Food At The Ranch (Friday 8/18/2023)
Volunteers at the Ranch get three square meals a day just like the kids. Breakfast is served from 7 – 7:30 AM weekdays and a half hour later on the weekends. Lunch is from 1 – 1:30 and dinner from 6 – 6:30 daily. Volunteers can bring a plate or bowl to the kitchen (cocina) where the meals are prepared, have the plate filled, and then take it back to San Vicente (or other location) to eat. For the hogars, kitchen helpers fill large coolers which the hogars collect and then serve in their area. Allen and I have been eating breakfast with each other in San Vicente, lunch with our work companions, and dinner with the kids in our hogars.
Breakfast is typically beans with rice or plaintains and
often with “mantiquilla” which is not actually butter, but a sour-cream-like
sauce. Sometimes there is also an egg. An alternative breakfast is cereal
(granola, rice Krispies, or sometimes chocolate rice Krispies!) with warmed
milk. Often this is supplemented with a banana and a roll (“pan”). Allen and I
bought a coffee maker for the volunteer house and make coffee. Allen hasn’t
found half-n-half here, so we have tried many other milk or cream type options
and have settled on the dry creamer. We also supplement with fruit! Allen buys pineapples, mango, papaya, and
other fruit on our every-other weekend off the ranch.
Lunch here is actually the main meal of the day. Rice and
beans may also be served, but other alternatives are spaghetti, soup, Chinese rice,
fried chicken, beef or pork dinner, or sardines (today’s lunch) with rice and
salad.
Dinner tends to be more of a light Honduran “typical” meal. It
might be beans, hot dog, and tortilla; but also might be rice and milk; pancakes
(with a little honey); or a Honduran food called baleadas (flour tortilla with refried beans,
crumbled salty cheese and “cream”). I enjoy eating with the kids in
their hogar. Everyone waits for the blessing which is said by one of the kids
and repeated by everyone else.
After a few weeks of eating Ranch food, I decided it was too
much food so now I skip the ranch lunch and just take string cheese or a boiled egg and
fruit (bought every other weekend) to work for lunch. The ladies that I work
with have yogurt in the office refrigerator that was left over from the last birthday
celebration so I am enjoying that as well.
Most of the volunteers, us included, have lots of other food
and snacks to supplement the meals. In fact, the kitchen and refrigerator are
stacked to the gills with all of the food. At times, it attracts cock roaches,
ants, and other bugs, so there is a motive to keep things clean and organized,
but the mess is pretty bad right now. I think that, in time, we will be less
afraid of not having our comfort food at hand and will relax the food
stockpiling. But for now, two weeks seems like a long time to wait for resupply
and many are unwilling to survive on ranch food alone. Personally, I am ready
for the challenge, but also enjoying having the goodies 😊
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