Independent Living- Darby Huye

Yurt life and cabaña life are very different things. The yurt, which I love so dearly, is more of a study hall/sleep place, but the cabaña is so much more. The biggest different with cabañas was the food situation. The yurt is a strict no food zone, but the cabaña has a fridge, kitchen, and dining room table. This was big for me (and the other girls) because food is the key to our hearts. Despite the opportunity of having all of the food we could ever want close enough that we didn’t have to wear shoes to get to it, we were restricted with a food budget.

We could easily buy all of our meals under this budget, but our vivid imaginations led us to create a very intricate meal plan that not even our elastic stomachs could hold. We had to leave behind pepper and the wonderful frugeles when we went over budget, but we survived with out those things. The girls meals varied from stir-fry to tortellini to breakfast burritos for lunch.

Cooking our meals was the hardest. Lunch needed to be prepared before the lunch period started in order for us to eat and do dishes. That meant that some of the girls needed to cook during their study halls in the morning. We often volunteered to cook pieces of our lunch-time puzzle, but there were many times that homework tromped lunch and soggy rice was what was on the table when lunch came around. Living in cabañas taught me how to shop with a budget, cook for others, and manage the time I needed to prepare lunch.