Beautiful Feet: August 23, 2016

Visit to the country. Xiomara had invited us to visit her sister Tuesday morning to make atol de elote, which is a thick, hot drink made of young corn. We were thinking a couple of hours, but it was the entire morning and early afternoon. When we arrived Betty was cutting the corn from a crop at her front door. Her husband, Mario, and her left for about an hour to grind the corn. During this time we toured the grounds. It was not very large, but it had a lot of flowers, a small home for the owners, a small house under construction and peliways! We had eaten peliway, but it was our first time to see them. They are a cross between sheep and goats. Their body is that of a goat, but their face is different from a sheep. Betty came back with the corn and Mario stayed in town to work. Then, we all got to work on corn dishes. I never knew there were so many varieties. We made atoll, corn pancakes (called torillitos) wrapped in banana leafs they cut from a tree, fritters and tamales, wrapped in the corn husks from the morning. It was quite a spread. Mario returned and Xiomara’s brother arrived too. Betty and Mario also had three children along with Xiomara’s children, Omar, Gisela and Emilet. It was a crowd. We left about 1:30 and the tamales still lacked a few minutes. Xiomara said she would drop a few by later in the day. For the afternoon, Seily had gone out of town, so I was not going to Sister Ana’s because I don’t go alone. I used the afternoon to work on painting the 15 shirts for the creation skit. I already had done five and I got about 7 more finished by the end of the day. Kelly was still sewing three of them. So, I made good progress. Dwaine worked on his lesson for the preacher retreat and planned a study for Don Santos. However, Don Santos did not show up. That is pretty rare that he does not come. Sometimes, he has a truck come in or has to go out of town.