What kids don't think of the dog will!

While we were in the community on Monday afternoon, we were looking for people to visit. I finally found Maria Carmen at home and was helping her carry some water to her cabbage plants. The buckets were heavy and she was carrying her sleeping grandson on her back. I was hoping to get to practice some Quichua with her, but since she was so busy, she really was not talking much. Mike noticed that the kids at the next house were on the roof with a puppet we had not seen before. He decided to check it out, and walked next door. As he was standing under the balcony of the house talking to the kids, they dropped the puppet from the balcony. As it happened, the family dog, who we know, was sleeping near Mike. When the puppet dropped to the ground, the dog woke up and attacked the first thing he saw- which happened to be Mike! I looked over and saw the dog attacking Mike's leg, and he finally got it to stop. Of course, the kids had no idea that something like that would happen, and came running down to fuss at the dog. We are sure the dog was just frightened, thinking that Mike had done something bad at his house. In any case, it ripped several holes in Mike's brand new jeans, and did break the skin.

Mike came walking over to Carmen's house, and she was very, very concerned. About that time, Gregorio (the community president) came walking up, and we told him what happened. I had not seen Mike's leg yet, and honestly was concerned at the blood! Maria Carmen said that we should bathe it with hot camomile water, so she went off to heat some. When it was hot, we went into her house and she brought a cloth he could wash it with. Fotunately, it is really just a wound on the skin, and did not penetrate more deeply. Since it was still bleeding a little, and Mike's pants had dog slobber on them, Mike went into town to get some antibiotic cream and gauze.

Gregorio, Carmen, and later the owners of the dog all suggested making a poultice of fur or wool from the dog to put on the wound. They all insisted that putting the wool or fur of the same dog on its bite would cure the wound in two days. We thought it was interesting, but we respectfully declined. Mike said he thought he was fine, though he did visit the doctor today, just to make sure. While Mike was out buying the ointment and gauze, I asked Gregorio if there had been any problems with rabies in their area. He said that Hospital San Luis in Otavalo comes out regularly to vaccinate both people and animals. He told me that they even vaccinate the farm animals such as cows and goats. I was relieved to hear it, but I think Mike and I will probably get the rabies vaccination series just for future peace of mind. In the meantime, Mike will be carrying a stick whenever there are dogs around to protect us from mean dogs!

By the way, there has not been any significant swelling, and Mike says his leg really does not hurt very much. Sorry, no pics with this one!!!

A Cultural Experiencene

Well, you know, sometimes things just do not work out the way you planned. On the other hand, God often has a different plan, and we get to be a part of it. On Monday, we had planned to help a widow lady named Dolores plant her corn and bean field. As it happened, she had decided to wait a couple of weeks to plant, which of course we had no way of knowing. We went up to the community on Sunday evening for a short time to meet with the president of the community and a few others. They all asked us if we were ready to plant in the morning, and of course, we said yes! On Monday morning, the community president, Gregorio, passed by the lady's field and talked with her, at which point she told him it would be two more weeks before she would plant. He tried to call us on Mike's cell phone, but we were in a "dead zone" and did not get the call. It was somewhat confusing when we walked up the hill and Dolores was not there. We eventually called Gregorio who gave us the news. We figured we would just visit with people in the community instead, but it was practically deserted since it was the first day of classes. What to do?

We decided to wander around. Mike had seen Maria Guerrero washing laundry, so I thought I would go talk to her and practice Quichua. However, she was not around. I figured I could talk to Maria Carmen and practice Quichua, but when I knocked on the door only the dogs answered. I went to where Maria Virginia was working and started trying to talk with her. Since she does not understand much Spanish, Quichua was the only option. Since I could not figure out what else to do, I started pointing at body parts and asking, "What is this?" When she started sweeping, I asked, "What are you doing?" in Quichua and she answered me. After a while, she got busy with something else, so I went on my way. Where to go next?

Mike had stopped to talk to some men who were having a load of sand delivered (for construction purposes). As I was looking for somewhere else to go, the men were leaving and Mike was walking with them. I noticed that Josefina and her daughter Belen were out, so I headed that direction. We all sat down on the grass and I said, "Help me with Quichua," so they started talking to me, and helping me understand. After a while, Mike came back and we started teaching him some Quichua words as well. While we were sitting there, Josefina asked us if we eat tostado, which is toasted dried corn. We said sure, and she was going to leave to prepare it. I asked if we could see how it is done. She went into the house and came out with dried ears of corn and a piece of cloth. We sat down to remove the corn from the ears and put them in the cloth. While Mike and Belen and I were occupied with the corn, she asked if we like dried zambo seeds (it is similar to pumpkin), and we said sure. Josefina went off to prepare the zambo seeds and also to wash and put potatoes into a pot.

Next, along came Alfonso, who had taken the day off from work at a cement plant to go to the school for his children. He was back from school and saw us working on the corn. Since he knew we were trying to learn Quichua, he started talking to us in Quichua, translating a little when necessary. When Josefina had things ready in her kitchen, she came to get us, and Alfonso came along, too. Josefina lives in a cement and block house, but she lead us into an attached wooden structure where she had some cement blocks and a metal grate set up. She had started a fire with eucalytus wood, and was beginning to cook a large pot of potatoes. Then, she began to toast the zambo seeds in a pan with no oil. She stirred them with her fingers, and when I asked if it burned, she said a little, and eventually sent her daughter to the house for a small metal spoon. When the seeds were toasted, she brought out a large grinding stone and what they call the baby stone, which is used like a mortal and pestle. Alfonso began to grind the seeds, while Josefina began to toast the corn. Eventually, Alfonso added salt and water to the ground seed to make a kind of sauce that we would put on the potatoes to eat. While he was working, Mike and I ate some of the toasted seeds.

I was amazed as I watched Josefina work with the cooking fire. The flames were huge, and the protections seemed to be few. When one of her younger girls returned from school (it was a short day since it was the first day), she pushed the wood further up under the grate, so more of it would burn. She carefully bent over, and taking care to keep her long skirt away from the flames, pushed the branches further into the flames. Mike asked Josefina if this was her primary kitchen. She and Alfonso both said that culturally, they prefer to cook over wood. She acknowledged that she had a four burner stove top in the house, but that it takes longer to cook. We asked when she uses that one, and she said that during times of the year when she is really busy, such as when she is planting (as she will be in the coming weeks), she puts something on to cook, because it takes longer and she can be away from it while it cooks. She says that the wood fire cooks faster, but that she has to be with it almost the whole time.

About the time the food was ready, the children returned from their shortened day of school. As we ate, they started singing some songs they had learned at vacation Bible school a month or so ago, and then they started singing "Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes." I got everyone to stand up, and we all did the song together, pointing to the appropriate body parts. Then, they began to ask us the names for all kinds of things in English. We sat with them for half an hour or so, just reciting the names of things in English. Finally, we decided it was time to head out, since we had a couple of things to do in Otavalo. We thanked them all profusely for the wonderful cultural and language experience, not to mention lunch! It was a wonderfully unexpected experience, for which we are very grateful. Maybe we will get to help Dolores plant when she is ready. In the meantime, we got to experience some very typically Quichua traditions.

Home visits

While in Pigulca this week, Mike and I visited almost all of the houses of the community. Gregorio, the community president accompanied us on most of the visits and often acted as translator. We did a survey which our team mate, Rick Aschmann, translated into Quichua for me. We were asking about school, health, financial and agricultural information. Most people were more than willing to visit with us. My funniest question was supposed to be whether they owned any kind of vehicle. However, in Quichua it comes out sounding more like, "Do you have a car?" And then, "What type of car do you have? an auto, truck, bicycle, cart, other." Most people laughed, though many families in the community have at least one bicycle. This picture is of the Arellana family, two sisters and a brother and their children. There are three houses close together, and each has a field that they plant.

We really enjoyed getting to talk with community members, and they seemed to be very open with us. Segundo, our Quichua team member was with us on Monday and Tuesday. He said that he has been in lots of communities, and this one seems very open to us. He related that in other communities the people will maintain a distance and sort of stare. In the case of Pigulca, people always come out to talk to us, and if we are near the community house, they come over to see what we are doing. A couple of times when we did not have anything planned, we just went out to talk to people. On Tuesday morning, we did not find the person we were looking for at home, but an older woman was walking down the road. We asked what she was doing, and she said they were planting a field. Since we did not have another plan, we went with her to watch what she was doing. We enjoyed sitting in the shade of a tree watching her and her grandchildren plant. They planted in pairs- one person with a stick making a hole and dropping corn into the hole while the other person drops in bean seeds. Then, the person with the stick tamps down the dirt with their heel. I went down into the field to follow along, but they walked along planting faster than I could follow!

Agriculture meeting

On Monday afternoon, I met with a group of community members, mostly women, who want to invite my friend Paul Chiriboga, who is an agronomist, to come do a training in the community. A couple of weeks ago they said they wanted to learn to plant vegetables. Right now they plant corn, beans, peas and a few other legumes. A few people plant potatoes, and one lady has a hot pepper plant and a granadilla (a fruit) vine. As we talked, they mentioned that because they depend on rainfall to water their fields, they were concerned about whether they would be able to plant veggies. Suddenly, it occurred to me that this was the perfect time to ask them to make a planting and harvesting calendar! We decided that it would be a good thing to share with Paul as well. I got out a poster paper and made a calendar with twelve months. We put in the planting and harvest times of a number of plants, and we used "droplets" to represent the amount of rain in each month.

In any case, I took all of their ideas down and will take the letter back to the community on Monday. Then, interested community members will sign the letter and I will make sure it gets to Paul. I made sure they knew that if Paul agrees to come, community members will need to pay for his transportation (about $2) as well as provide a place for him to sleep and food for him to eat. They were more than willing to agree to this, since they are eager to plant vegetables. In their opinion, even if they do not have enough vegetables to sell, they will save money that they regularly have to spend to buy vegetables! Please pray that Paul will be able to help this community.