Nacatamales

Pictures from the graduation... The woman in pink is Theres, and the girl is part of the youth group.

Today is Purisima, the holiday celebrating the patron saint of Nicaragua, Maria. People will be roaming the streets singing songs of praise from house to house. The people in the houses then give gifts, usually bananas, or sugarcane, or other little toys for the kids. I´m going to ¨gritar" as it's called, with Gabriela, Doña Esmeralda's niece. Yesterday, we prepared for Purisima at the centro. Every year, they make 700+ nacatamales (like regular mexican tamales, but bigger and softer, and they have pork, chile, peppers, tomatoes, onions, and whatever else you decide to put in). Gloria, Aida and Chilo came at 5am to start peeling and chopping vegetables. by 9:30, there were about 8 people at work. Doña Thelma was preparing the masa (the dough) in the kitchen, and everyone else was in the rancho in the schoolyard working at big tables. When I came back from running an errand with Fatima at 3, they had just started assembling the nacatamales. A few people washed the banana leaves. A few picked out 3 leaves, arranged them, put a handful of masa in the center, rice, a piece of pork, a piece of pork fat and potatoes. Then they passed it along to the next person, who added tomato, onions, chile, raisins, an olive, a slice of pepper, and a sprig of mint on top. The next person wrapped up the banana leaves, much like a burrito, and finally someone tied up the package. I spent a majority of the time adding the peppers and tomatoes. By 5pm, we were really just getting started. When Theres got back from her son´s graduation, she set up the fire to cook the nacatamales. She put about 60 wrapped nacatamales in a huge metal barrel, set it on top of the fire, added a couple of buckets of water, covered it with plastic to keep the steam in, and let it cook for an hour. By around 9pm, everyone was slap happy, giggling uncontrollably. I understood little of what they said at this point, a combination of being tired and not catching all the slang and plays on words that were setting people off. I looked up to the kitchen and could see Theres, her adopted daughter Karen and Maria's faces reflected the orange light of the fire as they cooked more masa. It was getting chilly, so I sat next to the steaming barrel of nacatamales while Maria and Theres were transferring them to a huge plastic bin with tongs. Gabriela was half asleep on a piece of plastic on the cement steps, and Theres' mom, sister and niece were testing out a cooked nacatamale in the rancho. I think we finally left at around midnight, but there´s still a lot more to make today!