Cinco de Mayo - Taco Tuesday in Africa

Hola from Africa!!

Yesterday was such a blast. I think I've mentioned before that early on, while teaching the body parts, I discovered that "butt" in Swahili is "taco". When I explained to my class that in America we EAT tacos they thought it was the funniest thing! I promised them that I would bring tacos for them to try. Later I realized that I would be here over Cinco de Mayo! A perfect opportunity to bring tacos and talk about Mexican culture!

So yesterday was the big day. Langley (one of the other volunteers with me at Kilimahewa) and I went on a hunt monday for all the supplies. We decided to use chapati as tortillas, and bought a bunch from the local bakery. Chapati is a local flat bread or pancake that is VERY close to tortillas. I spent alot of time saying, "no, not chapati! Tortilla!"

Next we tracked down some cheddar cheese at the Western market. We bought some lettuce and avocados from a vegetable stand and I had asked Miriam from my class to bring tomatos from her store!

Last all we needed was the ground beef. Now meat here is a little funny. You can't just buy a package of ground beef from the market. We arranged to get the meat through CCS, so Primo, the cook at the homebase just ordered a bit extra on his usual order.

Monday night we met Primo in the kitchen to prepare everything. When he pulled out the beef it was still in a huge block!! We were concerned that he hadn't understood what we had wanted, but then he pulled out this crazy hand-cranked grinder. He bolted it to the prep table and then began cutting the meat into smaller hunks. Then he fed the pieces into the grinder and with the hand crank, ground the beef!! I was amazed! I'm not sure how I was thinking the meat would get ground, but we've had dishes before that have ground meat in then so I knew it exsisted here. I guess it just made me really appreciate how easy an American grocery store makes cooking - removes all those steps!

So once the meat was ground I went to work browning it on the stove and seasoning it with the closest thing I could find to taco seasoning - some kind of spicy beef seasoning. It wasn't quite right, but very close!

While I was cooking the meat, Langley shredded the cheese and chopped the lettuce. We put everything in plastic boxes - all ready to take with us in the morning!

So yesterday morning we headed off to school with a ton of food and a bad full of "pinatas" that the other volunteer, Rachel made. (she stapled paper plates together and filled them withcandy!)

We waited until after the morning break and then we combined my class and the secondary class for our fiesta!

We made an assembly line and had everybody come through holding a tortilla a we filled them with the ingredients. Once everyone had one I had to give a demonstration on how to eat it! It may not have been the BEST taco I ever had, but it was pretty darn good - and I was
pretty impressed that we whipped them up in Africa!!

Everyone else was hesitant at first, but once they took a bite they were all hooked! I think everyone really enjoyed their tacos.

Next we took everyone outside to play piñata! That was a major hit to say the least! The kids got really into it and were scrambling in the mud for the candy - kids are the same everywhere when it comes to some things!

Everyone got a turn before we ran out of pinatas and headed back into the classroom where we spent the rest of class learning some Spanish words.

All in all it was a great day! And today the kids greeted me "holateacher!" :)

I have a ton of pictures and a little funny video of the piñatas, so I will try to post that soon. If not before I leave, when I get home for sure!