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.
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