Life from Canada to Latin America, one word at a time.
I come from a long line of freezer people. We save and we store and we plan and we work. Growing up, every Sunday after church, we would go to the grocery store to buy food on sale to put into the freezer. After a Saturday bake day, we would stick loaves of bread and
https://spark.adobe.com/video/KH3lIVfjCTw6W/embed The arracacha is a yellow-white root. It’s flavour is a cross between a turnip, a parsnip and a potato, with a hint of celery seed. I normally walk right past the dirt covered pile of arracacha in my local fruit and veggie store, as I head for the avocados and the limes. But this
My favourite sign in the botanical gardens in Bogota is about the potato. “After [insert six countries here], Colombia is the number one producer of potatoes in the world,” the sign proudly proclaims. While in Colombia, I have been to the highest vineyard in the world, the largest coastal desert mountain, the prettiest town in
I made yogurt yesterday. I didn’t feel like I had much of a choice. After a Monday long with meetings and trying to both write and speak coherent sentences, I was done with living in my head. Instead, I boiled milk, let it cool, added a starter, and put it on top of the fridge to ferment. This morning, I woke up to a thermos full of creamy yogurt, the most productive thing I have accomplished in weeks.
When I was in Haiti last year, we spent a lot of time talking about peanuts. The USAD was planning on sending shipments of free peanuts to Haitian schools, as a tasty and nutritious snack, and, incidentally, a way of getting rid of a US peanut surplus. While on the surface, food aid looks like
I have never felt so welcomed in a place as I did in Turmeque over the last MCC retreat. I have been been welcomed before all over the country, from Choco to Putumayo, but that welcome always seemed to include a sense of expectation, a reserve dependent upon my actions. Here, the only expectation was
I could hardly eat lunch as I frantically scribbled notes. Pedro has the most numbers in his head of anyone I have ever met and rattled them off so quickly I was glad of the Spanish to English interpretation, just for the extra seconds to catch up. The numbers added up to a pretty depressing
I love Colombia for many reasons. Many are profound: the work of civil society for peace; the cultural vibrancy proudly on display in every region; the determination to enjoy life no the circumstance. Yet sometimes I think I love Colombia almost more for the little things that make up daily life: the hummingbird in the
I got mad at my family when they came to visit a couple of Christmas ago and it was time to eat. We were in Cartagena, the food mecca of the coast, especially compared to Mampujan, where I was living at the time. They wanted rice and some sort of meat; I wanted artisan pizza
Vilma is in charge of the kitchen and the coffee and gives me my daily inspection when I arrive to fill up my mug. Within five minutes, I know if I have made the right clothing choices or not. When I cut my own bangs, Wilma was clear that it had not been a good
Anna L. Vogt 