Lessons From The Kitchen

On the mountain in Honduras, I had the opportunity to work a few days in the kitchen with the wonderful women who came and prepared food for us every day. Some of them walked up to two hours just to get to our camp. They showed up early in the morning and stayed until just after dinner. They worked all day long in the kitchen hardly taking a break just to make sure my squad and I were fed. No joke, if it weren’t for them, I think we would have starved. 

The days in the kitchen were some of my favorite days on the mountain. It only took a day for me to love working with those women. Do I love cooking at home? Not necessarily… and it’s 10x more work cooking on a clay stove without all the fancy gadgets we have in the United States. However, I had fun built some sweet relationships and learned a lot. Here are a few of the things I learned in the kitchen that I think are worth noting: 

1. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes when you’re learning something new 

I found out really early on that I’m awful at making tortillas from scratch. Okay, maybe not that awful. I did fine at grinding the corn and okay at mixing the ingredients to add the dough (the first time I did add bit too much water, but they still tasted good).

When it came to rolling them into balls and flattening them into tortillas… well I was lucky that they gave me a little metal press or we all would’ve been eating some wonky tortillas. I’m still amazed at how the women in Honduras (and Guate as well as probably many other countries) make such perfect tortillas with just their hands. 

Now, the parts I really didn’t do great at was peeling it off the plastic cover of the metal press or placing it onto the stovetop to cook them. I attempted cooking one and apparently was not gentle enough when placing it and it ended up burning. It turns out I also didn’t have the guts to flip the tortilla without a spatula, so I needed help with that part every single time. When it came to peeling them off the metal press, sometimes the edges would stick so we still ended up eating misshapen tortillas because of me. 

But the misshapen tortillas, the mistakes I made, helped me learn and they brought joy to myself and the women I was working with. At first they would look at me with a face that I thought was disappointment as I gave them the look of “oops.” I quickly learned that they weren’t disappointed, but entertained them. They stared laughing at me every time I handed them a misshapen tortilla. Sometimes I would try and take the extra off the metal press and reshape the tortilla when it was already on the stovetop, which made the women laugh even harder. At one point we were all almost in tears laughing at how horrible my tortillas were compared to theirs. 

I could’ve gotten frustrated at myself, or just decided to let the women do it and not help because I was no good at it. Instead, I let them teach me, I tried again, and I laughed when I failed. I found the joy in learning rather than beating myself up and the patient women of Honduras helped me do it. 

2. Language barriers are NOT relationship barriers 

This lesson actually came on that same day of being horrible at making the tortillas. Laughing with those women built a relationship with them that was stronger than some relationships I have with people who speak my own language. After that day in the kitchen, the women would often talk to me a lot and really fast. I think that they thought I was fluent in Spanish. 

I do speak some Spanish, but not enough to understand the women when they spoke full speed at me telling me Lord knows what. Often times I would look at them and say “no entiendo” meaning “I don’t understand” and we would both laugh.

Here’s the thing, even though there was a language barrier between us I still left that mountain cherishing the friendship I built with those women. Yes, my Spanish helped me build relationships with them. Especially because I was able to ask them their names and ask about their families. But, what really built the relationship was the laughter that we shared while they were teaching me to cook the Honduran way. Language barriers should not stop up from loving people and sharing our joy with them. 

I’m certainly going to miss the women on the mountain and especially am going to miss making tortillas with them. I also am so grateful for the time I had there and the opportunity to help build a church and learn to cook the Honduran way. 

Blessings, 

Kaci