Poco a Poco

My favorite time of day comes every evening around 5:30 when its time to tortillar. The comal (a flat, round piece of metal) is placed over the leña (wood fire) and brushed with cal (limestone) to clean it. One of the women of the house returns from the molino (mill) with the freshly ground corn made into a dough. We roll up our sleeves, wet our hands, and get to work. By the time I have finished one tortilla, they have each completed at least three perfectly circular masterpieces. My edges crack, the dough sticks to my hands, I break off pieces and have to start all over – rolling the dough again into a ball, flattening it a little, turning it in my fingers to make the edges thicker than the middle, and tortellando between my palms. Finally, on the second or third try I produce a sufficient product. “Mejor que ayer,” Estella says every day, “hay que tener paciencia… poco a poco se aprende…poco a poco.”
“Better than yesterday. Be patient…little by little one learns.”
“Little by little.” It seems that wiser and more applicable words have never been spoken to me. They say that within three months I will learn to make perfect tortillas. Considering the seemingly low technical difficulty of making tortillas, I had expected it to be more like three weeks. But some things just take time.
Poco a poco our dog Lucky (pronounced lookie) is getting used to my presence in the house and attacking me less and less aggressively when I come through the gate.
Poco a poco the women are becoming more comfortable with my hovering presence in the kitchen and talk to me as we tortillar.
Poco a poco I am becoming more comfortable with silence and also finding more things to talk about.
Poco a poco I am learning to comment repeatedly about how cold it is, how the baby is, how steep the climb to the other volunteers’ houses is- the routine things in life.
Like my tortillas, each day is a little bit better than the one before it. I have to have patience with the adjustments that are being made by both me and my host family- who I don’t think has ever really interacted with a gringa before. Little by little I will learn to navigate my new situation.
For the first time, yesterday we got a more complete description of what our job will be as Healthy Schools volunteers. If we are expecting to change the world in two years, says our program director, we need to lower our expectations. Change comes poco a poco. One group will be working individually on four-year projects, and the other will be working in pairs on six-year projects. Since we are only in Guatemala for two years, we may not see the fruits of our labor in our time here. Some of us will be planting, and some will be harvesting. Poco a poco we will help build sanitation infrastructure, institutional capacity, and commitment on the part of the schools to work toward certification as a “healthy school.” Poco a poco will our goals be accomplished. After all, no one learns to tortillar in one day.