January 2, 2010

Odds and Ends

This is a hodge-podge post of recent happenings. Before the pictures begin, thanks for the prayers for our New Year's Eve party. It went well, and we even had a couple new people come by from the community that heard the music/saw the lights/watched our fireworks, and wanted to join the fun. All in all, a successful night! (For those of our readers who have dial-up, I've included the photos as an add-on after the click.)

One of the Project Puente penpals sent handmade bead bracelets for each girl in the nearby Children's Home, and here's Liz showing hers off.



As you know, I'm a chocaholic, and I was thrilled to find box mixes of brownies in Asuncion. However, this is two hours away, and I was embarrassed to buy more than a couple of boxes at a time. However, since I can't cook empanadas or chipa, I'd resolved to just bring a batch of brownies to whatever "bring your own dish" event we attended, and I was getting to be known as "the lady who makes that chocolate cakey stuff." No one believed me that they weren't homemade. I asked the manager of the local grocery store if he could start to carry the mix here, and explained that people really liked the product. I even made a batch and took them to share with the grocery store employees. WELL, last week, they all greeted me with a smile, and one employee led me to the display of brownies on the shelf. Since then, I've had numerous offers to come teach the ladies how to cook them, since the recipe on the box doesn't really turn out well. Who'd have thought that the ticket in the door to these homes could be brownies? The Lord does work in mysterious ways. I consider it a personal success to have procured for the fine ladies of the rural area access to my favorite food!



Christmas Eve, we walked to the plaza to see the town's pesebre (manger scene). How excited I was to find that the traditional breads (hard doughnut shaped chipas) were hanging beside the bulbs and lights, over the manger scene!



And afterward, we enjoyed a cup of ice cream, because, isn't that what you're supposed to do for Christmas? Hope your week has included some surprises, too!



2 comments:

  1. we've been going to the local panederia here. We love the baked treats. Have not seen chipas yet, though....will look next time we go. I like the piedras and the kids LOVE churros.
    Tricia Kyzer

    ReplyDelete
  2. Funny, I also made the official request for those brownie mixes at the Stock in Itaugua! It worked here too. :)

    ReplyDelete

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