Hope Rising

Flour, salt, yeast, water… in the proper hands, simple ingredients are elevated into delicious bread.  Last week, we got to see (and taste!) this firsthand. 

A professional baker from Santiago came on Monday, and was able to share a lot of technical details with the women.  It was good to learn more about the different kinds of flour, yeast and other ingredients available to be used. 

He showed them how to make Pan de Aqua (water bread) which is a simple and tasty white bread.  Our spring intern, Sarah, who is from New York state, said it well – it tastes like the inside of a NY Bagel. 

We had some ‘oven challenges’ in the form of not having all the parts we needed to hook up the gas.  We naively thought everything would come with the stove!  It didn’t.  Thankfully, we’ve learned to always have a Plan B (and maybe Plan C and D!) and so Sarah brought the raised dough back to the SI Base to be baked.

On Thursday Margarita, a woman who lives in a nearby community, came and showed us how to make her whole wheat bread.  Margarita juggles caring for her family and working outside the home.  She also cooks and cleans for her elderly father, attends church groups and English class.  She still makes time to bake and sell her bread almost every day. 

It was good for the women to hear her story, and to see that someone with responsibilities like them has made this work.

Again, we had a challenge, as the power was out, so the blender Margarita uses to soften the trigo (wheat) didn’t work.  We put it into the dough without blending, and hoped for the best. 

Just that morning we had finally got all the parts for the oven, and soon the Site was filled with the smell of delicious baking bread.  And, it tasted as good as it smelled.  One of the women said, “I don’t really like bread, but I loved this!”

The women now have lots of information and have seen two different ways of making two different types of bread.  They seem excited, and were taking notes and asking lots of good questions. 

Of course, there are still a lot of details to figure out!  Purchasing ingredients, a schedule for production, who will be responsible for what, how and when to sell and for how much…

But, our hope is rising (pardon the pun!) as we take the next steps, confident that the Holy Spirit will guide us in whatever is His will.

This week the women plan to come and practice the techniques they’ve learned.  We’ll be sure to get some pictures!  We’re just sorry we won’t be able to send along the wonderful smell (and taste!) of the bread, too!! 

We invite you to continue to lift up El Callejon, the women, and the Panaderia project. Thank you so much!