Culinary adventures and my crazy schedule

Thank you to those of you who gave me encouragement on my last blog post. It has been difficult but the administration is trying to work out solutions, most likely meaning someone will be in my room to deal with him. Your prayers are greatly appreciated.

On Wednesday one of the other teachers approached me and asked me if I'd like a tutoring job. She organizes tutors for students of other schools. She didn't really let me say no and I decided that I'll give it a try. The boy I work with is in 5th grade and has special needs. He is very slow. Slow at speaking, reading, and learning in general. I started already on Wednesday. After school I went home and changed, then walked with Beth to the other teacher's house. I waited there for a good 45 minutes for the people to pick me up. I tutored for 2 hours, then we headed back to my place. I got home after 9. I cannot do that every day, but we might work it out so he comes to my apartment for tutoring. That would fit into my schedule much better. I hope it works out because the extra income would be really nice.

Thursday were parent/teacher conferences. They were fine, but then came the weekend! Steve and I went shopping that evening. When we got back, he and Andrew played Cribbage while I did some cooking. The first attempt was guava jelly (because the teacher who asked me to tutor has a guava tree and gave some to me because she has too many). That took most of the night and this morning when I checked it I found that it had hardened. It is more like guava candy than anything. Really sticky candy. And kind of rubbery. Did I cook it too long? How do I know when it is done?

The next attempt was Dulce de Leche. It is just whole milk and sugar that you boil for FOREVER. The recipe said it should only take 10 minutes. It took over half an hour. Maybe I did something wrong there too... I will just have to keep practicing I guess. I think next time I'll try a different pan.

At least the flavors turned out good. On Friday Steve and I also tested our juice experiment. One of the teachers told us that you can make a really good juice by putting pineapple peels in water in an air-tight container for 5-6 days. I'm not sure what it's supposed taste like but it tasted rather fermented...

I've had a lot of fun learning to cook here. Steve and I mostly work together to prepare meals whenever we can. We make a pretty good team. We know that when we get back we will miss all the cheap fresh produce, but we'll be happy to have back good American meats. There's some give and take wherever you go I suppose. Any cooking advice is welcome!

Today we went to a beautiful beach in Cabarete, which is a little farther than Sosua, where we've gone the last few times. It was gloriously rainy all day so we didn't have to pay to use umbrellas for shade on the beach. The weather was so comfortable and the waves were fun. The best part of this day is that it was only Friday! Dia de Mercedes is a great holiday! Maybe you should adopt it over in the States;)