Photography, South America, Travel

Hangin’ with CloudHead in Salta, Argentina

CloudHead Salta-19
This is Alejandro. He was teaching the kids how to make humitas from scratch, like his abuela (grandmother) made.

Besides hanging out with our new adopted family from Salta, Shaun and I got to participate in an awesome project – CloudHead. Noah and Leigh (you may know her as @thefutureisred) run an amazing NGO in Salta that brings people together to create experiences that may otherwise not exist. In this case, they brought in a group of unschoolers from the United States to not only learn about Argentina, but to participate in it. If you have a chance to check out their website, give it a go!

They spent 5 or 6 days taking in Salta culture, talking to kids learning English (and practicing their Spanish as well), and in this photo essay, learning how to make humitas (cornmeal with cheese wrapped and boiled in a corn husk). I call them a tamale rip off (but they are still good).

While I had not spent this much time with teenagers (ever), we came to get to know every single one over 5 days (in a row!).

Check out these teens rockin’ it while learning to make humitas in a very traditional way.

Charities in Salta-1
Start with a bag of fresh corn.
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Chop the ends off.
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Shuck the corn.
Humitas-7
Leigh guides the kids.
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Maggie shucks corn.
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Noah documents the kids for the website.

Argentina-14

Things to do in Argentina

Things to do in Salta
Corn is removed from the cob.

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CloudHead

CloudHead Salta-21

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Leigh is convinced this one looks like Slash.

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Grind the corn.

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Grind the herbs, spices, and veggies.

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CloudHead
Create ties from the husks.

CloudHead Argentina-35

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Add the masa (corn dough) to the husk and add a bit of cheese.
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Fold.
NGOs in Argentina-40
Tie.
Art charity in Argentina-41
Finito! Boil and eat!

9 thoughts on “Hangin’ with CloudHead in Salta, Argentina”

  1. Looks like a cool project. What is “unschooled” though? Haven’t heard that term before!

  2. Unschool is quite the phenomenon with travel bloggers. Instead of doing a rigorous homeschool approach, the kid is encourage to learn from daily -things in his/her life. Like, 1 Dad 1 Kid for instance – Tigger has learned physics and biology through diving – rather than traditional schooling.

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