Good Vibes

So, I'm gonna go ahead and skip a few really good stories for the moment in the interest of providing a more up to date blog entry. I promise to go back and write about the 2 different trips I'm currently missing, each of which has a plethora of good moments, but that will have to happen sometime in the near future.

For now, I want to tell you about a beautiful sunday afternoon. First, I need to back up at bit. About 2 weeks ago, two of the long time volunteers took off for vacation, leaving their house empty. Not wanting it to get robbed for the 5th or 6th time, Steph and I offered to move out of the now thoroughly crowded main house in favor of the 'pequeño casa' down the road. We couldn't have made a more perfect decision had we arranged it in advance. After a couple months of living in a bustling metropolis of people coming and going and never having a minute to ourselves, we suddenly found ourselves in the quiet of a private home. Immediately, we knew we had to take advantage of our new found freedom before we loose it again upon Seb & Juli's return. So, when our musician friend came by and offered to teach us to cook Rondon on sunday, we were happy to oblige.

Sunday morning dawned sunny and calm. Waking up and making ourselves a yummy breakfast of fresh mangoes, yogurt, fried eggs and homemade bread, steph and I waged bets on the probability of our friends actually arriving. We also set a time to commence our back up plan of heading out to the bluff should the boys not show (which is generally what happens around here). To our very pleasant surprise, the boys showed up 20mins early ready to hit the market for some supplies.

We strolled down to town, chatting and enjoying the sunshine the whole way there. Once at the market, we followed D & J around as they picked out the best coconuts, plantains, and yucca. Then we came to the fish counter and discovered that they were also offering conch, a delicacy that we just couldn't pass up. Fully loaded, we wandered the long way back through town and up to the house. When we got there, the boys took on the tricky tasks of peeling the coconuts with a machete and scaling and filleting the fish. Steph and I opted to work on the veggies.

I should probably mention at this point that I had tried a variety of different Rondons since arriving, but had yet to taste one that really knocked my socks off. In fact, I wasn't even sure I really liked the stuff, but considering that cooking Rondon is roughly equivalent to having a BBQ in the States, I wasn't about to refuse the offer. Man, am I glad to have made that decision.

Once the coconuts were peeled, we cracked them open, drained the juice and put chunks of luscious coconut in the blender to make coco milk. Three coconuts later, we had a wonderfully thick bowl of frothy cream-like milk. In the meantime, we had put the conch on to simmer and soften. Only, somewhere along the way, the boys forgot about that part... Suddenly the kitchen was filling with smoke and the conchs were beginning to fuse to the pot. Undeterred, we dumped some more water in, added the coco milk, veggies and spices and sat back to wait and see how much damage the fire had really done.

Not too long thereafter, the fish got dropped in for a few minutes and the meal was ready. We sat down to enjoy the fruits of our labor and each took a small sip to sample our concoction. Moans of enjoyment confirmed we had a done a fabulous job. Honestly, I had no idea that Rondon could taste even remotely as good as what we had created. I don't know if burning the conch helped, or if it was the fabulously thick coco milk, or what, but that soup was DELICIOUS!!!!! Cleaning out our bowls despite each being stuffed, we sat back thoroughly contented with fat, happy bellies.