I scream, you scream

I think I've hinted once or twice in my blogs at the challenges I've had working with teachers at the school. This leaves me with a fair amount of free time. Luckily the EuroCup has filled many of my afternoons for the last three weeks. One of the ways I stayed cool in the hot afternoon was to eat ice cream that my host mom makes from the guanábanas (soursops) that fall from the tree in our backyard. (I've never heard anyone ever say the word soursop-maybe I don't go to enough exotic fruit stores-so I'm going to use the Spanish word in this post.) The tree was producing a bunch of guanábanas just after I arrived, and it has been producing a bunch in the last few weeks. My host mom makes juice, bread, and ice cream with the guanábanas, as well as gives a bunch of them away and freezes a fair amount of the flesh (after taking out the seeds). Well, I can't really remember if it was me, my host brother, or my host mom, but someone suggested making ice cream and selling it. Well, I was totally game as was my host brother. 

(two big guanábanas)

Making ice cream with guanábanas is quite easy. Well, rather, making ice cream the sell it out of your house in bags Costa Rican style is quite easy. That's right, ice cream in a bag. I was first introduced to pop in a bag in Laos, and the bag was open with a straw. I was fairly skeptical of this situation-it was mostly so that vendors wouldn't lose the glass bottle deposit. But, here in Costa Rica, I'm a huge fan of the drink in a bag method. Small, long plastic bags are filled with pop, juice, ice cream, or slushee mix, and then tied. Thus, one just has to bite the corner and suck the liquid through the hole. It's super convenient. It works even better for ice cream than for pop, as the ice cream is somewhat solid-so no risk of it squirting out. What's more, the bag of ice cream can serve just like a bag of ice-something smooth and cool to rub on the back of one's neck or across the forehead. Back to the easy process. We use guanábanas-because the tree provides them for free. Peeling and de-seeding the guanábana takes by far the longest period of time, after that, add a bit of water, plenty of sugar, and a good bit of milk-and you've got your ice cream mix. No, I don't know the exact amounts, we play it by taste-blend it a bit, taste it, make adjustments-repeat if necessary. After that, using the cut off top of a Coke bottle as a funnel, the mixture is poured into the bag, tied, and put in the freezer. About twelve hours later we've got ice cream ready to sell. 

(a big guanábana opened and deseeded)

I made a little sign and put it on our gate, but the sales were pretty weak the first few days. I believe we sold none the first day and just two the second day (to a neighbor kid). But, like any other business endeavor, it takes time to build up clientele. Since then we've made lots of ice cream and sold plenty of it. There are currently 25 or so bags of ice cream in the freezer, and we've sold at least one hundred, maybe lots more in the two or three weeks this venture has been going on. Our best clients are a group of teenagers that hang out around the corner and smoke marijuana-often our busiest hour is 8-9 pm-and it's these guys fueling it. Making and selling the ice cream has been great for me, providing a nice afternoon/evening activity-as well as having me climb up on the roof fairly often to check for any ripe fruit. Moreover, plenty more people in my town recognize me. César, my host brother, has benefitted a lot from it too-as he hasn't any job and I think I'll give him all the money-it's a good way for him to earn a bit of pocket change.

(the finished product in the freezer door-some chocolate and strawberry mixed in)