Cooking For Peace
Aleida's Bolitas de Leche
Bolitas de Leche: the best things in life don't have to be complicated. They just need one important ingredient: love. Aleida learned to make Bolitas de Leche when she was just a child, watching her mom and aunt make them. They had learned it from their mom, who started the family business over 50 years ago in a little town called Sincé. Now Aleida, her sister and other family members continue to perserve a generations old recipe. And how are the Bolitas received by the community? "Tin tin tin tin tin, they love it!"
Food is essential to human life. But not just for its nutritional value. Food is a powerful means of storytelling, of preserving cultures, and even healing the soul. In communities like Sincé, where violence and poverty have taken so much, food is a way to reclaim what is theirs. One bite of this delicious sweetness warms the heart and fuels the community to stay strong, overcome the problems, and create a future that's as beautiful as the love with which these Bolitas de Leche are made.
Learn how to make these Bolitas de Leche in the video below!
Share this page
Sincé: a place of dreams, desires and hope
By Catalina Barragán Hinestroza & Juan Felipe Hernández
Located in the Sucre savanna, just 30 kilometers from Sincelejo is the municipality of San Luis de Sincé. Villa de Coral is a district of Sincé where violence and state neglect are evident in its streets, its schools, its parks, in every corner you can see the absolute lack of basic human rights. Drinking water and electricity are scarce. The streets are unpaved and the soccer fields consist of just two sticks where kids play in between pigs and roosters. A town that lacks everything, except for beautiful, friendly and hopeful people who seek a better future for their town.
This town has experienced violence as a result of the war between the paramilitaries, the government and the guerrillas. As well as problems such as high levels of gang violence, micro-trafficking, teenage pregnancies and problematic consumption of drugs.
In recent years the awakening of its people has led to a call for change, for government intervention. While they wait for an answer, the Sincences are not standing still and so they have created several community projects that seek to unite the community to work together for a better Sincé.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A fairly humid and warm climate accompanies our visit.The sincere community welcomes us, inviting us to see the preparation of a typical sweet of the region: the "milk balls". Doña Aleida, the owner of the local business, shows us the step by step of making the "balls". Accustomed to the heat of the region, and without showing greater discomfort in the face of the wood smoke, one of her colleagues wags milk and sugar from one side to the other, in a circular fashion.
With patience and dedication, they form each one of the "balls". In the end, Dona Aleida tells us, there are around 450 for sale. They pack them in containers that have their own logo. It's not just a livelihood, it's also about bringing joy and flavor to consumers.
After visiting Doña Aleida, we went to visit one of the projects that emerged among the young people: "The therapeutic garden, nurturing the soul." Here, the work of young and old converges, women and men who seek, through cultivation, to channel feelings that in the past were problematic, but that today are the foundation of a plot that produces yams, sweet potatoes, yucca, among others. It's about seeing opportunities along the way, seizing them, and nurturing the soul, body, and mind.
