Week two in Peru may be my favorite week thus far. If you read our last blog you will know that Peru was our all squad month. Our entire squad of 45 lived together in a compound (pictures to come) in Trujillo, Peru. While living together we shared daily responsibilities such as cleaning the bathrooms, sweeping, trash, dishes, and of course COOKING! Week two was Team Tonkas week to cook! The 7 of us were so excited. Actually, let me rephrase that… us 4 girls were so excited!
We had 3 burners, with two pots, and one skillet… no oven . All of us ladies have had some experience cooking for large groups, however cooking with only 3 burners was new for all of us.
An even greater challenge was planning meals. We had a 3,000 Soles budget for the week which comes out to about 3 USD per person each day. Planning a menu within budget proved to be tricky. Even trickier was figuring out what to cook without any of the normal ingredients we would use at home… like ground beef, cheese, and Lawry’s Seasoned Salt
. We ended up using a lot of rice, chicken, and produce. Since we were on the coast we did try our hands at frying fish one evening and it was FABULOUS!
Here are a few pictures:
Our cooking station.
The kitchen.
Team Tonka! Sam was our flipper and fryer.
We still like each other 
.
Fresh fish fried to perfection!
Buying produce at the grocery store was twice as expensive as buying it at the local markets. Maria (our host) had her brother, Moses, take us to a HUGE open air market. It was incredible and so cheap! Here are some pictures from the market:
Sort of like a Radio Flyer.
So many brilliant colors!
Lots of options.
Lettuce or cabbage anyone?
Always enough chicken to go around.
This week was amazing. I was so proud of our team. Our strengths and abilities were very complimentary of each others. With the craziness of living with all 45 of our squadmates the kitchen was a nice little sanctuary for us. We came out of week two closer to each other and closer to God. Praise God for always knowing what we need when we need it! He always provides!
Thanks for the continued prayers. Peru Highlights/Photo Blog Post coming soon!
