A tortilla not even a monkey could love...(posting from the road)

Due to a strike by the health department, one of our clinics was in the small town of Jocatan - I tell you this so the story makes more sense...

Dr. Tom Dean is generally fairly good-natured, so I knew things we bad when I walked upon Tom pulling his hair out and a little Guatemalan women, with her back clearly to Tom, refusing to speak to him any longer. Brief summary: 65 y.o. women who was going blind because of cataracts. This is an easy fix and Tom found a facility in a town, not too far away that will perform the surgery. (Tom and Carrie had actually volunteered to pay for the entire procedure and all follow-up care) All the women had to do was, with her daughter, physcally go to the appointments. The woman said 'no' because her daughter had to make the toritillas and no one loved her. We asked the women to go and get her daughter, bring her to the clinic so we could talk to her directly. Again, the answer was 'no' because she maintained that her daughter had to make the torillas! It was clear that speaking directly to the daughter would be the best option...so Bekkah and I volunteered to leave with the lady and send the daughter back to the clinic.

It really seemed like a very simple plan. Things went wrong when, a block away from the clinic, I heard the little blind lady ask a stranger "donde est mercado?". Great - our guide is now asking for directions to the market that she is leading us to.

Luckily the town is fairly small and with the aid of a few strangers we were able to stumble upon the market...the old blind lady was able to lead us to her daughter - in the bowels of the market in a dark, hot, smoke filled room. I attmepted to explain to the daughter that it was necessary for her to go to the clinic and set up treatment for her mother. All I recieved in return were blank stares...luckily Bekkah was there and she gently explained to me that I was most likely speaking French, whatever it was it certainly wasn't Spanish. Bekkah turned out to be a fantastic person to get caught with me in this situation - not only did she speak the correct language but she was also willing to stay with me...

That's right, the only way we could convince the lady to leave market was if we manned the tortilla stand. So a clear agreement in place - the daughter would accompany her mother to the clinic at the church and Bekkah and I would run the tortilla stand...fell apart when it turned out the daughter did not know the location of the church! Clearly her blind mother would be of no use, so now Bekkah and I had to run through the market and find a person who knew how to give the directions, drag them back to the tortilla stand and have them explain the location. Just before her departure, the women seemd to have cold feet with this plan to leaving us in charge...I tried to quell it my explaining that I was good at making tortillas, "Soy bueno tortilla" - which actually transplates into "I'm a good tortilla". So her apprehension was clearly justifiable, but they did finally leave - just in time for the lunch run.

Note - you should all respect tortilla makers more than you do - it is really hard. Bekkah turned out to be better, marginally, then I at pounding and shaping the dough - so she managed that station leaving me to try and cook the tortillas over an open fire.

I had carefully watched the lady, who patiently stood there, next to the fire, with all of it's smoke billowing, and flipped the tortillas BY HAND. Too hot for me and smokey for me; I developed a new system of running up to the fire with a long knife while holding my breath, flip a tortilla and then run away to try and get fresh air. It was generally unsuccessful and my eyes waterered profoundly.

As disasterous as our tortilla making (generally thicker and lumpier then the sample tortillas) was, it turns out our vending was even worse. Somehow we had the impression that we were to sell the tortillas for 7 quetzales (about $1.25 US) each - it seemed a little high to me but maybe the mark-up was due to the fact that they were Gringo made...

Our ineptness seemed to have been recognized by a fellow vendor who jumped in to try and help us with the sales (turns out the tortillas are 3 for 1 quetzales (or 3 for $0.12 USD). Ooops. This lady stood and stared at us - Bekkah hands covered in dough with her fat, lumpy tortillas and me with grasping a huge knife with tears streaming down my face next a fire with some burnt fat lumpy tortillas. She muttered something in Mayan Spanish and then set about the task of trying to save her friends business, with us demoted to "junior tortilla helpers".

A few minutes later the women and her mother returned. The lady looked at us and actually said "thank you for.....". I think she may have teared up as much as I was at the lumpy tortillas that were present. Guilt was too much for us and we bought all the tortillas that we made from this lady, and then some.

With sixty tortillas in hand we bid farewell to the lady (who I am happy to report is going to accompany her mother to the city so her mother's blindness will be avoided!) and returned to our fellow Gringos to share with them a delicious lunch of tortillas. Some people were nice enouth to pretend to like them, a few even managed to get a whole tortilla down but there were still heaps at the end of the day. Bekkah and I did not want our hard earned tortilla making to go to waste so we decided to donate the leftovers to Poncha, the resident Spider Monkey at our Guatemalan home.

Early the next morning I went to Poncha's cage, eager for her to try a bite of my tortilla. No word of a lie, the monkey that I have seen personally drink Purell, broke off a piece of tortilla, examine it, smell it and then throw it on the ground before giving me a look that clearly stated how pissed she was that I tired to feed her this trash.

So there you have it a tortilla not even a monkey could love.