The Food Blog

I'm going to be making peruvian / latin american foods and posting them on my food blog so make sure that you check it often.  I'll also be making other things too and posting them but at first there might be quiet a few posts about foods from latin america.

The Venerable Cuisine

Large white corn, aka chocholow

Where we're at in Peru

We are finally in Peru and have been settling in this past week. We were originally going to rent a furnished vacation home until we found something more permanent. But Caitlin the deaconess intern working here in Peru offered up her apartment to our family. She said she could stay at the office while she looks for a peruvian family to live with. We are really grateful for this because the apartment in literally two house down from the main office/church for the mission in peru. And we aren't stuck with a place that isn't what we saw online. That's happened before and doing that in a foreign country is would be really scary. 

So here is a look at our temporary home that we will be in until we find our permanent place.

Our welcome to Peru gifts.

First morning breakfast in the garden room.

The Master bedroom.

The dinning room table.

The rack by the door that has a lot of peruvian
and guatemalan wears on it.

The Kitchen

The dining room to living room, and off the
side that's a basket full of homeschooling supplies.

Peruvian Birds

The kids room.

The outside of our building.

In La Republica Domincana

We got to The Domincan Republic late on the 15th, and were greeted by two members of the team. They helped us load all of our worldly possessions and the cat. Then they drop us at the Krey's house and Katie Ziegler took Zoe to stay with her in her home just down the street.  

We were going to stay in the home of another deaconess but as we have learned sometimes in latin america the electricity isn't really all that reliable. So her house was without power and was currently being fixed. We stayed with Pastor Ted Krey. (who also happens to be one of Joshes bosses.) We are thankful for everyone in The DR for welcoming us so warmly and helping out with everything from finding us fresh veggies, and cheddar cheese, too helping get the documents we needed for Zoe to get to Peru. 

The veggies and cheese might seem odd but for us eating raw veggies wasn't something we could do in Guatemala. It wasn't very safe or most of the time when cleaned they tasted like iodine. And I could never find cheddar cheese there.

During our time in Santiago the kids and I stayed in the house and only visited a few places, while Josh explored the different places the group works with. The second week there we enjoyed a work retreat at the puerto playa.

While at the retreat we had morning matin's services, and a bible study taught until lunch. We then had our afternoons free to go to the beach or lay by the pool or whatever. In the evenings we had a small bible study and vespers service before dinner.  We got to meet a few of the other Latin America missionaries. That includes meeting the team in Peru for the first time as well.

Below are some pictures of our time there........  

 Z was played on this trike. He loved that he could ride it through inside and around the outside of the Krey's house.

We saw a lot of Katie Ziegler, and I think Z took this picture or maybe our Katy did.

Im not sure if this is actually used as a swing, but during naptime I would find Katy out here swinging on the rope.

We were introduced to HUGE avocado's that we ate with like very meal. Which was awesome by the way.

We visited the church in Santiago twice.

Katy drew this picture of the altar in the church in santiago. She even has the altar book, and communion in the picture too.

She folded up that picture and wrote this on it.

Did I mention how HOT it was in The DR? Well it was sweltering.  :)

I got really excited because Katie Ziegler brought me books from the states that my mom sent to her.

We ate soo much avocado, but I loved it! Also in the back of this picture is fried plantain which was delicious.

Katy washed the dishes a lot!

A puppy followed josh back to the house and the kids loved it. He was adorable and sweet, but in the end he had to stay in The DR. But we are hoping to get a puppy here in Peru.

At the retreat I did more re-reading, from books that I had brought to us from the states.

And the kids enjoyed the pools, and the beach.

And Josh discovered that along with buying and learning to play a guitar he wants one of these. It's an instrument made in Peru. Its a hollow box with a hole in the back and a spring pulled across the front top inside. You tap your hands and such on it like Josh is doing in the photo, and it sounds like a drum but so much cooler.  

Mi Tiempo en Antigua Guatemala.....My Time in Antigua Guatemala

Ok below the spanish is English so don't fret if you can't read spanish you can read the english, its in blue. Also I wrote this for my teacher for homework so it might read a little strange. :) Enjoy!

Hace tres mess yo llegué a Guatemala. Yo vine a Antigua a estudiar español. Durante mi tiempo en Antigua yo estuve probando muchas comidas, yo aprendí  español, yo compré hechas a mano botas, Yo aprendí mucho sobre la diferente cultura, y yo tuve un buen viaje a la playa negra.

Three months ago we arrrived in Guatemala. I came to Guatemala to study spanish. During my time in Antigua I was able to try many different types of food, learn spanish, buy hand made boots, learned a lot about a different culture, and took a weekend trip to the black beaches.

Muchas Comidas

Yo obtuve un tatuaje nuevo en el fin de semana pasado. El tatuaje va a recordar me Antigua Guatemala.

I got a new tattoo last weekend. Now when I see the tattoo it will remind me of my time in Guatemala.

Mi tatuaje nuevo.

En la escuela yo tuve solo una maestra de Guatemala, se llama Nancy. Nancy vive en a pueblo se llama San Antonio. Su pueblo es indígena y muchos personas quien viven en San Antonio somos tejedoras. Ellos hacen tapetes, ropas de mesa, ropas de ellos indígena en el telares. Mi maestra es bien, yo aprendí mucho español para ella.

In the school I've had only one teacher, her name is Nancy. Nancy lives in a small town called San Antonio. Her town is indigenous and a lot of the people who live in it are loom weavers who make rugs, table runners, and indigenous clothes by hand on large looms. My teacher is great, I have learned a lot of spanish from her.

Ropas De Indígenas

Personas indígenas.

En Antigua hay que beber el aqua de botella, porque el aqua del grifo puede hacer nos enfermos. Es igual con frutas y verduras, estos tienen que limpiarse bien antes que nosotros las comamos. Esto es porque nosotros vivimos con una familia que es de Guatemala.

Zoe fue capaz de viajar con nosotros. En la mañana el lunes yo coya llevar a ella al veterinario, porque yo necesito papeles para viajara la república dominicans.

In Antigua it is necessary to drink clean bottled water, because water from the tap can make us sick. It's the same with fruits and vegetables, they have to be cleaned before we can eat them.  This is one of the reasons we live with a family from Guatemala. The family cleans and prepares all of our food for us.

Zoe was able to travel with us to Guatemala. On Monday I am going to take her to the vet so that we can get the papers for her to travel to The Dominican Republic.

Mi tiempo favorito de nuestro viaje fue el fin de semana en la playa negra. Nosotros celebramos el cumpleaños de Zechariah. En la playa por tre días. Quedamos dos semanas en Guatemala, estoy triste y emocionada al mismo tiempo. Yo tuve mucha diversión pero yo estoy mirando adelante para finalmente instalarme en Lima Peru.

My favorite time in Antigua was our trip to the beach. We celebrated Zechariahs birthday, and we were there for three days. We have two weeks left in Guatemala, it is sad but exciting at the same time. I've had a lot of fun but I am looking forward to finally getting settled into Lima Peru.

What's the cat been up too?

Yeah she hates when I take her picture.

Did you know that we got to bring Zoe with us for our move? We did. 

It's a hard process and we actually had to see the vet 15 days prior to leaving the country. The vet had to write up a statement of her health for travel and also fill out a special USDA form and have the USDA office sign off on her health so she could leave the country. I did all of that for the "pet police" at the Guatemalan airport to take a five second look at the papers stamp them and then send us on our way.  We read that that happens often but thats fine she gets to come with us.  

Chilling on the porch outside the kids room. only for a
moment since as you can tell its blurry, she ran off to a bird or something

During our flights she sat under the seat in front of me on the plane and every now and then she would get sad, meow and need a head rub, but for most of the plane ride she slept and was quiet. It did help that I kept her kitty duffle covered.

She found a tree full of birds.

She has seemed to love Guatemala, since our home is an open layout she gets to roam around the patio, eat their plants, and while we were at the beach she found her way on to the roof and over the wall to the neighbors.  Pueblo one of the guys in our host home was watching her for us over the weekend we were gone and was really sad that he couldn't find zoe anywhere.  Luckily he was able to find her at the neighbors. Since then she has had a constant monitoring. 

She has always tried to steal my pillow.

We did loose her once only a few weeks after we got here. one night we went down for dinner and came back to no Zoe. I couldn't find her in her usual spot so I had to roam around down stairs to locate her. I did find her on top of the garage behind the house rolling around in the branches of a lime tree. Did I mention that it was also raining pretty hard so she was wet, and covered in little leaves and branches from the tree, and whatever else was in the roof.

One of her favorite areas, the back corner of the
 porch and the stairs to the roof.

So she is fitting in to her part inside and part outside life.  There is another cat that looks just like Zoe here in the house her name is Katy, which is pronounced "KAH-tee" and it is also how everyone here says Katy's name as well.  

Sleeping on my pillow.

Now all we have to do is successfully get her to The Dominican Republic
and then to Peru. So I'm off to find an english speaking vet or I might have to take Pueblo with me to the vet.  :)

Our Fourth of July

On the fourth of July Josh passed his test to move from Grade B to Grade C in Spanish so we celebrated both that and the holiday with a family dinner out to a really neat french bistro. 

We also visited with a friend from the spanish school at his house.  He and his wife made us all lunch and we watched one of the last fütbol games of The FIFA World Cup. They also have a tiny pug puppy which the kids loved chasing around there old open spanish colonial style home.

The downstairs middle part of the house. It was a beautiful home.

Lunch Ribs, and Elotes.

Fancy Drinks! Crushed fresh pineapple with sugar
and like 3 or 4 shots of vodka and then shook up with ice.

The view from their second floor.

The kids running with Agent K.