To celebrate Christmas we invited all of the girl students and volunteers that we know in Caracas. We ended up with a small turnout, with just Claudia and I, our roommate Sol, and my disciples Ruth and NohemÃ. We had quite a bit of fun though, despite the turnout.
We decided to make sugar cookies and decorate them. It took a bit of creativity for certain ingredients and utensils, but they turned out quite tasty.
Finding Christmas cookie cutters turned out to be quite a challenge as well. Claudia, Ruth and Nohemà went out for what we thought would be 10 or 15 minutes looking for cookie cutters, and came back more than an hour later! They walked all over the place to all sorts of different stores, trying to explain what they were looking for (cookie cutters are obviously not common in Venezuela!).
The girls did finally make it home successfully with cookie cutters though.
We had a lot of fun decorating! Lots of sugary frosting and sprinkles involved...
Some of the final products.
Our roommate Sol enjoying a sugary Christmas tree.
I made hot apple cider. This was a new taste for the Venezuelan girls. I told them this is what Christmas smells like to me... they told me Christmas smells like hallacas to them. Hallacas are a traditional Venezuelan food fairly similar to a Tamale. They take a banana leaf and spread a cornmeal dough on it, fill it with a cooked meat or veggie sauce, and fold them up. Then when they are ready to eat them, they just boil them to heat them up, and open up the banana leaf for a delicious Christmasy meal. I am definitely a fan!
Merry Christmas from the Vida Estudiantil girls in Caracas!
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