Hello!
I'm sure many of you have noticed how absent I have been from the blog. To tell you the truth, I just can't seem to find the time to write a well though-out, picture included post.
Emails seem to be much easier for me. So, out of a desire to continue to communicate with those of you who keep up with life here in Caracas, I'd like to switch to email.
If you would like to be included in this email list, please send an email to laura1412@theschindlers.net
I will happily add you to the list.
Thanks everyone and I apologize for my failure as a blogger.
Tuesday, January 28
Thursday, July 11
Cooking American style in Venezuela...a dramatic tale
For those of you whom, like me, finding cooking and meal planning to be a chore, I invite you to experience just one night of trying to cook like an American in Caracas.
Warning: I plan on exaggerating a bit for dramatic effect, but all facts contained within this story are 100% true.
It was 6:15 pm. Rafa and I just finished watching Attack on the White House (or whatever that’s called in English) after a morning of tutoring and afternoon of errand running, including renting above mentioned movie. Wow, I didn’t realize it was so late already.
Rafa, “Amor, tienes hambre?” (Are you hungry? which I have learned really means, “I’m hungry. What’s for dinner?") Aw man, it’s dinner time already. I consult the menu I make each week to try and relieve some of the stress of cooking: Slow Cooker Sesame Chicken. Seriously? Why didn’t I look at this earlier? I quickly scan through the other days to see if I can interchange a meal. Bummer, all my other meals anticipate having gone grocery shopping, an errand we did not accomplish today.
Aha! I saved a few recipes yesterday that I wanted to try. Locating the online note, I scan through the short list: Slow cooker BBQ chicken (nope), Slow cooker Brown sugar garlic chicken (nope), and at last, Chicken Enchilada Flatbread. I click on the link and scan through the ingredients.
Skinny Chicken Enchilada Flatbread
- 1 cup red enchilada sauce, store bought or homemade
- 1 cup Skinny Shredded Chicken or boiled, shredded chicken breasts
- 1/2 cup reduced-fat shredded cheese
- 1/2 white onion, diced
- 1/2 cup jalapeño peppers, diced (or 4 ounce can)
- 1/2 cup diced green chillies (or 4 ounce can)
- handful of fresh cilantro, stems removed
- 4 Flatout flatbread, light wraps
- 1/2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Enchilada sauce.Well it’ll have to be homemade. Good thing I have a recipe I like on budgetbytes. Chicken. Check. Needs to thaw. Shredded cheese. I have a block of mozarella. That should work!. Onion. Check. Jalapeños and chillies. Yeah right. Why would they have that in Venezuela? Wait! How about green pepper and the red beans I prepared that are in the freezer? Yum! Cilantro. Check, although also frozen. Flatbread? Find a quick recipe.
Ok this is doable. I check the preparation time listed on the recipe: 10 minutes. Score! I will have dinner on the table in no time. Approval check from Rafa? Permission granted!
I’m already making a mental list of the order in which to do things: remove chicken, red beans, and cilantro to thaw in water, find a flatbread recipe, look up the enchilada sauce recipe, oh yeah...I really have to pee! I get to work, finding a flatbread recipe entitled “Quick Garlic Flatbread.” Ingredients? Check. Weird, it uses vegetable shortening. Whatever, I actually have some on hand. Enchilada sauce recipe is up on the computer.
I begin making the dough, annoyed with the part about cutting in the vegetable shortening with the flour. Rafa enters the kitchen and makes “juice" from a packet as I finish up the dough. I have to keep reaching above his head to grab ingredients as he’s pouring water into the pitcher. Why is he so tall? He finishes, then takes over my computer at the kitchen table and I keep having to steal it back to look at the recipe.
Dough needs to rest for 20 minutes. No problem. This gives me time to make the enchilada sauce. I steal back my computer for a minute and check out the ingredients for this one. Great...I have no tomato paste. How about a can of tomatoes? I can make this work. I pull out a pot and begin the sauce. It’s a bit of a process, but the liquid from the can of tomatoes is fairly thick and I add a partial tomato along with some salsa purchased in Trinidad from my visa trip. Maybe the salsa will give it more of a Mexican flavor! I taste test, add salt and more garlic powder, but the sauce isn’t thickening. If I’m going to spread this out like pizza sauce, this won’t work. I quickly locate the cornstarch and make a paste to thicken up the sauce. Much better.
There’s still 10 more minutes before the dough is ready. I chop up some green pepper and onion and wash a few of the dishes I’ve created. I start to sautee the green pepper and onion. Thinking I only had the chicken left to cook (forgetting the beans), I get excited that I only have to dirty one more pan. Rafa is now scanning through my music on itunes, listening to five seconds of each song and criticizing me for owning it. I contemplate asking him for help and hope he’ll notice my scattered, desperate state and want to pitch in. I promised I’d be working on not complaining about cooking so I decide to just keep working.
With the green peppers and onion cooking away, I focus back on the dough. It gets split into 6 balls to make little flatbreads. I don’t own a rolling pin so I use a mason jar to flatten them, adding flour so they don’t stick. I use one of our plastic placemats to roll on, to which Rafa sticks up his nose. Hey, it’s way easier to clean! I make 2 at a time, since the placemat is small. Our stovetop has an awesome metal slab that goes across 2 gas burners that functions as a flat top. It’s perfect for arepas, tortillas, and thin flatbreads like this. The first 2 always take some time.
I cut up the now thawed chicken into little cubes. The peppers and onions are now finished and get transferred to a bowl while I cook the chicken in the same pan. I add some Mexican spices amongst other things to give the chicken some flavor. We are all about the spices in this house and buy them on visa trips and vacations as there isn’t much available here in Caracas. I roll out 2 more flatbreads, flipping the first two, and checking the chicken.
It’s at this point that Rafa realizes it’s now 7:40 and I might need some help. He finishes off the chicken and begins cooking the beans, adding some of his own spices and a packet we often use. We sautee them in some water so they get mushy like canned beans.
The rest of the flatbreads cook quickly and the beans cook a little too long. It’s now time to assemble. Gee whiz...you’d think I’d be finished after all this work but they still need to cook in the oven to allow the cheese to melt and the flavors to mix. I give up being well-mannered and heap spoonfuls on sauce onto the flatbreads and use my hands to add chicken, peppers and onion, and finger pinches of bean gloop. No points for presentation here. I just want to be done! I shred cheese over the top of each one generously. It’s the best part after all! They’re finally ready to go into the oven.
I tackle the rest of the dishes, but thanks to that one pan, only have a few. While we wait, Rafa is now checking youtube for new movie trailers, picking out his favorite series movies like Fast and Furious, the Matrix, Mission Impossible, etc. There are so many new movies coming out, many of which he is much more excited to see than I am.
Dinner is finally ready to come out of the oven at 8:30 and we decide to watch movie #2, G.I. Joe 2, as a reward while we eat.
Thankfully, dinner was GOOD! Rafa ate all 3 of his flatbreads and I finished off 2 and look forward to eating the last one for lunch today. I always feel good about the hard work of cooking when my husband wants seconds.
I contemplate the 10 minute preparation which turned into a 2 hour ordeal and realized I needed to blog about this.
Cooking here, at least making American foods, is an often frustrating mess of random substitutions, can’t make that’s, and do it from scratch’s. Certainly, not every meal I make takes this long or has this many substitutions, but it often happens I really struggle to find recipes that work well here. I’m learning, but it’s taking longer than I had hoped.
So the next time you get frustrated about having to cook dinner, you can think about this story and laugh. Buen provecho! (The VZ version of Bon appetite!)
Thursday, June 27
School Year 2012-2013: A Photo Review
September 2012: Performance Open House
 |
| My geometry students showed off their line drawings at our open house. |
 |
| My calculus student Paul Ji gave a presentation on parametric equations. October 2012 Solo visa trip to Curacao |
 |
| Rained both days and the pool was green. |
Playing for the church worship team
 |
 |
| Getting doused in flour and water by my students at the Fall Festival |
November 2012
 |
| After months of phone calls, finally received our marriage license with its official apostille |
 |
| Spending time with my niece, Arlet (2 months old) |
High School Retreat
 |
| Optional worship times in the mornings. So exciting to see kids choose to come. |
 |
| Gotta love camp meals |
 |
| Focus was on worshipping God through art. We even got to practice drawing our hands. |
 |
| And camp games of course. |
 |
| Senior class of 2013 |
December 2012
Dinner with friends
 |
| Guillermo and his girlfriend Maria |
 |
| Fabiola, friend from English club who now attends our church and is part of the University Missions Teams |
Visit to Ohio
 |
| Rafa’s first experience with snow |
 |
| Wedding reception at Clearcreek Chapel |
 |
| Cousins! So happy that so many of our family made the trip just to see us. |
 |
| Karla & Jose came to visit! Rafa ate his first “Texas” steak...and loved it. |
January 2013
 |
| Arlet already getting big |
February 2013
International Week
 |
| Teaching my students to make pierogi |
April 2013
Two Day Trip to Aruba/Curacao
May 2013
ICS Harlem Shake modeling do’s and don’t of our dress code
 |
| Got to edit my second video...so fun! |
Science Fair
 |
| Caroline Berkey showing off her project |
 |
| Spaghetti bridge project winner |
 |
| Scavenger hunt science to a locker full of candy |
High School Banquet
 |
| 4th grade teacher Christine and English teacher Natalie |
 |
| My 10th graders: Michelle and Laura |
 |
| 10 seconds of dancing with my boy |
 |
| A happier husband who found ping pong at the banquet June 2013 Graduation |
 |
| John Mark and Paul Ji, my 2nd block class |
 |
| The day we found chicken! |
 |
| Farewell ceremony. Music teacher Ian and P.E. teacher Gabe |
 |
| ICS 2012-2013 What a great group! |
Monday, June 24
The Sweetness of my Savior
Since writing the previous post and struggling through all the emotions and difficulties of this past year, God has proven Himself to be a sweet Savior.
I have been reading the book, When Sinners Say “I Do” and its focus is on the power of the gospel for marriage. While I started reading this book out of a desire to be a better wife, I have found that its truths, that is, the beauty of the gospel, have been a salve of grace to my heart.
I’d like to share with you some of the quotes that have really changed my focus.
“Your spouse was a strategic choice made by a wise and loving God...revealing the familiar sin so that it might be overcome by amazing grace.” Substitute spouse with any aspect of your life; your job, child, situation and the meaning still applies. God chose this path for me. He strategically brought a more difficult work situation this year to reveal sin in me. The book uses the illustration of a lawnmower whose engine is filled with oil. My heart is the engine and the oil is my depravity. However, the cap to the oil is loose and as the engine heats up (circumstances in my life), oil spews out. It’s not the heat’s fault that this happened. The heat didn’t fill the engine with oil. That sin was already there in my heart and the heat just revealed what was there. It’s so easy to blame my bad attitude and lack of content on my circumstances. I often let myself play the “if only...” game. But the reality is that it was God’s intention for this past year to be difficult. Why? To reveal the oil that exists inside my heart because He desires to make me pure. It’s all part of His “rescue mission for my life,” as Dave Harvey says. Rather than complain, rather than focusing on the circumstances, I ought to be thanking God for His refining work in my life.
“Focus on undeserved grace, not unmet needs.” James 4 says that conflicts arise within us because “our passions are at war.” And what are those passions? Culture would tell us that those may be unmet needs in our lives. We have emotional needs, physical needs, etc. However, Scripture says that Christ is the only true “need” that we have. He is all-fulfilling and all-satisfying. I found that I have confused my desires and wants and have labeled them as needs. Dave Harvey says, “If my desire is so strong that I am tempted to sin, then the problem is entirely me.” If my desire for an easier school load, fairness, respect, or whatever causes me to sin, then that is my issue. It wasn’t those desires that caused the sinful response in me, but my own depravity that turned them into needs.
Focusing on God’s overwhelming grace poured out on my life and recognizing that I am not deserving makes all the difference in light of difficult circumstances. Knowing that they were orchestrated by a God who is more concerned about my holiness than my happiness (thank you, Natalie Bullock) ought to make me long for the difficult days. They are evidence of God’s mark on my life and His desire to make me more like Himself. May I find pure joy in that and allow that joy to occupy my heart rather than the discontent and uncertainty I battle with on a daily basis.
Praise God for the sweetness of His gospel and His outpouring of grace because, man, I need it.
I have been reading the book, When Sinners Say “I Do” and its focus is on the power of the gospel for marriage. While I started reading this book out of a desire to be a better wife, I have found that its truths, that is, the beauty of the gospel, have been a salve of grace to my heart.
I’d like to share with you some of the quotes that have really changed my focus.
“Your spouse was a strategic choice made by a wise and loving God...revealing the familiar sin so that it might be overcome by amazing grace.” Substitute spouse with any aspect of your life; your job, child, situation and the meaning still applies. God chose this path for me. He strategically brought a more difficult work situation this year to reveal sin in me. The book uses the illustration of a lawnmower whose engine is filled with oil. My heart is the engine and the oil is my depravity. However, the cap to the oil is loose and as the engine heats up (circumstances in my life), oil spews out. It’s not the heat’s fault that this happened. The heat didn’t fill the engine with oil. That sin was already there in my heart and the heat just revealed what was there. It’s so easy to blame my bad attitude and lack of content on my circumstances. I often let myself play the “if only...” game. But the reality is that it was God’s intention for this past year to be difficult. Why? To reveal the oil that exists inside my heart because He desires to make me pure. It’s all part of His “rescue mission for my life,” as Dave Harvey says. Rather than complain, rather than focusing on the circumstances, I ought to be thanking God for His refining work in my life.
“Focus on undeserved grace, not unmet needs.” James 4 says that conflicts arise within us because “our passions are at war.” And what are those passions? Culture would tell us that those may be unmet needs in our lives. We have emotional needs, physical needs, etc. However, Scripture says that Christ is the only true “need” that we have. He is all-fulfilling and all-satisfying. I found that I have confused my desires and wants and have labeled them as needs. Dave Harvey says, “If my desire is so strong that I am tempted to sin, then the problem is entirely me.” If my desire for an easier school load, fairness, respect, or whatever causes me to sin, then that is my issue. It wasn’t those desires that caused the sinful response in me, but my own depravity that turned them into needs.
Focusing on God’s overwhelming grace poured out on my life and recognizing that I am not deserving makes all the difference in light of difficult circumstances. Knowing that they were orchestrated by a God who is more concerned about my holiness than my happiness (thank you, Natalie Bullock) ought to make me long for the difficult days. They are evidence of God’s mark on my life and His desire to make me more like Himself. May I find pure joy in that and allow that joy to occupy my heart rather than the discontent and uncertainty I battle with on a daily basis.
Praise God for the sweetness of His gospel and His outpouring of grace because, man, I need it.
Tuesday, June 18
3rd year of teaching/living in Caracas
I’ve been avoiding making this post because my brain is a mess of thoughts right now and I haven’t wanted to sort it all out. But the time has come and it’s been too long since I’ve posted here.
This was my most difficult year of teaching and in Caracas. I’d always heard 3rd year was supposed to be easier: you have developed your style, you know your content well, and you know what’s most important. And these things have come together for me, and yet this year remains the most stressful. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, they changed my schedule this year and I went from balancing 4 classes per semester, to all 7 classes all year long with daily changes in which classes I taught. Trying to keep track of this was a mental challenge and one that I have not yet conquered. I think my brain has been permanently addled from all the information I was trying to juggle and I haven’t yet recovered. The only way I can explain it well is that from 7 am - 4 pm Monday through Friday my brain felt like a magic 8 ball being shaken where the answer that came up never applied to the question I asked. And while I would consider myself a hard worker and fairly intelligent person, I have never felt more stupid.
I spent most of this year in tears at why I couldn’t get it together and frustrated with myself for not meeting my high expectations. I continually made mistakes in front of my students and fellow teachers, mixing my content, forgetting to print tests, writing down homework wrong, or feeling like I couldn’t take on responsibility outside of those 7 classes. My students suffered from it and I really don’t know how well they learned from me this year.
There were several reasons why this new load and brain overload upset me:
1) I felt like it wasn’t fair to my students to be getting a me at 60% and scatterbrained. Why should they pay the price for my inability to manage these classes?
2) My involvement in ministry also paid the price. While I didn’t minimize the amount of ministries I was involved in, I didn’t do them well. They were scattered and half-hearted and I didn’t accomplish the goals that I had set for them.
3) It has affected my marriage. I come home to Rafa exhausted and the thought of dinner, cleaning, and good conversation often brought me to tears. I feel guilty for the number of times I sinned against Rafa and he bore the brunt of my frustration at school. I prioritized school and my ministry there above my role as a wife and really struggled at managing them both.
So that’s the bad and I think part of the reason I dreaded writing this post is because I haven’t resolved this yet. I know where I need to go: to my knees, in humility before the Lord and there are days when God’s grace abounds in my life. But there have also been frequent days when my pride has gotten in the way, when my discontent has soured life, and when I desired fairness above holiness. And I continue to struggle with that daily even though classes have now ended.
So where’s the good in all this and how can you be praying?
Let me take some time to focus on the gospel-centered parts of this year that brought me joy in the difficult times.
-I began a bible study during lunch for 7th-8th grade girls with another staff member. We began by talking about characteristics of a believer and what a daily walk with the Lord looks like. However, we soon realized they needed to talk about the gospel. We spent the remaining weeks focused in Romans 6-7 and James about what it means to be a slave to sin, to be dead in our sins, and to receive God’s grace. I pray that the truths of God’s Word penetrated their hearts and that will seek to serve Him out of a love for Him rather than a list of rules and habits. This study is one I’d like to continue next year.
-I have been mentoring a now 11th grade student for the last 3 years named Michelle. She is an MK and PK born in Kentucky with Korean parents. This year in mentoring, we focused on studying the gospel. While we didn’t meet our goals for this year and struggled to meet consistently, I trust that God will continue the work He has begun in her. Please be praying that she would understand the simplicity of the gospel message and be willing to submit to God’s authority in her life.
-After saying no to women’s bible study first semester due to so many other commitments, I started attending second semester and was so incredibly blessed by my time there. It reoriented my heart and showed me that I had been trying to balance everything on my own and had not been nurturing my relationship with Christ. We did a study on idols of the heart and some real sin was revealed in me that I am now working on. At the end of the year, we did a study from Andy Stanley listening to his “Follow” series and discussing what it means to follow Christ and why He is worthy of our lives. I left that study tasting a new sweetness of the gospel and delighting in the intimacy of Christ’s relationship with me.
-English club only has a faithful few who continue to attend. The University has been in the midst of some intense strikes for the last few months and many students have not had class. Oderyx and I are going to meet to see how we can improve this next year and if the strikes continue, how we should respond.
-I said goodbye to a dear friend Natalie this last week. She has served for 4 years at ICS and is now leaving. We had a really good tearful conversation where I was able to let her know how important her friendship was to me. I’m thankful for the ways in which she has challenged me to love Christ more in these last 3 years.
I have been humbled in so many ways this year and my relationships with Christ is deeper than ever. However, it has been a hard year and I still feel the weight of that as we begin vacations.
I’ll keep posting as there is so much more to say about this year and the future.
This was my most difficult year of teaching and in Caracas. I’d always heard 3rd year was supposed to be easier: you have developed your style, you know your content well, and you know what’s most important. And these things have come together for me, and yet this year remains the most stressful. As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, they changed my schedule this year and I went from balancing 4 classes per semester, to all 7 classes all year long with daily changes in which classes I taught. Trying to keep track of this was a mental challenge and one that I have not yet conquered. I think my brain has been permanently addled from all the information I was trying to juggle and I haven’t yet recovered. The only way I can explain it well is that from 7 am - 4 pm Monday through Friday my brain felt like a magic 8 ball being shaken where the answer that came up never applied to the question I asked. And while I would consider myself a hard worker and fairly intelligent person, I have never felt more stupid.
I spent most of this year in tears at why I couldn’t get it together and frustrated with myself for not meeting my high expectations. I continually made mistakes in front of my students and fellow teachers, mixing my content, forgetting to print tests, writing down homework wrong, or feeling like I couldn’t take on responsibility outside of those 7 classes. My students suffered from it and I really don’t know how well they learned from me this year.
There were several reasons why this new load and brain overload upset me:
1) I felt like it wasn’t fair to my students to be getting a me at 60% and scatterbrained. Why should they pay the price for my inability to manage these classes?
2) My involvement in ministry also paid the price. While I didn’t minimize the amount of ministries I was involved in, I didn’t do them well. They were scattered and half-hearted and I didn’t accomplish the goals that I had set for them.
3) It has affected my marriage. I come home to Rafa exhausted and the thought of dinner, cleaning, and good conversation often brought me to tears. I feel guilty for the number of times I sinned against Rafa and he bore the brunt of my frustration at school. I prioritized school and my ministry there above my role as a wife and really struggled at managing them both.
So that’s the bad and I think part of the reason I dreaded writing this post is because I haven’t resolved this yet. I know where I need to go: to my knees, in humility before the Lord and there are days when God’s grace abounds in my life. But there have also been frequent days when my pride has gotten in the way, when my discontent has soured life, and when I desired fairness above holiness. And I continue to struggle with that daily even though classes have now ended.
So where’s the good in all this and how can you be praying?
Let me take some time to focus on the gospel-centered parts of this year that brought me joy in the difficult times.
-I began a bible study during lunch for 7th-8th grade girls with another staff member. We began by talking about characteristics of a believer and what a daily walk with the Lord looks like. However, we soon realized they needed to talk about the gospel. We spent the remaining weeks focused in Romans 6-7 and James about what it means to be a slave to sin, to be dead in our sins, and to receive God’s grace. I pray that the truths of God’s Word penetrated their hearts and that will seek to serve Him out of a love for Him rather than a list of rules and habits. This study is one I’d like to continue next year.
-I have been mentoring a now 11th grade student for the last 3 years named Michelle. She is an MK and PK born in Kentucky with Korean parents. This year in mentoring, we focused on studying the gospel. While we didn’t meet our goals for this year and struggled to meet consistently, I trust that God will continue the work He has begun in her. Please be praying that she would understand the simplicity of the gospel message and be willing to submit to God’s authority in her life.
-After saying no to women’s bible study first semester due to so many other commitments, I started attending second semester and was so incredibly blessed by my time there. It reoriented my heart and showed me that I had been trying to balance everything on my own and had not been nurturing my relationship with Christ. We did a study on idols of the heart and some real sin was revealed in me that I am now working on. At the end of the year, we did a study from Andy Stanley listening to his “Follow” series and discussing what it means to follow Christ and why He is worthy of our lives. I left that study tasting a new sweetness of the gospel and delighting in the intimacy of Christ’s relationship with me.
-English club only has a faithful few who continue to attend. The University has been in the midst of some intense strikes for the last few months and many students have not had class. Oderyx and I are going to meet to see how we can improve this next year and if the strikes continue, how we should respond.
-I said goodbye to a dear friend Natalie this last week. She has served for 4 years at ICS and is now leaving. We had a really good tearful conversation where I was able to let her know how important her friendship was to me. I’m thankful for the ways in which she has challenged me to love Christ more in these last 3 years.
I have been humbled in so many ways this year and my relationships with Christ is deeper than ever. However, it has been a hard year and I still feel the weight of that as we begin vacations.
I’ll keep posting as there is so much more to say about this year and the future.
Monday, March 25
Saturday, March 23
Food Shortages
Many of you may have heard about the government's devaluation of the Bolivar, but if not, the government recently devalued the currency by about 40% in its comparison to the dollar. We already experience 30% inflation each year so that in my 3rd year in Venezuela, everything is about twice as much as when I first arrived. That is crazy! Well, the devaluation meant an additional spike in prices. Awesome!
Unfortunately, this has led to food shortages. How? Well it's a complicated story and you'll get a different answer depending on who you ask. The companies are saying they can no longer afford to buy the imported ingredients they need to make their products. Regardless of the reason, it's hard to find basic food items here and there seems to be some twisted sort of rotation on what is missing. For a time we couldn't find oil, harina pan (what Venezuelans use to make arepas for breakfast and usually their dinner), sugar, or flour. Then it was milk, butter, and chicken, and still flour. The flour shortage led to bakeries not making certain types of bread. We're still in a flour shortage (I just finished off my last bag this afternoon) and chicken has to be bought at a butcher shop which means higher prices and long waits.
We've now become hoarders and it's crazy to see the mayhem in the stores. When a supermarket gets in one of those basic items, rather than placing them on a shelf, they just leave it out at the front of the store. If you spot someone with a few items, you basically go running to the front of the store hoping everyone else hasn't grabbed everything already. Yes I'm exaggerating a little, but it definitely feels like that. So regardless of the fact that we have 5 liters of oil stocked up and 3 tubs of butter, if we see one of those items at the store, you buy it! You just never know when it might not show up again.
Rafa and I are doing fine on basics though. We found a new butcher shop in a poor area of town that sells chicken for cheaper and we're pretty stocked up on basics. I'm hoping we'll find flour soon as I really do enjoy baking.
You can be praying for my attitude through all this. Through living here, I've learned to expect the unexpected and that I can live, and quite happily, without some of these basic items. It makes me more creative. But then when I'm searching for meal on pinterest (of course), I can easily find myself frustrated by all the items I wish I had on hand. To give you an example, I found a recipe for enchiladas the other day and got so excited I could actually make it. But making it was a little more complicated than it would be living in the States: black beans were made in a crockpot days before (because the cans are so expensive), enchilada sauce was made by hand, I splurged on tortillas (they have gotten expensive with the flour shortage) and normally are something I make by hand, and the cheese I buy is never shredded and their version of cheddar tastes funny so I used gouda. And that's a typical day of making dinner here. I'm getting used to it and there are definitely meals that go a lot faster and require less substitutes or by-hand additions.
I've had a lot of cooking "failures" lately but thankfully my husband doesn't complain. He, on the other hand, has a magic touch in the kitchen and beautifully manages four things at once. No worries though, he helps out a lot in the kitchen so the failures happen less often.
There's also been a gas shortage lately for those of us you buy tanks that hook up to the stove. This is a bit disconcerting given that we live in one of the largest oil producing countries in the world.
Just trying to give you a taste of life here now in Venezuela. I still love it, despite its challenges, and wouldn't trade it for anything. But there are days when I miss the ease of just jumping into the car and running to the supermarket, with no doubt in my mind that the item I'm lacking might not be there. But when I find myself frustrated, I remind myself that there are so many worse off. They lack clean water, proper sanitation, electricity, etc and some of them live just minutes away from me. My kitchen is full of American goodies like good knives, a crockpot, popcorn maker, and the list goes on. We are truly blessed!
Keep this nation in your prayers with the upcoming elections and continued price rising and food shortages. We serve a sovereign God who's plans never fail so I'm not worried. May this country be brought to Christ one by one. It's the only cure for the sin that is so evident. Thanks for reading! Two posts in one...you're so lucky!
Unfortunately, this has led to food shortages. How? Well it's a complicated story and you'll get a different answer depending on who you ask. The companies are saying they can no longer afford to buy the imported ingredients they need to make their products. Regardless of the reason, it's hard to find basic food items here and there seems to be some twisted sort of rotation on what is missing. For a time we couldn't find oil, harina pan (what Venezuelans use to make arepas for breakfast and usually their dinner), sugar, or flour. Then it was milk, butter, and chicken, and still flour. The flour shortage led to bakeries not making certain types of bread. We're still in a flour shortage (I just finished off my last bag this afternoon) and chicken has to be bought at a butcher shop which means higher prices and long waits.
We've now become hoarders and it's crazy to see the mayhem in the stores. When a supermarket gets in one of those basic items, rather than placing them on a shelf, they just leave it out at the front of the store. If you spot someone with a few items, you basically go running to the front of the store hoping everyone else hasn't grabbed everything already. Yes I'm exaggerating a little, but it definitely feels like that. So regardless of the fact that we have 5 liters of oil stocked up and 3 tubs of butter, if we see one of those items at the store, you buy it! You just never know when it might not show up again.
Rafa and I are doing fine on basics though. We found a new butcher shop in a poor area of town that sells chicken for cheaper and we're pretty stocked up on basics. I'm hoping we'll find flour soon as I really do enjoy baking.
You can be praying for my attitude through all this. Through living here, I've learned to expect the unexpected and that I can live, and quite happily, without some of these basic items. It makes me more creative. But then when I'm searching for meal on pinterest (of course), I can easily find myself frustrated by all the items I wish I had on hand. To give you an example, I found a recipe for enchiladas the other day and got so excited I could actually make it. But making it was a little more complicated than it would be living in the States: black beans were made in a crockpot days before (because the cans are so expensive), enchilada sauce was made by hand, I splurged on tortillas (they have gotten expensive with the flour shortage) and normally are something I make by hand, and the cheese I buy is never shredded and their version of cheddar tastes funny so I used gouda. And that's a typical day of making dinner here. I'm getting used to it and there are definitely meals that go a lot faster and require less substitutes or by-hand additions.
I've had a lot of cooking "failures" lately but thankfully my husband doesn't complain. He, on the other hand, has a magic touch in the kitchen and beautifully manages four things at once. No worries though, he helps out a lot in the kitchen so the failures happen less often.
There's also been a gas shortage lately for those of us you buy tanks that hook up to the stove. This is a bit disconcerting given that we live in one of the largest oil producing countries in the world.
Just trying to give you a taste of life here now in Venezuela. I still love it, despite its challenges, and wouldn't trade it for anything. But there are days when I miss the ease of just jumping into the car and running to the supermarket, with no doubt in my mind that the item I'm lacking might not be there. But when I find myself frustrated, I remind myself that there are so many worse off. They lack clean water, proper sanitation, electricity, etc and some of them live just minutes away from me. My kitchen is full of American goodies like good knives, a crockpot, popcorn maker, and the list goes on. We are truly blessed!
Keep this nation in your prayers with the upcoming elections and continued price rising and food shortages. We serve a sovereign God who's plans never fail so I'm not worried. May this country be brought to Christ one by one. It's the only cure for the sin that is so evident. Thanks for reading! Two posts in one...you're so lucky!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
