Eggplant Lasagna Debacle

Sarah and Laura both suggested I check out Pinterest, so without really know what I was getting into, I stumbled upon an infinite resource of yummy recipes that are just begging to be tried! I feel like I’m most attracted to recipes that seem a little out of the ordinary and delicious, which tend to be plentiful on vegan and vegetarian sites. I am neither vegan nor vegetarian, but I don’t like cooking meat other than fish, so it works out! After my first survey of Pinterest recipes, I decided to purchase the ingredients for eggplant bread lasagna. I was intrigued, lots of people said really good things and I happened to have 2 small eggplants leftover from the exploratory purchase the previous week.

I was going to replace the bread with whole wheat lasagna noodles, but they didn’t exist at my ever-changing Super Selectos. I should have taken the clue and turned back then, but I didn’t. I bought bread at the bakery across the street and continued on. The first step was to heat some olive oil and medium to high heat while chopping 4-6 cloves of garlic. I decided 4 was sufficient since I get tired of mincing garlic after about 3 cloves, so I added them to the oil while I finished the 4th not really questioning what “sweating” the garlic meant. When I turned around a minute later to add the 4th, my first 3 cloves were officially charred completely black. Oops. (Even after googling sweating garlic, I’m not sure what went wrong.) I decided charred garlic would just add a little extra flavor and pressed on.

After adding the other spices and chopped tomatoes to simmer, I sliced my eggplant. It was suggested to cut them into 1/4” slices. I don’t have a ruler, so I guesstimated and figured it wasn’t a big deal that some of my 1/4” slices were paper thin at the top and closer to the thickness of a deck of cards at the bottom. Well, 20 minutes later when I removed them from the oven, I discovered it was a big deal. About half of my eggplant slices (the paper thin parts, surprise, surprise!) were completely charred to the bottom of the pan. Hmmm…no problem, it’ll just add a little crunch!

It said to toast the bread in the oven, so I sliced my bakery-fresh artisan roll and placed the slices in the warm oven. My dear friend Angie called, so we skyped as I added some shriveled mushrooms, a baggie of 2011 carrot coins and tried to deplete my excess of white beans in my simmering sauce and scraped the eggplant slices from the pan. We were having such a delightful chat that I forgot about my bread in the oven until I smelled a faint aroma of burning…a different one from the garlic… and eggplant. Shoot! They weren’t badly burned, so I decided they were going to be covered with sauce and baked anyway, bringing them to the perfect texture. I paused our skype conversation until the lasagna had been assembled and put in the oven to bake.

As I began to build the lasagna, I noticed a shortage of eggplant. The recipe called for a large eggplant. I figured 1 large=2 small. I figured wrong. I was supposed to have enough eggplant for 2 layers. My charcoal-crusted eggplant ran out before the first layer was adequately laid. This perplexed me. So, the paucity of eggplant made me realize this recipe was now going to be toasted bread with homemade marinara that had become a dumping ground for all my cast off vegetables. I took a deep breath, threw some ricotta on top and put it in the oven to hope for the best and finish my conversation. 40 minutes later, I removed it from the oven only to find that the bottom layer of marinara had completely blackened into the bottom of the pan because I’d had to move the rack down one level from the top because it was too tall to fit otherwise.

Well, in the game of cooking, you win some and you lose some! I’m actually pretty impressed that I managed to burn four different aspects of this lasagna for four different reasons. Pretty impressive! While it definitely wasn’t the taste sensation I was hoping for, I have eaten it for three meals and there’s still a part of me that’s looking forward to that last serving! :)

Life Lessons via Turtles

The evening I spent watching turtles hatch from their eggs, emerge onto the sand free to start their life served as allegories to my own life. The first turtle was strong and came through the sand strongly and relatively quickly. As we waited for the second one, it was tempting to try to help it because we knew that the Canadian family was waiting to see the release, and it was getting late. According to our timeline, the turtle needed to finish its hatching process NOW. Under the guidance of my mentor and against my better judgment, I may have brushed a little sand away to make his escape route slightly less obstructed.

Fast forward to the runway of sand between the turtles’ current position and their final dwelling place in the big black ocean: Turtle #1 stood there for a moment clearly apprising his current situation and enabling his nature kick in telling him to “Go toward the water!” Eventually, he started moving in the right direction with a marked amount of zeal. Similar to the circuitous routes of life, he didn’t take the most direct path either. However, he kept moving, eventually reached the water, and was swept away to fight the odds. Only 1/1000 baby turtles survive to adulthood. Only time will tell if he’ll be smart enough, strong enough and fast enough to survive the big, bad world of ocean life.

Turtle #2 on the other hand was confused. He sat completely still before turning his back to the water and walking away. Time without number, we turned him back around, lured him with red light and patted the sand, creating vibrations in the sand to attract him, but nothing was working. After about 30 minutes, he made a few promising steps toward the water but started veering severely to the right, so much so that soon he was going completely in the wrong direction again. We created a barrier to the right to increase the appeal of going straight or to the left. He continued to plow into the barrier. I tried to talk some sense into him. “Buddy, whatcha’ doing?! Can’t you see the big open expanse of sand to your left? Why do you insist on trying to go where there is no way?”

At that moment, I had a brief flash of enlightenment. I wonder how many times God has looked at me repeatedly ramming into some circumstantial barrier and said, “Hey buddy, whatcha’ doing?! Can’t you see all these better possibilities that are available for you if you would look around instead of having tunnel vision!” It seemed so obvious couched in this turtle scenario, but it becomes so much more muddled in the beach of life where everything just looks like sand in all directions!

In addition to my moment of enlightenment, I was also receiving a lesson in natural selection before my very eyes. Humankind is the one species that has found a way to outsmart natural selection, but it is a harsh reality for every other living creature. Despite the fact that turtle #2 eventually made it to the water’s edge, I’m confident he’s not going to be the one beating the 1/1000 odds of survival. Now, I did have a slightly guilty conscious wondering if I had not brushed the sand away and instead let it hatch in its own time, might its future have looked different? Hmmm, maybe allowing events to take their natural course is a better idea than pushing them through on my personal schedule. Could this be a second flash of enlightenment in such a short period of time?! I may have ushered these turtles into their first hour of life, but they served as a vehicle for some much needed wisdom in my own life.

Work, Play and People

Since Saturday, December 17th, I had been going non-stop, bouncing from one place to another in order to maximize the number of people I could connect with. I woke up for breakfast at 8am on Tuesday morning fully aware that the pace of life on the beach is much more relaxed compared with the pace that I had been living for the previous two weeks, and it was a bit of a jolt to my system. I repeated the mantra “Relax, Carolyn. They’ll tell you when and what you are supposed to do eventually. Be patient.” many times before I was able to fully embrace it. Hours later, the leader took me out to the “vivero” or turtle hatchery, located about a quarter of a mile down the beach, and gave me a brief orientation.

The Olive Ridley sea turtle species is endangered; therefore there is a concerted effort to protect the nests from all types of predators. ASVO volunteers dig up the nests once they are laid along the beach and put them within a fenced-off hatchery that is monitored 24/7. Typically, a nest yields around 100 eggs and the gestation period is between 45-51 days. We as volunteers were responsible for keeping the hatchery area clean, recording size and mass data of hatched turtles and then releasing them into the ocean.

My first duty was the following night from midnight until 6am with a partner so we could take turns being on duty and sleeping in the hammock. Sweet! I was thrilled to hear that a nest was “due” to hatch that night! By the time I got there, we could see 4 little turtle heads. We checked the nest every 15 minutes to monitor the progress using only a red light so as not to disturb or confuse the turtles. It was super exciting to see one of the turtles completely pull itself out of its shell in the sand and emerge victorious during one of my check-ups! With a gloved hand, I took it from its nest and placed it in a bucket of sand so that it could be taken to the shelter to be weighed and measured. Since another one was likely to be surfacing within the hour, we decided to wait until the second one was born before releasing them into the great big ocean!

There was a family from Canada who had come back to the hatchery late that night so they could watch the release of the newborn turtles. We placed them on the shore about 15 meters from the water and encouraged them to go toward their future home by shining a red light, tapping the sand and a healthy dose of verbal encouragement! One seemed surer about life outside the nest than the other. As I watched the two brand new baby turtles take on the world for the first time about 2:30am, many allegories to life became apparent (see Turtle Life Lessons later).

Another morning, a group of us went to the recycling center in Montezuma and helped to smash, sort and bag 3 days’ worth of plastic bottles from this tiny tourist town. Wow. A few lessons I learned: #1 Don’t leave the caps on your plastic bottles when you recycle them; they’re not recyclable! #2 Don’t leave liquid in your bottles; it has to be emptied, and it’s much grosser days later. #3 Recycling center attendants need to be paid more. I processed waste for about 3 hours one time in Costa Rica meaning it was novel with an element of glamour and fun, but day in and day out it would become difficult, unpleasant work that deserves to be appropriately compensated.

In addition to this time spent volunteering, I had plenty of opportunity to hang out on the beach and play in the waves getting to know the other volunteers who were from college students from Costa Rica, Germany, Italy, two professional dancers from Belgium, and a Canadian science teacher who’s working in South Korea. For the most part, we spoke Spanish with a little English thrown in to clear up a few misunderstandings. One morning I hiked down the road about a half mile and found an amazing trail leading up a river through luscious rainforest to gorgeous waterfalls complete with a refreshing swimming hole, rock jumps and a rope swing, which I most definitely sampled. None of the other volunteers were interested in going, so I joined up with a great group of people from Toronto, and we had a great time! Another day I spent the morning reading on the beach, then explored the other end of the beach with another volunteer where we discovered THOUSANDS of shells, a nearly empty beach and huge rock formations with some awesome tide pools mini-ecosystems!!!


Soon it was time for the bus ride/ferry expedition back to San Jose followed by the marathon ride back to San Salvador. This time my travel companions were a vegan who’d attended the University of Iowa and was currently living in Chicago as an investment banker, a guy who works at my school in San Salvador and was traveling back home served as my border buddy and my seat buddy was the grandfather of a Salvadoran family that served as an example to me as the kindest, patient, loving family that I’ve ever had the opportunity to witness, EVER. After having traveled around Costa Rica as grandma, grandpa, mom, dad and 3 kids ages 2, 4, and 8 for two weeks they were now on the 20-hour bus ride back to San Salvador. They were nothing but wonderful to each other. Everyone helped out and took part to make everything run smoothly and the children behaved impeccably! I kept waiting for someone to get cranky and impatient but they NEVER did! At the end of our journey, I told them they were an inspiration!

While I may have officially “traveled alone”, I honestly never felt alone. I met so many kind, friendly and helpful people along the way who were willing to explain a million different things to me and share sweet life moments: how to conquer border crossings, how to dive under a wave to prevent being crushed, when to switch buses, how much a taxi should cost from point A to point B, how to tuck in the pulls on my backpack to appear less desirable to thieves, waking me up in the bus so I could see the amazing wind turbines around a Nicaraguan lake, and watching in awe as the sun set during the ferry ride. While there isn’t a single person who can reminisce about the entire journey with me, I did get to experience the joy of sharing unexpected moments of delight and connection with an interesting and diverse smattering of humanity. What a treat! :)

Costa Rica Bound!

Sometime around mid-December I started thinking about the week I would have available after returning from the states and before school started. No groups of people had really formed going anywhere, so I decided this was the perfect opportunity to set out on my own and travel solo for the first time. I started searching for volunteer opportunities available in Central America, and then quickly added the term “cheap” to the beginning of the search string which eventually led me to the ASVO program in Costa Rica. Within a week, my position had been confirmed at Montezuma http://www.asvocr.org/english/montezuma/index.php. I wasn’t 100% sure what I’d be doing, but knowing I would be on a beach in Costa Rica with room and board covered for $25/day volunteering with an environmental project was enough to make me excited!

I arrived home at 1:30am after my New Year’s celebration with some Salvadoran friends, finished packing, took a taxi to the bus station at 2:30am and by 3am was on the road headed south to Costa Rica. Three meals, three border crossings (which included 6 stops), innumerable immigration officials, and 20 hours later (11pm) I arrived at the bus station in San Jose, Costa Rica! I wished my dear Guatemalan seat buddy good luck with his upcoming semester of study and he left me with his sister’s number in Costa Rica in case I had any problems! My border buddy, (a lot of time was spent waiting at borders outside the bus and many friends were made) a dreadlocked nurse from Australia independently backpacking around the world for the past 8 months, and I decided to share a taxi to our respective hostels.

The following morning I connected with my program organizer who told me to get on another bus at 2pm to arrive at my site on the beach on the Nicoya Peninsula by around 8:30pm that night. I knew another bus ride was in my future, but I hid my shock that it was going to be that long. Considering I’d just survived a 20 hour ride, what’s another 6.5 divided with a ferry ride?! I was able to take advantage of the 4 hours I had in San Jose and covered the entire downtown walking tour route taking in as many sites as the “Everything is closed on Monday” capitol would allow! I ate traditional Costa Rican cuisine consisting of chicken, potatoes and carrots in broth and rice from a local restaurant while chatting it up with the owner and dishwashers at the bar. They provided some great insight on Costa Rican culture and a few kind Spanish lessons as well!

I successfully found the new bus station on foot and thoroughly enjoyed the vibrant greens, lush vegetation and rolling hillsides as I traveled across the country. The ferry was HUGE and carried a couple of busses, many cars and hundreds of people! What a welcomed change of pace to be on the water during the sunset surrounded by gorgeousness instead of the inside of a bus.

On the last leg of my journey, I sat next to a Lebanese chef who owns a restaurant in a nearby town. We had a congenial conversation ranging from his famous falafel recipes to his life in Miami and how life changed for him as a resident post-9/11 to his life in the Lebanese army back in the 80’s and challenges and hardships that came with that experience. We shared about our families and our love of travel. It was exhilarating! However, I was so thankful when I finally arrived at Montezuma and was met by two people from my program to walk me to my final destination!