6/16/11

I’m over language classes. Today we had three language classes and one tech training. I like talking with my family to practice better than I like going to class, but all I ever do is wake up at 6:30, go to class and return home to do my homework at 7. I feel bad, but really I’d rather just hang out with my family and speak french all day. Today after school, “other Eric” Barrett and I rode a moto to the supermarché (4 people 1 moto!) so I could buy the rest of the ingredients I needed to make the pasta sauce and garlic bread. It was fun since yesterday we talked about bargaining and went to the supermarché on a field trip, and I’m still riding that high of adrenaline one gets when they bargain for the bonne prix. When I got back home eric had boiled most of the pasta so i started cutting tomatoes and putting them on to boil. Mama Lydie and Anne showed me how to use the “pierre” to mash the basil, garlic and chili pepper. The pierre is a big flat stone that you can place anything on and using a big round stone you roll it over the whole condiments. You can make a paste out of anything with it. Anne told me it would take 3 hrs to acrasser 20 tomatoes for the sauce so we just used their blender. Eric buttered the bread and spread the remaining crushed garlic along the halves. We put it in the oven and set the table as the rest of the family had gathered by the tv. Eric went to go get his host mom and her baby, Samuela, and when they arrived we sat and started serving.

Eric’s mom kept giggling like pasta with tomato sauce was the craziest thing she’d ever heard of. I think she was the only one who didn’t care for the meal though. Even the baby was eating noodles from my host dad’s lap. We cooked all six bags of pasta as advised by the ladies at the grocery store, but it proved to be way too much. Just as I’d predicted. It will make a great lunch for tomorrow. The electricity went out at the end of the meal so we ate our pineapple by light of a few kerosene lamps. I think it was a hit. I love my host family. I hope everyone else isn’t jealous that I got the best one.