Planting Beans and Sorting Corn, Beans and Peas

I bought some boots! Why, you ask? Well, the ground is so dusty that no matter what other shoes I wear, I end up with my socks and feet covered! The other reason is that Mike and I decided that once it starts to rain (Oh, Father, let it be soon...), there will be lots of mud. So, amazingly, I was able to just go out and buy a pair of hiking boots. Why is that amazing? Since Ecuadorian women have smaller feet than I do, I have never been able to buy shoes here- so it was surprising to be able to walk into a shoe store, ask for my size and buy a pair of boots. Hallelujah!

Last week when we were in the community, I kept thinking that I really had no agenda. However, the plan was to help with planting if possible, to practice Quichua as much as possible, to teach English twice, to just spend time with people, to attend the workshop on planting vegetables, and to attend the Saturday worship service. Obviously, I had a bigger agenda than I had thought.

When we arrived in the community, we had already eaten and it was about 1pm, close to time when children begin arriving home from school and eat lunch. Thinking that the community president was away, we did not call him, and just wandered around looking for someone to visit. I found Virginia, an older woman who lives with her son's family and who also runs a very small store, and she was very happy to see us. She began right away to talk to me in Quichua, and I began to respond as well as I was able. She was getting ready to shell dried corn in order to sort it for planting, and she asked if we wanted to help. We had done this a bit before with Josefina, so we said that we would help. Virginia opened a wood door at the back of a covered cement area, and I saw several hens with a number of chicks, and a number of guinea pigs. Hanging from the ceiling was the dried corn. Since I am much taller than she, she asked me to get the corn down. We sat on the ground and she helped us to know which kernels went where. The bad ones were given to the chickens, while the good ones were reserved for either cooking or planting.

Thursday morning I wanted to visit Carmen to practice Quichua, since she does not understand or speak much Spanish. However, when I went to her house she did not answer the door. Mike and I were heading up the road to look at something, when we noticed Maria Josefina out in one of her fields. It looked like she was planting. We walked up the path toward the field to greet her, and she came out of the field to greet us. She asked what we were doing, and we responded that we were just walking around. She asked us if we would like to help plant beans, and we said sure. The field was plowed into rows. To plant beans, you walk along the row, poke a hole in the side of the row mound with a stick, drop in the beans, and close the hole with your foot. Also, you tie a piece of fabric around your middle, and this holds the beans, so that you can reach in and take out two at a time.

This 63 year old lady is very quick! Mike and I, on the other hand are very slow! Maria Josefina gave me her stick and showed me how to use it. Then, while she went to find another stick for herself and for Mike, she left me on my own. First, in some places I had a hard time making a hole with the stick. Then, I had a difficult time getting the beans to fall into the hole, and I had to keep bending over to move them. And about half way down my first row, my fabric piece came untied and all of my beans fell onto the ground! Boy, did I feel inept- especially when an old lady practically raced past me on the next row. However, when my beans dropped, she offered to help me pick them up, and she never criticized or scolded me for being so slow. When she ran out of beans in her pouch, she headed off to her house, leaving Mike and me to finish with our beans. The day was clear and windy, and Mike and I became very warm and tired. Finally, when we ran out of beans, we used our sticks to mark where we finished, and decided to head to Maria Josefina's house to return the pieces of fabric we had been using.

She met us part way, and asked if we had run out of beans. When we said yes, she said she was cooking something and that we should come to her house. She asked if we liked toasted corn, and of course, we said yes. So, we helped her shell the corn, and she was already boiling potatoes and eggs in her outside kitchen. However, when it came to toasting the corn, she said she was going to do that inside. The whole back of her house is a large open room, that looks more like a storage area than a house. On one side, she has a low block wall to make a pen for her guinea pigs. She says they are dying because of lack of green plants to feed them. She lit a fire between cement blocks, and with two thick wooden poles over the top to hold the pan. I am amazed at the way the women burn the eucalyptus wood; they have long branches which they continue to push into the fire as they burn. The fire does not travel down the wood, and they just continue to move it further and further into the fire. Amazingly, their anacus (the skirts they use) do not catch on fire as they are careful.

Once the toasted corn was ready, we went back outside and she served us a bowl of toasted corn, a bowl (each) of boiled potatoes and hard boiled eggs. Just when I felt that I could eat no more, she brought each of us a bowl of "quaker". Quaker is a drink made of ground oatmeal and panela (a minimally processed cane sugar). I have to tell the truth and say that I really did not like it much at all. However, so as not to offend, I took it bit by bit with a spoon, until it was gone. We finally told her that we could not eat anything else, and she gave us plastic bags to carry home the leftover potatoes and toasted corn. In Quichua culture, if you cannot eat all that you are served, you are usually expected to carry the rest away with you in a plastic bag. Otherwise, you may offend your host (or hostess) by seeming not to like what you were offered. This would be the height of rudeness, so we took it with us.

Thursday afternoon I helped Virginia sort beans for planting. She had a large amount of beans which we sorted into three groups- one for planting, one for cooking, and one for trash. I was not really sure about the sorting process, so I watched her and asked occasionally if I was not sure. Mike opted out of the bean sorting because sitting on the ground like that was hard on his back. I enjoyed the interaction and the opportunity to practice more Quichua.

Friday morning we went up to the community and found our other friend Josefina and her daughters sifting sand for finishing concrete. We stood there and talked to them for a while and then offered to help. Gregorio called Mike, so he left to practice Quichua, but I stayed behind helping to sift sand until they had finished. Then, I headed off to find Mike and Gregorio. When I got to Gregorio's house, we went inside to talk and Gregorio showed us the new screens (or pattern-makers) that he had bought for his weaving loom. We watched him for a long time before leaving.

We returned to the community a bit later and I helped Virginia shell peas for planting for a little while. Later, I had to go to Otavalo with Mike to use the internet and to pick up Paul Chiriboga (more about him in another post). When I came back again, Virginia was beginning to use the wind to separate the peas from the chaff of the pea plants. I helped for a while, and practiced more Quichua.

I really enjoy spending time with the older women of the community. They are interesting and are really willing to help me practice the language. While most everyone in the community understands Quichua better than Spanish, not everyone is really willing to make us practice. These older women, on the other hand, are actively trying to help us, and we are thankful. It is the least we can do to try to help them work as well. They live a difficult life, but they do not resent it. They seem to enjoy the time we spend with them as well.

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.