Broccoli Salad

It is Tuesday and therefore around 9 a.m. women start arriving and wait outside my door. I scurry to get everything prepared and the women chat and laugh on my porch and their kids rip apart my plants.  Today we're making broccoli salad; the kind with raisins and bacon. 

I have the bacon cooked when the women arrive, ready to chop. One by one, they approach the bacon and pick it up daintily, with thumb and forefinger and look at the other women with a concerned look on their faces. "It's called bacon", I tell each one. They look at me, still concerned and then talk in K'iche to the other women, as if they don't believe me. "It's from a pig", I say. Then the light bulb comes on. One woman said she thought it was from a chicken. The word for chicken in K'iche is ak'. 

The women are in a good mood today and the class is small, only 7 women show up. Ela is gone today so Raquel is translating for me, and she has some spunk. 

The women laugh after each photo. They tell me to advise them if I'm going to take photos because some of them only came dressed in t-shirts and not guipiles, like the woman on the far left is wearing, which is the traditional clothing. I show them the photos after each shot and they laugh and make fun of each other. I tell them to look good next week because I'll be taking more photos.  

I wasn't sure how the salad would go over. I have rarely seen anyone eat a vegetable raw, and this whole salad is raw. They had also never used vinegar before.

 Most of the women were scared to try it. One didn't, she just carried her styrophom cup away with her as she went. Those who did try it, even if timidly at first, really liked it.