Tamales!!!!

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I got up this morning and swam laps then we caught a colective to class. I am really enjoying the classes and our teacher Irene' is very nice. Today we went over numbers, verbs and verb tense. After class we walked down to la playa and had lunch, did some shopping and ended up in hammocks with margaritas and doing our homework. I got some pictures of surfers in order to try and give a perspective on the size of the waves. I also found myself wondering if it would be right to come to one of the most amazing places(aparently) to surf and not to at least try it. I'm taking votes!
Tonight we had a cooking class. We were to make Tamales and Tequitos with Mari, who is the mother in law of the owner of the school, and who speaks no English. It was an AMAZING experience! She gives instructions and i have no idea what she is saying and it is uncomfortable and strange and made me feel akward and slow! But Mari was patient. I found myself thinking about our studnets who come, knowing NO English and sit in class before us. We talk louder, we talk slower, we repeat ourselves. Funny how none of that works. Tamales take SO much time, effort, and elbow greese! Mari had all the meats for our dishes precooked and on the stove. All the chilies were also precooked. The mesa was ground and all we had to do was add salt, lard, and pollo broth. We wrapped our tamales in banana leaves and corn husks. We soaked the husks and singed the leaves over the fire. Three hours later they were ready to eat. Mari seemed to love cooking, love teaching us, and love that we LOVED the final product. I am most certainly going to be more grateful and... honored when our Marshall families cook for us. Even the tequitos that we made were not a short process. We were well rewarded for our hard work and got to sit down with Mari, mari (her daughter) and Brian, the maestro over tequitos caliente, tamales y cervesa!