not have the long matches I would need to fire the old girl up so I again asked the landlord. He came in and took a look at what I was telling him about. He pulled a lighter out of his pocket and reached his hand into the oven. I stopped him thinking that he was going to lose and arm over a Betty Crocker cake. He called to his son Saulo who came up. He pointed out our situation and Saulo quickly left and returned with a stick about two feet long. The landlord Agustin lit one end with his lighter, leaned back and lit the stove. I thanked him when he was done and he left me with the stick; "in case you need to use the oven again," he said.

The cake turned out well. The frosting process was kind of a disaster. Just for the record I don't really like frosting, I think that it's too sweet, the cake itself is where the money is. Frosting though, for the baker, is a fickle mistress: on the one hand everybody expects a frosted birthday cake and most people aren't like me (the lessers I call them) and have a serious sweet tooth, on the other hand is just that it gets all over your fingers and hands. Like I said I do not like frosting but it is the bakers burden to lick his or her fingers clean at the end and get a headache from all the sugar in the frosting; these are the rules, I didn't write them.

We did, after all, have an enjoyable birthday party and I look forward to the next time I can light my oven with a stick.

This next week is going to be heavy work before I head home for a few weeks. I leave next Friday morning for Tijuana, and then a quick boarder jump gets me home. We're also starting the Kelly Benedict Graduation Countdown Calendar with just about 27 days to go.

So all is well on the southern front, hope it's even better up north.