baking in bogotá

baking has become one of my favorite pastimes here.  i've always liked cooking, and it feels strange to have someone else always cooking for me--whenever i ask my host mom if i can help in the kitchen she's like no, no, i've got it, and you don't know what you're doing anyway.  which is true.  i'm not used to cooking from the scratchiest bit of scratch, and there's not a lot i can make from the top of my head without a recipe or directions of any kind.  but, i'm getting a little tired of my rice-and-potato diet--variety is the spice of life, but the traditional colombian diet seems to be both literally and metaphorically devoid of spice.  and the whole one-meal-a-day thing tends to leave me hungry round about nightfall when i'm just sitting down to grade my mountains of papers.  for all these reasons, i decided that i wanted to start baking more. 

of course i didn't have room for cookbooks in my suitcase, so i turned to the magic of the internet.  my mind immediately fell on my dear friend sarah rosenthal, who writes an awesome baking blog with her sisters, aptly named The Baking Sisters.  it is full of delicious recipes, pretty pictures of baked goodies, and amusing anecdotes and you should all check it out!  sarah is an amazing cook--she always brought the best treats to cast parties and her roommates were the envy of all for their constant exposure to delicious smells and free food.  one snowy shabbat a few years ago i had the pleasure of cooking with her, which was great fun, and i was wicked impressed with her skills.  but i'd always been a bit too intimidated to actually try one of her recipes.  until now--there's a first time for everything!

the first attempt was chocolate chip cookies--specifically, chocolate chip cookies for kids with no teeth.  chocolate chip cookies--sounds pretty simple and foolproof, right?  but oh, just you wait... i first read through the ingredients list, carefully translated it, and went over the list with my host mami to see if we had the ingredients.  apparently she doesn't bake much, as the only things we had were flour and eggs.  so i jumped on the bus and went in search of ingredients.

 the first challenge was that chocolate chips do not appear to exist in colombia.  i went to several different stores and searched everywhere, but they were nowhere to be found.  eventually i found some M&Ms, and figured that those were vaguely similar to chocolate chips.  but they were expensive and imported, so i grabbed two baggies, hoping that would be enough.  they also did not have real brown sugar, but this brownish kind of granulated sugar that resembled sugar in the raw and wouldn't pack at all.  it was worth a try, though.  after a long search i found baking powder and vanilla.  i also remembered that we had some "buttery spread" at home, so decided to use that instead of buying real butter, as this was getting expensive.

My tragic first attempt at chocolate chip cookies

when i returned home  i started skyping with my friend from home who was also baking the cookies.  i couldn't find the flour, though, and had to go find my host mama to locate it.  "here it is," she said, handing me a sack of cornmeal.  oh dear.  i'd forgotten that people don't really use wheat flour here--arepas and empañadas and such are all made with corn flour.  so harina is assumed to mean corn flour... i should have been more specific.  but all the stores were closed so i decided to try it anyway.  i tasted the batter.  bleh!  it was like cornbread with chocolate on it--and not the sweet kind of cornbread you get at fresh fields, a bland salty home-on-the-range cornbread.  to cover up the cornmeal flavor, i added a bunch more sugar--that weird crystallized "brown sugar."  soon it got too dry, so i had to add water and some more vanilla, just for good measure.  in the absence of a whisk or electric mixer, i stirred it around with a fork and my hands.

when i opened the bag of M&Ms, i realized i was still a cup short on chocolateyness.  so i went for my box of bribes--the little candies i use to try to get the little estudiantes to actually do their homework and such.  it occasionally works.  i had a few little pieces of white chocolate, a candy bar i'd gotten free with a set of colored pencils, some malt balls...but i was still short.  searching the cupboards, i came upon the giant brick of chocolate we use to make hot chocolate in the morning.  it is cinnamoney, none too sweet, and nearly impossible to break bits off of.  after much hacking with a giant knife i was able to get a few chunks to throw in the mix. 

we didn't have a pan, but i found this metal sheet that was part of a grill.  it wasn't especially flat, which led to problems down the road, but it was the best i could do.  also, my host mama informed me that i couldn't use the oven--apparently it doesn't work very well, i have never seen it in use, and we use it as a cupboard.  so i had to use a toaster oven.  it ended poorly.  the fake-butter and all the excess not-brown sugar sort of melted into puddles while the lumps of cornmeal with their eclectic mixes of candy slid down the sloped sides of the scrap of metal and coagulated in the corners.  when i tried to scrape them off the metal, they simply disintegrated into an unnervingly rainbow-colored pile of mush.  delicious!

my later creations have been substantially more successful.  sunday has become my baking day, because everything closes up early, and even the bus routes shut down, so there isn't much to do in the evenings.  last sunday, i tried another of sarah's chocolate chip cookie recipes.  i decided to try again at finding chocolate chips, as they are somewhat integral to the recipe.  i have been warned never to go to Exito--the colombian equivalent of target, walmart, the grocery store, an insurance company, nursery, travel agent, and food court all in one--on a sunday, as it can get quite crazy.  but this quest for chocolate chips had led me to exito on a sunday almost every sunday this month.

there's a lot of resentment towards exito in bogotá.  the arguments are similar to those leveled against walmart--that it's pushing out local businesses, taking over all the industries in an area, and no one can compete with it.  but at the same time, it gives people--especially in poorer, more remote areas--access to things they wouldn't otherwise have access to, like books and electronics.  and lots of people really depend on their inexpensive staples, like their $10 weekly staple sack--some of the cheapest calories you can find in the country, but critical for many, like my students.  i'm not sure about their labor policies, and i'm sure their products aren't exactly fair trade, but then again look at labor conditions in other parts of colombia.  but actually, one of the biggest reasons for bogoteños' resentment of exito is that it's a chain from medellín, and they feel like it's invading their part of the country.  ah regional resentment.  i guess bogotá doesn't like admitting its not the only player in the game of the colombian economy.

anyway.  i didn't know the spanish word for chocolate chips, or even if there was one. "¿se vende chocolate chips aquí?"  i asked hopefully.   the girl restocking the shelves looked at me confusedly.  i hadn't really expected that to work.  i tried again, as i had at the other stores, to explain what they were "do you sell bags of very very small pieces of chocolate, which are used for baking cookies and deserts?"  but this time, my roundabout explanation worked.  

¡oh, chips de chocolate! she said.  of course, why didn't i think of that? anyway, she led me to an unexpected back aisle where i found a few bags of mini chocolate chips, kind of shoved up between some spices.  it would do, though.  i stocked up and headed home.

My second attempt at making cookies.

while i was baking, our adorable 2-year-old neighbor, pakeri, came by to visit.  she was quite fascinated with what i was doing, so i asked her to "help me."  this led to an unfortunate incident in which 2 cups of chocolate chips were added, rather than 1/2 cup.  but you can never have too much chocolate.  she liked playing with the dough, and rolled a bunch of miniscule balls of batter (which i surreptitiously augmented).  i still didn't have a cookie sheet, though, and had to make do with an assortment of casserole dishes, the sheet of metal from the grill, a glass platter, and a ceramic bowl.  nevertheless, they turned out pretty well, especially in comparison to my first attempt.  a little hard and extremely chocolatey, but delicious nonetheless.  and they sure beat rice and potatoes in flavor.

yesterday i made some raspberry crumble bars.  i was drawn to the recipe because in the baking sister's blog they were originally made for an AJWS bake sale, and i'm a big fan of that ngo.  they were a lot easier than the cookies and smelled awesome.  it was tricky to tell when they were done, though.  the fire kept going out in the stove, and because of the ridiculously high altitude i have to bake everything longer and hotter, but i'm not sure exactly how much.  also, i still don't have measuring spoons, so i'm using actual teaspoons and table spoons, hoping they're vaguely the right size, and estimating for the fractional amounts.  it's a very inexact science, and probably will lead to dessert disaster at some point.  but ah well.

this morning i noticed a corner was missing from the bars.  my host papi came downstairs and said in english "mmm, they were rich"  i smiled at the  slightly awkward translation of the spanish word rico-- which means wealthy, great, delicious, or sweet, depending on the context--and at the fact that my creation had his seal of approval.  huzzah, this is indeed improving relations with my host family!

p.s.: HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH!!!!

it only hurts when i breathe [or, of course you're sick! you're vegetarian!]

last week we had quite a fright.  i had just arrived to teach my first class of the morning when there was a bit of a commotion.  the kids were all running around the classroom, and rumors were flying about what had happened to their classmate who had just been sent to the infirmary.  this didn't seem too out of the ordinary--kids in general get sick a lot, which is compounded by lack of access to good sanitation in the area.  add to that how often these kids fight, and you get a lot of sick and hurt kiddos.

but it soon became apparent that this was no ordinary scuffle or sniffle.  ten minutes into the lesson, we heard sirens, and an ambulance came driving straight into the schoolyard as the guards unchained and unbolted the huge metal gates.  it was like watching a portcullis being lifted, i'd never seen the door actually opened, just a tiny peephole to which i have to defend my reason for being there every morning and a little slit of a mini-door where the stern guards let me through.  i tried to keep the students calm and somewhat focused on the lesson--they were shouting and standing on their desks trying to get a better view--but i was just as confused and curious as they were.

their regular teacher came running back to the classroom and grabbed her purse.  "i've got to go with him to the hospital.  you take the class for the day."  there was a flurry of "what happened to him? where are they going? is he going to be ok?  what's wrong with him?"s and i tried to pretend to be calm and said "don't worry, i'm sure the doctors are taking good care of him.  sra. inez is going with him to the hospital, i'm sure we'll all know more soon..." my numbers-greater-than-10 worksheet suddenly didn't seem so important anymore.

as substitute teachers don't really exist in colombia, i wasn't sure what to do when i was supposed to switch classes. i had 80 more students waiting, but i didn't want to leave these ones alone.  i eventually did some juggling with the other teachers, took over one of their classes, and somehow it all got sorted.  the next day in the teacher's lounge i saw profesora inez, and asked her what on earth had happened.

Displaced children in a South Bogotá slum waiting for food (NYT)

"well, i think he's going to be o.k., but he'll be in the hospital for a while.  he has a severe lung infection.  oh, that poor boy--he's had a lot of health problems.  he lives up in the mountains in the slums for the Displaced with his brothers and mother.  they get up at 3 or 4 in the morning every day and walk miles and miles to get to school here.  and back.  their mama is very passionate about education, she wants to make sure they get the best schooling they can so they can have more opportunities.  there are schools up in the mountains, but they're not as good as this one, and they're a lot more violent--it's just not a good environment for learning.  but i'm sure you can imagine, what with the poor sanitation in the slums, bathing in that cold water, and walking that far every day through the bad air, the dust and pollution.  he caught a gripe* last year and never really got medical treatment for it, so it just got worse and worse." 

wow.  my first touch of the war hitting home.

i'm kind of frustrated by the lack of medical attention in the school in general.  the school has over 3000 students, and they spill over into three different buildings, one of which is a mile away from the main campus.  and one nurse.  in one of the buildings.  a number of my students have had fighting-related injuries (not from fighting in my class, thankfully, but the aftermath from previous classes or recess).  and if they're unlucky enough to be in two of the three buildings that have no infirmary, the best we can do is send them home.  i'm afraid this one poor fellow had a concussion, i found him in the back of the classroom crying and holding his head.  i stupidly, automatically, said "do you want to go to the nurse?" and he said dazedly "what nurse?"  it was decided that he should sit outside by the gate and wait for his parents.  his papi arrived an hour later, on a bicycle, popped the boy on the back, and went off.  i do hope he's o.k.

two girls came up to me crying the other day after recess with skinned knees and bloody stockings.  ---"she hit me!"----  "NO, she hit me first!" ---"girls, why are you fighting again?  violence has no place in a school!"  i probably mucked up the grammar on that, but i think they got the idea.  "now let's see... uuf that looks bad, do you want to go to the nur--i mean... bathroom to wash it?" i finished lamely.  the bathrooms have no paper towels or toilet paper or even soap (which is a health issue of its own), and are usually locked up, so that wasn't going to be especially helpful to the girls, but it was the best i could do.  perhaps they could splash some water at the wounds to get some of the dirt out.  "i don't even think we have a first aid kit here," i thought exasperatedly.

this is probably coincidental, but on the subject of illness, the day after the ambulance incident a gripe hit me hard, like a kick to the back of the knees, and knocked me out for a good week or so.  i'm still not in tip-top condition.  i couldn't even get out of bed for several days. not fun.  my host mami took me to the doctor, which was an adventure.  after waiting for several hours, he saw me and asked what was up.  i asked if he spoke english, because i really wanted to avoid miscommunication, and when he nodded i gratefully explained my symptoms in english.  he did not react in the slightest and then said "now tell me in spanish.  um... it'll be good practice for you,"  it was obvious that he did not, in fact, speak any english.  i sighed and went at it again.  he stopped me and corrected my every grammatical error.  i was not in the mood for a spanish lesson.

finally he said, "well, of course you're sick--you're vegetarian!!!"
"um... i don't think that's it.  i'm pretty sure it's the flu.  and altitude sickness."
"you at least eat chicken and fish, right?" he asked.  when i said no, he shook his head as if to say 'what am i going to do with you?'  he continued, "but how do you expect to to be healthy and have energy if you don't eat meat?"
"um... i eat other things?  it's never been a problem before.  so about the flu..."
"but it's just not natural!  God made man to eat meat.  yes, you can survive without it, but you're going to pay a very high price health-wise."

after a long lecture on how i was disrupting the natural order of the universe by not eating animals, he prescribed me some cough syrup and unmarked black pills for congestion.  when he noticed that i looked like i had chicken pox, i was so covered in bedbug bites, he prescribed me an orally-ingested bug spray.  (i was a little wary about eating bug spray.  and i think that's kind of sidestepping the root of the problem, that my bed is infested with bugs)  as for the rest of the symptoms, he prescribed... sugar water.  yes, sugar water.  isn't that the classic placebo?  he said it would give me strength.  i was not impressed.

here are some reasons why bogotá is a bad place to be if your lungs are not happy:

• it is almost 3000 meters above sea level.  meaning the air is wicked thin.  so it's hard to breathe normally, you never feel like you've got quite enough oxygen, and being sick makes it doubly so.
• because of the high altitude, and also kind of lax environmental regulations, there's tons of pollution in the air, which makes it harder to breathe.  and easy to get sick again.
• the weather here is kind of london.  it's wicked cold and grey and damp and rains every day, which isn't exactly ideal for boosting the immune system.
• sanitation isn't great, particularly in poorer parts of the city, and soap is not too common--not just in the schools, but everywhere.  pack in a population of almost 9 million people, and you've got a little fandango of germs on the loose.
• because it's built on a mountain, everything's all up and down, just like providence or san francisco.  so there's no just going for a gentle stroll or running an errand.  going out requires climbing a mountain.

when i wasn't passed out, i spent a lot of time while i was sick watching pirated glee episodes.  thus, i post this ironic tribute to bogotá:

"it's so hard for me to breathe!  tell me how i'm supposed to breathe with no air?  living without you [in bogotá] is like living in a world with no air."

*gripe literally means flu, but it is used pretty vaguely to describe lots of different ailments--everything from sneeze or a stomach bug to lethal pneumonia.  which probably tells you something about the medical system here.  respiratory infections are common and dangerous, particularly for children--they're one of the leading causes of death for kids under 5 here.

also, on this subject, i saw this statistic that blew my mind.  it was from a world health organization report from a few years back, but still shocking.  the leading, number one cause of death in colombia is violence.  that includes violence from the war, narcotrafficking and gang violence (where's the line, often?), crime, and domestic violence.  together they comprise 16% of all deaths in the country.  and over a quarter of all the years of life lost in the country are due to violence.  which means that if you're gonna die in colombia, there's a pretty good chance that you'll die young and violently.  now there's a cheery thought.