Baking does not exist

Mom, this post is for you.
At home I take fresh baked cookies, pies, cakes, and cobblers for granted. If I want chocolate chip cookies, if it's a birthday, if there is a team party, etc all I have to do is open the cupboard, take out all the ingredients, and bake something. If something is missing it is a quick trip to the baking aisle of any grocery store and I can find all the flour, sprinkles, frosting, and candies that I could ever need. Becca and I decided to bake cupcakes for our friend Rodrigo's birthday. It was not easy!

Reasons why baking does not exist in Chile:
1- There is no baking aisle
We went to Jumbo (very similar to Walmart) to buy ingredients because we figured it would have everything we need. Wrong. When we found an aisle with baking mixes we thought we were in luck. Wrong. Flour and sprinkles were in that aisle but we could not find sugar, frosting, a muffin pan, or cupcake papers. After looking all over the store and asking several people we found powdered sugar near the wine, baking sheets near the rugs, and muffin liners in the party favor aisle.
2- they don't sell frosting
At first I thought that not selling frosting might be a good sign for baking. Making things from scratch is always better, right? But the concept of frosting is not really here either. They call it whipped cream even though frosting is not the same thing as whipped cream.
3-There are no words for baking sheet or cupcakes
We tried the dictionary, we tried online translators, we tried our host families.. the words don't exist.
4- The oven doesn't have a thermometer
The kitchen here is a mystery to me. We couldn't figure out how to pre-heat the over so we went and asked Becca's mom. You have to turn on the gas, light a match, turn on the stove, catch a paper on fire, turn on the oven, and light the oven with the paper. We couldn't find the temperature so we asked her again and there isn't one. It doesn't make it very easy to pre-heat the oven to 350!
5- The kitchen doesn't have measuring cups, large bowls, or mixers
Suddenly I appreciate your KitchenAid with interchangeable mixers. We searched the entire kitchen and could not find a single mixing bowl, measuring cup, or electronic mixer. In the end we used a pot, a whisk, and an empty yogurt container. We converted grams of yogurt to cups and then used the container to measure the water. There is a measuring cup after all but it is used to feed the turtle and was full of turtle water.. gross! The recipe asked us to use an electric mixer on high speed for 4 minutes. So instead I whisked as fast as I could! After finishing the cupcakes we realized that the mixer would be essential for the frosting so we rang the neighbor's doorbell. Six lilac point Siamese ran out into the hallway when she opened the door!

Anyways.. we ended up with more or less successful cupcakes and Rodrigo seemed to like them so the effort was worth it!