"Ese no es espaguetis" (This is not spaghetti)

I thought this story would be worth sharing...

The other evening we walked home from the office after a long day of orienting, translating (mostly Andrew), and traveling around the city with a group of folks visiting from a church in Ohio. We were pretty tired, didn't have much food in the fridge and so had decided to just eat out for a change. It wasn't until we'd already reached the large blue wall topped with razor wire surrounding our apartment that we noticed the family sitting inside their truck parked out front, waving and smiling at us. It was our new friends, Román and Delmy and two of their four small kids, Aby and Román (junior - otherwise known as Románcito - possibly the cutest kid ever). They live about 30 minutes away and had been parked out front for over an hour waiting for us to get home. We felt pretty honored - so far friend-making and hanging out with Hondurans has been slow to happen, besides the casual meeting people that happens at church. It's hard to know how to get to know people better when the formal inviting people over for dinner or out to do something doesn't seem to happen as much in this culture. So we'd finally been "dropped-in" on and we were pretty excited.

We rushed to invite them up to our apartment and do all the right things - including running out to the nearest pulperia to buy sodas since all we usually have around is water. I thought it would freak them out if Andrew were to help me cook so I knew it was up to me - what to make? My choices were beans and rice or pasta. I chose pasta, since making beans and rice for Hondurans is just too intimidating - surely they would not be impressed with my gringafying of their native cuisine. So I whipped up the usual veggie marinara sauce that I usually make and some bow-tie pasta, the only kind we had around. In the process I made the dire mistake of telling the kids, who were watching me with great interest, that I was making spaghetti.

Finally I had it all together, served in a bowl, Honduran-style with toast stacked on a little plate. Plastic chairs were pulled in from outside, small children were put on cushions so their chins were at least even with our awkwardly-tall table, when I noticed Románcito was sitting there looking pretty devastated. He whispered to his dad "pero ¿dónde está la comida?" (but where is the food?)

His father kindly tried to explain that the strange looking geometrical blobs covered in red stuff mixed with distateful vegetables was actually made out of the same thing as his beloved noodles. And that the sauce was actually not that different from ketchup. I couldn't help laughing as the poor little guy wrinkled up his face, examined a few bow-ties up close and almost broke out in tears. Actually everyone got a pretty big kick out of it (excluding Románcito - who eventually did eat toast and cheese, but only after his sister assured him that it was, in fact, real cheese), and despite making a small child cry with my cooking I felt really good about the evening. In a small way it felt like we'd finally arrived. And it made a last impression - his parents later told us that the next morning at breakfast little Román said, "Amanda no me dió espaguetis..." (Amanda didn't give me spaghetti)