Busy Bee

As you all know, I have been quite busy the past month or so with attending class, homework and some pretty cool events. I haven’t had time to blog and quite frankly maybe that is a good thing. Trying to keep busy is not a hard task when you have so much at your finger tips. ISA organized some events for us this past month including a cooking class, a flamenco class and community service day.

Carolina is one of our directors and she taught us how to make Spanish Tortilla and Huevos Rellenos. When I first arrived here one of the first meals Emma made for me was Spanish Tortilla. Before dinner, she kept talking about tortilla. I thought to myself now that’s interesting. In my head I was thinking we were going to make fajitas more or less. To my surprise it was nothing like that. Spanish tortillas consist of eggs, onion, olive oil, potatoes. You are more than welcome to add other things, but this is the one we made. Then, when you’re finished you cut it up and stick it on pieces of bread. It was delicious. Next, we made Huevos Rellenos. This is hard boiled eggs stuffed with tuna, mayo, and it’s mixed with the egg yolk. That’s one of my favorites. It reminds me of deviled eggs with a twist.

Next on the agenda was Flamenco class. We went to this studio in Málaga, I felt like I was a little girl in dance class all over again. Our instructor broke down all the steps for us and taught us little by little. Luckily, I already knew some of the moves so I could pick up on things a lot more easily. Our instructor then incorporated someone playing the drum for us. We practiced over and over again. Towards the end, we had our dance down pretty well and she had people singing typical Christmas flamenco songs. It was incredible. I had a lot of fun with that. I wish I could have spent more time doing that.

Last but certainly not least, community service day. A group of us went to plant trees along the Guadalhorce River. A lot of the surrounding area is trying to be brought up. Planting these trees not only helps nature and the indigenous birds but also helps to put a wall up between the natural park and the undeveloped city. We had about 20 trees to plant. My friend Lee and I were paired up to plant the same trees. We were then given instructions and taken to our spot to start planting. Little did we know we had to dig holes. When we thought the hole was big enough it clearly wasn’t. Lee and I took turns digging. We planted our two trees with much more ease. One of the guys, Raul, that is part of this project helped us when we weren’t quite sure about something. He was really helpful and I got to practice my Spanish in a new way!

Lee and I finished the first two and there were still more to plant. Since a lot of people in our group sponsored trees but were unable to make it, it was up to us to plant those as well. I planted one for my roommate Morgan. We set out to do two more. This was harder than the first two. We were basically trying to dig into clay. Needless to say it took a lot longer to plant those two. It was a lot of work. It felt good being able to give back a little something to the community. I get to leave my mark in Málaga. Our names will be on plaques next to our trees. As well as they will give us the GPS coordinates to know exactly where they are. The soreness I am feeling throughout my whole body was definitely well worth it!