Time for Tortillas!
One of our favorite cultural experiences we like to coordinate on our AWB trips is making tortillas with a local family! It’s actually much harder to do than you’d think and yet these women make it look effortless. We split our group in to two and had one group visit our friends Yelmin and Eric and the other group visited a sweet lady named Iris who lives next to the Maya Jade Hotel and who makes tortillas to sell. Both groups had a lot of fun!
Yelmin’s group got a special surprise when she cooked up some shrimp to share that her husband had caught! (He is a fisherman.) She also gifted Sharla some fresh fish at the end as well. They are always so kind and welcoming to us when we visit, we love them!
The second group had a neat experience too-they got to see how the corn meal for the tortillas is prepared and then make their tortillas out of the dough. It was really neat to see the strenuous process these women go through to make these tortillas daily.
First, you take each kernel off the cob of corn. Next you add water, add a specific kind of cooking powder or seasoning and then wait for it to boil and become yellow in color and very soft. Next, they walk it down to the grinder, which is a motor engine connected to some grinding tools that turns the corn into a soft corn meal. Then they add some water, roll them into dough balls, and begin shaping and cooking the tortillas!
It was so impressive to see how much goes into it, and they taste so delicious when warm and with a little bit of salt. We are always so grateful for when our friends take the time to teach us some new Guatemalan skills! We look silly while trying to do it, but everyone is always laughing and having a good time!
Right near the end of our tortilla making experience, Lucy and Jack had some cute bracelets they wanted to give to the students at the school in El Rosario. They were so excited and lined up to get one! The teachers were so wonderful to help us organize our efforts and make sure that no one was missed. Look at those darling faces!
