Leche caliente

Have you ever woken up one morning and craved milk straight from a cow's udder, mixed with some sugar, cocoa, and a splash of alcohol?  Well, neither have I…

The drink I described above is leche caliente (or hot milk), a Mexican specialty.  

So how did I come to know about this intriguing mixture?  One night, my host family here was asking if I had tried this drink before…once they mentioned milk straight from the cow mixed with alcohol I was like nope, never had that one.  When my shocking secret had been revealed to the family they set out to correct this and the next morning they insisted that we go to the farm and try it.  Unfortunately, because cows are milked in the morning this means an early wake up call, but I was willing to wake up for this drink as it seemed like it was going to change my life based on how excited everyone was to get their leche caliente.  

At 7:30 we set out, I was assured I could go in my pajamas so I did…why not be comfortable???  And we made our way the 3 blocks or so to the farm with our mugs in hand (the fact that it was only 3 blocks away should tip you off to how far away I am from the city center).  Once we arrive I was surprised to see how many people were outside, drinking their milk.  At this point I'm feeling a little self conscious to be in my plaid pajama bottoms, but oh well, my family was in their comfy clothes as well so I wasn't the only one not wearing jeans or a cowboy hat.  Anyways, we go to the stable area where they have a table with sugar and a container of alcohol, we brought our own chocolate with us to mix in.  My host brother prepared my concoction of sugar, chocolate, and alcohol (which when my host mom saw how much he put in she chuckled as it was a little more than is normal I think…more on that to come) and then he handed my mug to the keeper of the cows (I can't think of a better name for him) and he squeezed the milk from the cow right into my mug.  

Now the taste was not all bad.  It essentially was hot chocolate, or really lukewarm hot chocolate.  The drink was very rich and sweet.  The milk had a feint taste of cow attached to it which I suppose is unsurprising given it came directly from the cow.  The flavor that I didn't care for the most though was the alcohol...which that is literally all they call it is alcohol, so I've no idea how strong that stuff is.  I think my host brother put a little more than usual in (hence the chuckles from my host mom when she saw the amount) as there was definitely a very strong flavor of alcohol…and mixing my morning milk with alcohol is maybe not the most desirable thing to drink 10 minutes after waking up, I guess the Mexicans like it, but I'll have to work on acquiring that particularly craving.  However, I did enjoy the entire experience and getting to taste my very first leche caliente!  

I am glad my host family took me with them to participate in the Mexican tradition.  We all had a great time and when we came back we washed down our milk with some good ole' pancakes (or hotcakes as they call them here)  I would definitely go back to drink some more of this stuff, but maybe I'll add a little less alcohol next time :)

The pictures aren't great, but they give you a little bit of an idea of where I was...

The cow who so generously shared her milk with me 

Mexicans enjoying their early morning milk

Outside view of the stable area where the cows
 are, with the sunrise

Learning on the job

The past month that I have been working at CEFOFOR has been a learning experience, just like the first month of any other new job.  I have been meeting the people in the office, learning about what they do, and while doing this I've been trying to figure what piece I am going to be in the puzzle that is CEFOFOR.  All of this is made much more interesting and challenging considering the fact I am doing all of this in a different language.  My Spanish is improving day by day which is aided by the fact that no one in my office speaks English…it's funny how when you are forced to speak and listen to another language all day things start coming together.  I still have a LONG ways to go, but it is nice to be able to recognize improvement.  

Anyways, one of the activities I have been up to this month to learn a little bit about the organization was participating in one of the workshops that CEOFOR organizes for people from all over the country. This is the main purpose of my site, they are a training center for those working in jobs regarding environmental education, community development, natural resource management etc.  The specialty of this place is their work with ecotecnias and this particular workshop that I attended was focused on teaching about the benefits and how to make a variety of ecotecnias.  Remember- ecotecnias are easy, environmentally beneficial 'technologies' people can implement in their daily lives (usually in more rural areas).  

Here are some photos of some of the ecotecnias we constructed:

Learning about the Casa de Paja (or straw house).  You combine bales of straw with a mud mixture to make the walls, they are surprisingly durable, if made correctly they can last 100 years (or so they tell me).  You can see the completed example wall in this picture

Making the mud mixture, or the "cement" of the house that you use to cover the bales of straw. It's a simple mixture that contains three ingredients: dirt, straw, and water…all of which are pretty available wherever you go!

Water has been added to the mixture here...

Constructing the wall (you put the mud mixture over the straw,
which I sadly don't have a picture of…just imagine straw covered in mud)

Lombri=worm, Composta= compost.  Put those together
and you have the lombricomposta, or worm compost

Horno Ravo Quente…you put wood in here and let it burn
 for 36 hours and then you have charcoal (carbón) you can use.
I made sure to get the guy in the cowboy hat in this picture...

Display of the products of the farmacia viviente (living pharmacy),
this was used to show the benefits of various plants...
think medicinal remedies and all that.

As you can see in this picture there were quite a few people attending this workshop, I think the total number was around 70 people.  Everyone comes from around the country, from as close as right here in Ciudad Guzman to as far away as the Yucatan…which is really far, trust me.  They stay for a few days at the dorms that are here and do a whole lot of learning, the days are very busy.  It was neat to be able to meet so many people from around the country, everyone was very nice to me as I clearly stuck out in a crowd of Mexicans and many went out of their way to talk to me.  I now have a few couches to crash at whenever I start traveling more throughout Mexico!

Deshidratador solar…solar dehydrator (you use this to dehydrate fruit
or meats so you can preserve them for longer)

We also made learned about many other ecotecnias that I don't have pictures of such as wood saving stoves, mushroom cultivation, and rainwater harvesting techniques.  Overall it was a great, if not exhausting, few days.  I am glad to have learned even more about these quite impressive, and easy to use technologies.  It was good to get an idea of what the bread and butter of CEFOFOR is (conducting these workshops) as I learn more and more about this place.

I just like this picture with the cloud layer hovering on top of the city