BRICKS TO BREAD COSTA RICA PROJECTS

NANCY MORAGA – LAS PLAYITAS DE BAGACES

THE COMMUNITY

Las Playitas is a peasant settlement founded in 1985 in an agricultural area of Guanacaste where there is no electricity or drinking water and where the roads are full of giant potholes which flood when it rains. Some residents grow sugar cane and rice, but there are no sources of work for women. Where Nancy lives, there are only two little houses and the next closest town is San Ramón, about 10 kilometers away, with around 30 homes.

THE FAMILY

Nancy Moraga is a single mother who cares for her ailing mother and father, and 5-year-old son, Gabriel. As the sole support for her family, Nancy has been baking and selling bread for about 5 years. She learned from her mother, recipe books, and the women in her local 4H club. Her specialties are donuts; empanadas stuffed with cheese and sugar or papaya honey; sweet tortillas; and roasted tamales using corn, cloves, custard and baking powder to give them a fluffy and soft consistency.

Without electricity, Nancy bakes using a gas stove, which is very expensive. She had a clay oven that deteriorated over the years and no longer works. She is working with the Rural Development Institute to get solar panels installed on their home so she has access to electricity to make ice to keep her parents’ medications refrigerated.

LIVES CHANGED

With her parents and two sisters helping her, Nancy can continue growing produce and selling baked goods that she makes in her new brick oven. Her oven is a meeting place for the women and children of Las Playitas where they can share an afternoon coffee, visit with each other, and learn a new recipe – and where the women in her 4H club are welcome to cook meals.