Topollillo, Topoyiyo, Topo....nevermind. Frozen goodness in a baggie.

The whole time I've been in Honduras, I've been seeing these little baggies of stuff in freezers at the super market. I'll try anything once but I wasn't clamoring to be the first in line for, what looks like, somebody's momma's homemade KoolAid frozen in a bag with a knot in the top. I only take shady looking stuff from folks I know. A few weeks ago a man who works at the school started selling these things during break, at lunch, and after school. I still wasn't amped about it. My former colleague, Alicia (who has since bailed on me to have her baby in the States) told me they're called topoyiyos. I'm still not 100% sure how to say it or spell it but I can tell you that they cost 6 limps (30 cents) and they're aaaahmazing. The guy at school sells them in coco (coconut) and cacahuate (peanut) flavored. Peanut is my favorite. Love em so much that I've made friends with the man that sells em. I have at least one a day since it has become hotter than the 7th layer of hell in these parts.

   The precious little man who sells these. I asked him if I could take a picture of him and we struck up a conversation.

Him: So, you really like these, yeah?
Me: Yeah, I do!
Him: Where you from?
Me: Texas
Him: You don't have anything like this there do ya?
Me: Nope. (I don't have the Spanish skills to tell him about being ghetto and putting KoolAid in ice trays with lopsided toothpicks making popsicles when I was little)
Him: I should take my ice chest and go to the States to sell these. I would make a fortune....You think you could help me get my papers?

   It always goes back to the papers. I try to tell people that I haven't the foggiest idea about how to immigrate to the States. I've never done it. Anyway...back to the point. 

 

      To eat/drink this little piece of Heaven, you have to chew on of the corners off your bag and suck the contents out through the hole. Not the most flattering thing you ever did see but I do live in a country where no one uses a knife to cut their meat. You just pick it up with your hands and go to town. We all know I'm somewhat of a stickler for table manners so that one took some getting used to. A year later, here I am gnawing on meat with no utensils and slurping mystery goodness out of a bag with a hole chewed out of the side. That, my friends, is acclimatization at its finest.







Enjoying my squishy goodness.








       And then it was gone....There's always tomorrow!

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”

 I have a memory card with hundreds of pictures that no one will ever see because I keep my camera on me practically all the time just so I catch moments like this. Both of these pics were taken about 15 seconds apart while standing in the same spot in my yard. Sunsets here are generally pretty ridiculous because of the mountains but not once in the past year have I seen the sky look so markedly different depending on which direction I was facing.  I'm easily entertained and amazed and this did both.

We've got bananas!!!

       I've been a lazy bum about keeping up with this blog business. I would say "I'm sorry." but I always tell my kids "Don't be sorry, be better." In keeping with my own advice, I'll just spare you the apology and skip straight to the "be better" portion of the program.

    My roommate and I moved (well, got moved...but that's a whole other story) into a new house in October. There are trees in our yard that we thought were banana. Having never actually, knowingly seen a banana tree in real life, this was just a guess on my part. The months have come and gone and we've seen not a trace of fruit which led me to believe that maybe they weren't banana trees or they were too young to produce fruit. While Skyping with my mom today, I was showing her my yard from my bedroom window when low and behold, I spotted a bunch of bananas! Walked outside later to find that two of our trees have fruit on them. I don't have the first idea about when they'll be ready for picking or if they're even really bananas. Plantains looks exactly the same to me and plantains are EVERYwhere here. Who knows what they really are?? For now, I'm just so stinking excited to have anything growing in my yard that we'll figure the rest out later. I aspire to garden one day and this is as close as I'm getting for a while. The banana/plantains and we've got come cilantro growing be the gate. It'll work for now!