Taking the bus up to Usme, my mom and I really didn't know what to expect. Padre Romero had told me that over 200 kids would be there to sing and listen to the story of Jesus' birth. We arrived really early because we were on 'refreshments' duty that night. Neither of us had cooked Arroz con Leche before, but it's a traditional Christmas drink in Colombia. Luckily, we had the help of the padre's sister and another lady from the congregation. We went down the hill to pick up 15 bags of milk, 10 pounds of rice, a huge bag of sugar, cinnamon, raisins, etc... We made it back up the hill (with the help of the padre's niece and lots of rest stops), and got to work. Of course, we got the wrong type of cinnamon so we had to make one more trip down and back up the huge hill.
We had just started boiling the water and pouring in the rice when the padre came running in and told everyone to get out! There was a natural gas leak and it was really dangerous. Of course, the padre's sister said, "we can't leave, we're cooking the rice!" After about 30 minutes of waiting around, the bomberos (firefighters) came, along with the police and a gas company. They put up caution tape and eventually fixed the leak. We got back to cooking, but were now pressed for time.
The 200 kids started showing up, including almost all of our kids from the mission. Brittany and her boyfriend (Andrew) were also there. Brittany and I both did readings in front of a packed church! After our readings we had to rush back to the kitchen, because there was lots of work to do. We had an assembly line going:
The lady from the congregation would pour the arroz con leche into a cup. My mom would put in 4-5 raisins, Brittany would pour in some condensed milk, I would put a spoon into the cup (tough job) and then put it on a tray. Andrew would then take the full tray to the table while the padre's sister handed it out the kids. Andrew also helped pour the cookies onto another big tray.
Overall, day 1 was amazing. Everyone loved the arroz con leche and cookies. My mom even brought candy canes from the US for all of the kids. It was so great to see all of the kids', and the padre's, happy faces.
Love, Kate
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