Chickpeas

Eating out in San Cristobal means:

rice
fried fish
fried chicken
fried beef
fried plantain

Which is why I have started cooking again. The woman who weighed my dried chickpeas at Dos Hermanos asked what I planning. She used them for a foot scrub, I think she said. I tried to explain hummus in Spanish. En otros paises...como pure...con sal y [holding up my olive oil and garlic]...[mashing gesture]...con limon, pero es una otra cosa como limon--mas grande y amarillo... How do you explain lemons to someone who's only seen limes? She held up a yellow lime. "Lemon?" No, still a lime.

She caught up to me at the till to ask more about this strange pure. It was exciting to talk about food from other countries, especially because people here never talk about the world beyond the island. My students ask me nothing about Canada or Saudi Arabia, though they know I lived there. Hooray for chickpeas for prompting a little mental flight.

Have a wicked weekend.

It's been a surf-crazy week here. Between all the French and German wave-hunters, the big swell, and the arrival of the #1 ranked surfer in Ecuador (Mario, aged 22), you can't help but learn the vocabulary.

surfista (surfer)
surfear (to surf)
tabla de surf (surf board)
olas (waves)
marea (tide)
rocas (rocks)
tiburon (shark)

I guess it's infectious, because on Wednesday I paddled out on a borrowed board and began my Galapagos surf education. It was great not needing a wetsuit, but the rocks--which exist at almost every beach--scare me. The exception is Porto Chino, the white sand beach on the other side of the island. I'm borrowing another board and taxi-ing there in an hour. Last night the surfista Mario shouted that he would come with, but it was at the end of a bottle of rum. Vamos a ver.

Vive la frances!

Hung out with my new French friend Isabella today. Thanks to totally useless high school French and English, we had to stick to Spanish, the best common denominator. A few words I kept remembering in French, though, so she helped me with traducciones.

trouver (encontrar / to find)
voudrais (quisiera / I would like)
tais-toi! (callate! / shut up!)

I swear I wasn't telling Isabella to shut up. I needed the Spanish version for certain social situations, and the mental scarring from being told to shut up by my 11th grade French teacher means I know it all too well in French. Oh, frances.