Some of Rawly's favorite things in Colombia... and yes they are all related to food, hahaha

We sent Rawly an email with things that we are up to and then asked him some questions. This is what followed...

I can’t believe you guys bought another fire truck, hahahahahaha

(I sent Rawly a picture of some chairs that his Aunt Tasha’s friend is making there and has a store, they are beautiful and we wanted Rawly to stop by and see her)

The chairs are pretty epic not going to lie, but I can’t find the store! I would imagine she sells them here in Santa Rita, (Santa Rita is very wealthy) or close because well outside of this area of Cali I can’t imagine a place in southwestern Colombia that would sell those. Why buy those beautiful chairs when you can buy the plastic kind? Hahahaha I love Colombia

We asked about his new house. (A while back the mission home bought a hostal so that when they did transfers and received in new missionaries they had a place for them to sleep. They now can sleep up to 30 missionaries and the missionaries that work in the office live there full time.)

Looks pretty nice

I love our house, it is super fun living there. We all live on the top floor with ceramic floors. When the other missionaries come into Cali they sleep in the other rooms. 

We asked about his favorite food and leave it Rawly he had several along with pictures.

My favorite food here in Cali. Well we can’t eat with members anymore now that we have pensionistas. But also here in the office for the last 15 years Maria has made the food. She is awesome, I love her, she makes us food every day, does our laundry, cleans the house etc. She is so awesome mom I love Maria. The food in southwestern Colombia is the same, honestly the food in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia is very similar. My favorite, is that here they eat green plantains, before they are ripe. They smash them and fry them and put stuff on top. It is honestly delicious.

The most typical plate from Cali is a soup called sancocho. It is made with hen, plantain, yucca, potatoes, and cilantro. It is delicious and you eat it with a banana, hahaha. Then always to accompany it you have a plate of rice and an avocado. 

And you can never forget your lulo juice. Lulo is a fruit here that I love it is typical to Colombia. I love it. I also love the beans. The beans are really good. They are not like refried beans they are like the harder beans.

Also I love something called guarapo. It’s sugar cane juice.  This is the machine that they use to crush the sugar cane until the juice comes out, also they stick a lime in there so it tastes like limeade a bit. I love it. You can find these everywhere. It’s 1 thousand pesos for a cup (.40 cents) I love it.

Also here in Cali the chontaduro is super famous as well. You can always find these ladies peeling chontaduro everywhere in Cali and in Buenavenutra. Chontaduro is kind of like... I can’t describe it. It’s not juicy; a potato is juicier than a chontaduro. It’s super starchy and you eat it with salt and honey (it’s actually an awesome combination on chontaduro). 

Also another I love to eat here in Cali is the unripe mango, Mango biche. It’s served with salt and lime on top. It’s super good as well.