fresh, whole beans from one of my favorite olymia coffee joints. they were an unexpected package from a friend back home — not a really close friend, but a friend for whom i have a deep respect and admiration. a young, successful entrepreneur, coffee afficianado — a great gift from a great person.

there’s just one problem — i’ve no way to grind the capitol blend.

in some ways, then, santiago certainly wasn’t what i expected. when i first imagined myself in santiago over two years ago, i imagined grading tests while taking in a cup of south american coffee. this dream realized, however, left me wholly surprised and confused at finding only instant nescafe — a bitter, disgusting, barely drinkable concoction with a fraction of the caffeine needed to give me a jolt large enough to last through the day.

sure, i’m an addict. and santiago offers little in the way of getting a fix.

the real coffee is muy caro, and the coffee makers and french presses, and bean grinders, and other various accouterments necessary for any coffee snob are hard to find and many pesos above their american value. it’s an expensive habit to keep here.

just another misconception. when you dream, it’s hard to imagine what reality will be like.

i never pictured missing home. i never imagined that problems that could affect me so deeply would arise in the place i left behind. i didn’t see missing a boyfriend. i couldn’t fathom missing some of the best friends a girl could ask for. it never occurred to me that it would be cold, and that indoor heating would be a luxury left  in the states.

all i saw was something different. something that didn’t involve cleaning up dresssing rooms, doorbelling, crazy constituents, an unhappy relationship, and people i didn’t know or even really like.

of course, i didn’t expect all of that to change — i didn’t expect the great job that i mostly loved, the job offers that i turned down, or the loves that i left behind.

and, then i didn’t expect half of the joy i found here in reality. the friendships that might just last a lifetime, the students who bring smiles to my face every day, the joy i get when a struggling student finally comes to grasp what i’m saying — i had no idea that it would be so gratifying.

things aren’t always what we expect. they’re seldom as picturesque and pretty as we see them in our minds, and when we expect one thing to go wrong, it’s usually another.

such is life, and such is the nature of living out your dreams. while it’s nothing that i imagined, it’s everything that i imagined. it’s not a finely ground percolator, simple and left to its own devices — it’s a coarse ground french press. the beans need to be ground by hand, and the coffee timed for optimal strength, acidity, and flavor. it required a slow hand to separate the ground beans from the hot liquid. constant care, constant vigilance.

so what to do about my whole beans? a hammer might work. a swift series of whacks to release the flavor, aroma, and sweetness of the beans.

sometimes such subtle flavors can only be achieved by something as extreme as that.

UPDATE: hammering beans into something worthy of being drinkable seems to have failed. boo coffee tinted water 😦