Monday, March 30, 2009

The Cradle of Futbol

One of the coolest things about Ecuador is how, for one of the smallest countries in South America, it is incredibly diverse — geographically, environmentally, and culturally.

Two weeks ago, I got a dose of this cultural diversity. You don’t have to travel more than an hour to experience a completely different culture.

We took a field trip to the Rio Chote Valley and the Afro-Ecuatorian community of Juncal.

I took a bus from my village to Cayambe. It takes about an hour. From there, we boarded another bus to go to Juncal, which is a very small town on the border of the Imbabura and Carchi provinces. The people on the bus to Cayambe were mostly native and mestizo. On the bus to the Rio Chote Valley (which took 90 minutes), it was almost exclusively filled with Afro-Ecuatorianos.

I had become so accustomed to the modest, conservative culture of Cayambe that the in-your-face feel of Juncal caught me by surprise a bit. People talked, were clothed, and handled themselves differently. Apparently, the Afro-Ecuatorian population arrived in this location as part of the sugar trade — I believe they were slaves at the time — and have stayed here since.

Today, Juncal’s main export is its soccer talent. Five players out of the 22 on the national soccer team came from Juncal. And amazingly, the town is just recently getting its first soccer stadium. Before now, all soccer had been played on the dirt roads or cement.

Walking through the town is a very weird experience because many of the buildings are rundown. Right next to some of these homes are really nice, modern looking ones. The news homes were built by the soccer players for themselves and their families.

We talked with a local (and helped him peel some onions). He talked about how the kids here grow up with the dream to play soccer and it is one of their only opportunities to make it out of Juncal.

In addition to soccer, the town is known for the Afro-Ecuatorian culture, namely the bomba dance. This style of dance involves a woman dancing with a glass bottle on her head.
We asked the Juncalis (?) how they celebrate their festivals. Apparently, every festival involves bomba dancing. Other than the bomba, the Afro-Ecuatorian culture is dying away. Many of the older festivals are no longer celebrated. The national Ecuadorian calendar has superseded most of the traditional, seasonal celebrations from this once vibrant community.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Mandel Brodt at 10,000 feet

Monday night, I tried to cook a family specialty for my Ecuadorian family: mandel brodt (pronounced ‘bread’). It is a type--my favorite type--of almond/dried fruit dessert.

I am not the most culinarily inclined in my family, but in my Ecuadorian family, I might be the most epicurian of the bunch. A gourmand. The rest of the bunch isn’t really motivated to bring anything new in the kitchen, but they are excited to eat anything that I make them. Like two nights ago, I made my first ever veggie lasagna, and they called it “rico” or rich.

Which brings me to Monday night. In my suitcase to Ecuador, my mom packed me a container of mandel brodt as a gift for my family. And my family loved it (who wouldn’t?). So I told them that I would try to make it for them.

Keyword in that sentence is “try.”

This weekend, I got all the necessary ingredients at the market in Cayambe. I got the recipe from my mom and adjusted it for altitude. Apparently, you are supposed to change things around because there is less oxygen in the air, water boils at a different temperature, and baking can be affected.

Well, we had a great time baking and whatever we made was delicious. I just wouldn’t describe it as “mandel brodt.”

My “cooking at altitude” sheet says that you are supposed to add more liquid the higher up you are. So I did this. But when I put the dough in the pan, it ran to the edges. I guess I made more of a mandel cake than anything else. And also, with less oxygen, the dough didn’t rise as much as it should.



Nonetheless, whatever my family received was met with rave reviews. And I learned my lesson for next time.

I also bought ingredients to make a challah (Jewish egg bread) and a kugel (noodle pudding).

So you should get excited for more tales from the kitchen.

Here is my lasagna, which has already been brought back by popular request.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Pure Ecuadoriana

It has been 11 years since I played a game of organized baseball. For me, spring doesn’t even start until the red, white, and blue blunting has been draped over the dugout fences of Kaline Field in Franklin, Michigan, signifying Opening Day for Franklin Baseball Little League.

You have the village green, the gazebo, the church, the ground-rule-home-run-hill in the background.

That is what I like to call “pure Americana.”

Sunday morning, I got to experience the Ecuadorian equivalent — the opening day of the local soccer league.

It was a lazy little Sunday. I woke up without an alarm clock at 8:00 a.m. and went into the living room/dining room/family room (it’s all the same room in my house) to see what was going on. Breakfast was being made (and my assistance wasn’t required), so I sat down at the table and started reading this week’s New York Times Magazine articles about Allonzo Trier and the Sandanistas (I copied and paste them onto my flash drive on Saturday).

At about 9:00, the music started pumping from the soccer field. Festivities were supposed to begin at 9:00 but things down here operate on the Hora Ecuatoriana, so we figured it wouldn’t start until about 9:30, which is when we walked down to the pitch.

On the road in my town—I would call it the main road but there really aren’t any other roads, so the road is enough to distinguish it from everything that is not a road), all 21 of the teams in the local soccer league lined up for the opening-day parade.

At the front of each team was a girl/woman dressed in either very traditional clothing or modern—but very modest—apparel. These are the madrinas and they lead the team through the parade. The madrinas wear a sash with the name of the team they represent. There is a beauty pageant involving the madrinas that occurs during the parade. I don’t really know how it’s judged (more on this later).

We walked down to the field and took a seat near midfield, but not at midfield (this area is reserved for the president of the community and other local politicians). The entire community turns out for this event so my sister and brother dressed up for the occasion. I, on the other hand, didn’t. But it was fun to see everybody come together for this. I guess the main difference between this league and opening day of little league in the states is that people of all ages play in this league.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I know where I´ll be for the next two years

So today, they did the big site assignments. They had us sit in the front of the room, and, in the back of the room, there was a big map of Ecuador on the floor (made out of masking tape).

They pulled each trainee´s name out of an envelop and announced their site and province. Then the trainee would run through a tunnel of faciliators and PC staff (with roses on the floor) before finding their site on the map.

So my site is.......

in the province of El Oro in a town of 14,000 people.

The site description says that I will be working on reforestation of a dry, tropical rainforest reserve, aiding at a tree nursery, and assisting with waste management. This sounds pretty exciting, but I have no idea if this is what will really happen. One of our trainers said her work had nothing to do with what was on her site description, but this gives an idea of what my counterpart is looking for.

I go on a site visit next week, so I will definitely know more.

Now, here is what I know about the El Oro province.

- It is on the Pacific Coast.

- It borders Peru. So my site might be the furthest from Quito of anybody in my group.

- The world´s banana capital, Machala, is located in El Oro. The little bananas are known as oritos and are named after the province.

I hope to learn more.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Mi Club de Cine

A couple weeks ago, I noticed that my hermano has a Buzz Lightyear lunchbox. I asked him if he had ever seen Toy Story before. He looked at me with that blank face I’m used to seeing when an Ecuadorian doesn’t understand what I’m saying. He had never heard of the film before. He just has the lunch pail.

I needed to remedy this situation.

Al infitio y mas

Last Sunday, I sat down with my siblings and watched Toy Story in Spanish. They loved it, and Luis has requested to see it again. Everybody enjoyed the movie-watching experience. It was much better than when we watched the Russian edition of Madagascar 2 with muffled Spanish audio track. In fact, Luis has expressed interest in watching the movie again.

But there are too many movies to watch to double up. I went through my library of 14 movies to see which ones offered Spanish audio tracks. That way, we would be watching a movie that I enjoy, while spending quality time with my siblings and improving my Spanish. Jackpot.

Do, Ray,…. Egon

The next movie we watched was Ghostbusters (Casa Fantasmos). Luis is really into Los Power Rangers, so I figured he would enjoy them. There is plenty of humor in the film, so my hermana would also get a kick out of them. And because both of her children are happy, my madre would also enjoy the films. Everybody wins.

After we finished the first Ghostbusters, I told my siblings that I also had the sequel with me. They wanted to watch it immediately. If there is a better way to explain how much they enjoyed the movies, I can’t think of one. It was already 8:30 when the first movie finished. We watched 15 minutes of Ghostbusters 2 and called it a night.

The next night, we continued the movie, but because of another late start, we still had about a half hour left for Tuesday night. We finished up the movie. My family had some trouble understanding how they could move the Statue of Liberty. I didn’t know how to answer them. I mean, if you are watching a movie where a green ghost is driving a bus, you should probably come to grips with the idea that the Harbor Chick can stroll down Fifth Avenue.

The two other movies that I brought that offer a Spanish audio track are Air Force One and Along Came Polly. I don’t know if they are going to be appropriate for Luis. I will consult with my hermana and madre about this one.

But my family also said that they have a collection of movies in Spanish that we could watch. In conclusion, I’m pretty excited about this movie club. I´ll keep you posted on our future meetings.

Memo to Vadim: Ghostbusters is on the leeeeest. So Luis and Erika are at least at one.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

¡Salude a los ganadores!

Thursday night, 8:26 p.m. I’m sitting at the dinner table with my madre and hermana. We’re eating pea soup with potatoes and carrots.

My cell phone beeps — a text message.

“And the dance continues. 62-59. Manny had 23.”

Fist pumping ensues, quickly followed by screaming and “The Victors.”

My madre and hermana are frightened. They have no idea what happened. I told them that I just really like the soup. They know I like the food here, but they knew that I don’t like it that much.

On Wednesday, I had explained that my university’s basketball team had reached the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1998, and, that if I were not in a small village outside of Cayambe, I would probably be in Kansas City at the Sprint Center.

My reaction was so quick that they didn’t have time to relate my post-text-message jubilation with the NCAA Tournament. I apologized for scaring them. I compared it to Ecuador reaching the World Cup, and they understood. (Not an accurate comparison, I know, but it gets the point across. A better comparison would have been the local club team reaching the Copa Libertadores after spending a decade recovering from a scandal)

Now, everybody in this house is excited for tonight’s game. I taught my hermana “The Victors” and translated it into Spanish so she understands what I’m talking about. My hermano wasn’t home at the time. I’ll teach him a little later.

Salude a los ganadores, valiente
Salude a los conquistando heroes
Salude, salude a Michigan
Los lideres y los mejores

Salude a los ganadores, valiente
Salude a los conquistando heroes
Salude, salude a Michigan
Los campeones del oeste

I don’t know the rest of the song in English, so translating it to Spanish would have been near-impossible.

Thursday afternoon might have been one of the first times that I actually missed American culture. The four-day weekend (Thursday-Sunday) are probably might favorite four days of the year. Great college basketball all-day long. But I’m managing. I couldn’t fill out a bracket this year because Michigan was in the tournament. I know I picked against Michigan in Staff Picks, but I’m a fan again. I don’t think they are going to win it all, but I still couldn’t pick them to lose.

Friday, March 20, 2009

The Laundry Experience

For about a week, I had been asking my sister to teach me how to wash my clothes by hand.

Apparently, one of the conditions for being a host family for Peace Corps trainees is that the family will teach the trainee to wash his/her clothes by hand. I don’t really recall why I urgently needed to do laundry, but there was a need and my sister agreed to teach me.

So first thing last Sunday morning, I put all my dirty laundry in a five gallon pail, filled it with water, and tossed in a handful of Deja laundry detergent. Deja might be the most potent substance known to mankind and can get anything out of anything (whether or not we’re talking about clothes. It can just, in general, get anything out of anything). My sister said that we should wait a while before washing our clothes because the water is really cold in the morning and that it will be more comfortable to wash in the afternoon.

I went for a stroll with some friends and returned to clean my clothes. But my sister went to the hospital to visit my uncle (or to tend the cows while my mom went to the hospital). Either way, nobody was home. So I had to pick it up with a little help from a fellow trainee.

I would describe the experience, overall, as a success. Here is my step-by-step process for washing clothes by hand. Keep in mind that I have only done this twice so far. It has worked for me, though — and no one has complained that my clothes smell like soap. (The second time, my sister gave me a few pointers)
Step 1: Turn on iPod to something with a good beat. The first time, I listened to Eminem. The second time, Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Step 2: Take a dirty garment out of dirty water and place on laundry rock. Generously apply laundry soap.

Step 3: Work soap into clothes on rock. Repeat. Make sure that you are using your entire body to do this, so that it can double as a workout.

Step 4: Rinse clothes. For me, this takes a lot longer than it does for my sister — like exponentially longer.

Step 5: Continue rinsing. I add an additional step here. For someone with experience in doing laundry by hand, this step is unnecessary. You should already be putting the clothes on the line. But because it takes me so long to get the soap out, I figured I would add another step here.

Step 6: Place on clothesline.

Step 7: Repeat Steps 1-6 with the rest of the clothes from your pail.

*Laundry tip:
When washing boxers you purchase at Machaneh Yehuda (open-air market in Jerusalem), expect them to bleed a bit. Even if you bought them more than two years ago and have washed them several times in a washing machine, they will still bleed. Now I have a red-spotted white t-shirt and several pairs of socks with red dots on them. I guess you could call me "Man of the Manchas."
I got much better at the whole laundry thing the second time around. I plan to continue improving.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The Cayambe Police Philharmonic

I meant to put this post up a couple of weeks ago, but with my tio’s death and all, it got pushed back a few days.

From the day I arrived with my host family, my mom had been complaining about how the sidewalk inside our front gate was broken. I noticed a few cracks, but they were minimal compared to some of the other projects around the house.

I would say the most glaring project is the shower with electric wires hanging in midair. A close second behind that could be the weed epidemic that has taken over large swaths of the garden behind the house. In third place, I would put the two large piles of stones and dirt that you hit when you open the front gate. Then, I might consider the sidewalk. That is, if you disregard the fact that the computer doesn’t turn on or that they can’t get a clear signal for any channels on the TV.

Either way, my madre saw the demand to redo the sidewalk, and who am I to question her decision?

Answer: nobody.

I woke up early Saturday morning and saw that my mom had prepared a large feast for me. I was kind of hungry, but I didn’t really understand the need for such amounts of food. My mom explained that I would be working hard and needed to eat.

At about 8:00, the Maestro walked in. I don’t know what kind of musical background he has, but my family refers to him as the maestro. He is the local handyman, and, for me, the source of countless Seinfeld references. (In case you don’t understand the title by now, Elaine (one of the main characters on Seinfeld) dated the Maestro, who was the conductor of the New York Police Philharmonic Orchestra).
We immediately started to work by tearing apart the existing sidewalk and clearing it out. Then, we gathered rocks to form the base for the new sidewalk and mixed together cement, dirt, water, and small rocks to form our concrete concoction. Then we put it all together. The Maestro was in charge of leveling.

We finished at around 5:00, but that was not the end of the household projects for the day. In the midst of our sidewalk restoration, the water went out. Luckily, the local handyman was around.
After completing the sidewalk, he went up to the water tank (which is on the roof of the house). You have to understand that none of the original parts of the water tank appear to be functioning correctly or are attached to what they are supposed to be attached to. But somehow, the system functions and there is water in the house, so they must be doing something right.

After about 40 minutes of trying to piece different pipes together and screw together different sections of pipe, the Maestro threw in the towel on this project. At one point, it seemed as if the problem was solved but then we couldn’t piece together final pipe that needed to be reattached. The verdict: my mom would need to go to the store to get a new piece of plastic.

Well, my mom hasn’t been to the store, and, somehow, we got the water back. In the meantime, the glass panes on the top of the water tank broke but that hasn’t really stopped our system either.
Monday afternoon, we had a bit of a scare when the water went out. I went upstairs with my siblings to check out the problem. The main tube that provides water to the house was disconnected. So we looked at our available resources to correct the problem and with a few feet of masking tape and two old bike tire tubes, we reconnected the pipes and temporarily solved the water issue.

I love this stuff.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

“Shiva” in Quechua

This is not the kind of blog post that I wanted to write, but I couldn’t ignore what has been happening. It has been a very difficult week around the house.

Last Saturday night, my madre’s brother got in a car accident. I don’t really know the details. From what I picked up, it occurred at 1:00 a.m., involved alcohol, and there was no seatbelt worn. He suffered bruised ribs, experienced internal bleeding, and was moved to the hospital in Quito.

My madre spent all day Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday at her brother’s side. I actually didn’t see her between Sunday night and Tuesday morning.

Wednesday morning, I awoke to the phone ringing. The conversation was brief and quickly followed by tears. He died. I got out of bed and gave her a good hug.

I had no idea what the bereavement process is like in the Andes. Before this week, I have only been to Jewish funerals and a Jehovah’s Witness one. My host family maintains many native traditions but my madre also teaches the Catachism class at the local church on Sunday mornings. So I didn’t really know what to expect.

I went about my day as normal on Wednesday. When I got home, my sister and brother were waiting for me, so we could go to my abuelito’s (grandfather’s) house. Because he had died that morning, I didn’t think that there would be any formal bereaving events that night (he had been dead for 12 hours).

At their house, there was a crowd forming. A bunch of old ladies were sitting on one side of the yard stirring a soup in the biggest cauldrons I have ever seen. The room that was the kitchen last week was cleared of all cooking utensils. Now, it was full of chairs and benches.

I asked around to see if there was anything I could do to help. Someone suggested that I could help some of the old ladies peel potatoes. Then I looked at the old ladies who were peeling potatoes, and I would guess that they have each peeled 100,000 potatoes in their lives. So I decided potato people was not my calling. Then I went back to the room that used to be the kitchen and waited on some benches outside.

Out of nowhere, a group of pallbearers marches down the hill, carrying the casket, which they placed on a plain, brown table in the room that used to be a kitchen. The casket is opened and visitors begin to file in to pay their respects.

To give you a brief background, the man who is died in my tio Patricio. He is the father of Pachulo, with whom I played soccer last week. I met Patricio briefly, and he seemed like a very nice guy. He also left behind a daughter (I would guess she is about nine). I knew him, but not very well. I felt horrible for my family more than anything else.

There were a lot of tears flowing, and Kleenex was in high demand. A few minutes later, a bunch of men walk down the hill, carrying a giant cross, a stand for the casket, and a few other sacramental items that I didn’t really recognize/don’t remember. They set up a kind of altar in one side of the former kitchen. Then people started to crowd around the door.

I saw my sister carrying a vacuum into one of the other rooms in the house and saw other members of my family go in there. They emerged a few minutes later and went into the room with the casket. The casket was lowered to the floor and opened up. Then the body was taken out of the casket and placed on a straw pad.

I was standing behind the crowd of people at the door. And even though I stand about four inches above the tallest people in the community, I didn’t get a view of the body. The ironed clothes were brought into the room with the altar and placed on the body. Upon further questioning, it turns out that they takes some of the dead person’s favorite clothes so they can be comfortable as they go into the next world. The process of clothing the dead takes about an hour. I don’t really have a great view of the body, but I can see my family standing on the other side of the casket, sobbing.

After the body is fully clothes, they put it back in the casket and place it on the altar that was brought into the room. The casket is left open so people can pay their respects, and several candles are brought into the room.

Then, people came around offering tea and crackers. I was feeling a little chilly and hungry, so the cinnamon tea and saltine really hit the spot. I don’t know if there is any ritual significance to the food choice other than it is traditional to serve some food.

Then some more time passed. I sat around on a bench and talked with some of the neighbors. Then there was a prayer service. After the prayer service, a bunch of guests just filed in and out of the house to pay their respects to the family and to Patricio.

After a while, I went home with my sister and our neighbors, Then on Thursday, after a full day of training, I went back to my abuelo’s house.

Instead of the tears that were present on Wedneday night, all of the tears were replaced with food. There were several massive cauldrons of food going. There was alos a lot of beef, which gives me the impression that a cow lost its life for this occasion. There was a soup being made. When I got there, I played a game of freeze tag with Luis before trying to help out any way I could.

It turns out that me helping out was sitting in a room away from where all the people were mourning and helping all my little cousins speak English. Because all of the kids in school study English, they know a few words but they can’t really put together full sentences. So my cousins were mostly just saying words in Spanish that I would then translate. Because I couldn’t really mourn much longer, I was fine with this role.

I stepped outside of the room to see that the crowd was about three times as large as it had been on Wednesday (I would say there were more than 200 people there on Thursday night). This large crowd was engaged in an intense prayer session. So I dipped back into the room to play more dictionary.

After the prayer session, I helped in soup distribution. The old ladies would pour me a bowl of soup that I would then help give to a guest. It was quite an assembly line of soup bowl passers that stretched all the way from the cauldron to the altar. I relied on my experience as an usher distributing bobbleheads at Comerica Park to help me in this situation.

I couldn’t really believe how different the mood was on Thursday than on Wednesday. Apparently, after midnight, they start playing games. I had a big presentation to give on Friday and a big interview with someone in the Peace Corps office, so I didn’t really want to be up late playing games with a bunch of drunk natives.

I take that back. I wanted to be up playing games with them, but I had stuff to do in the morning.

For a few minutes, it looked as if I would have to share a bed with my three-year old cousin because there weren’t any cars heading back toward the village (where my house is). But a few minutes later, I found someone heading to the next village over and hopped in with them.

The funeral occurred on Friday but with my busy day of presentation and interview, I couldn’t make it to the funeral or cemetery. After the cemetery, everybody went back to my abuelo’s house for a post-funeral reception that, rumor has it, includes a lot of alcohol and beef. I went straight there after my class, but it has pretty much wrapped up. It was time for everybody to milk their cows, so they had to leave the funeral.

I am devastated for my family, for them to experience such a tragedy. But at the same time, I learned a lot about the community I am living in and the culture on the people in the Sierra.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Correo

This is a new feature I´m going to start on the blog. I have received a bunch of questions in the blog comment section. So I figured I would answer them.

In Spanish, correo means ´post office´ so I figured that would be a fitting name for this section (Although the people of Ecuador might prefer Correa, as in President Rafael Correa.)

I intend on answering all of your questions and encourage you to continue to send them (either on the blog or through the e-mail {ian.jacob.robinson@gmail.com}.

Depending on the question, it might require an entire blog post to provide a comprehensive answer. Others can be addressed in a few paragraphs. Rest assured, I hope to answer all of your questions.

How's the tap water? Is it potable?

I haven’t tried the tap water yet, and I don’t really plan on it. After seeing what some of the local animals do in the local water sources and some of the trash that is chilling in the river, I’m pretty uninterested in ever sampling the untreated water.

Some have suggested the idea of adjusting to the tap water by brushing your teeth with it and then starting to sip a little bit to build up a tolerance. Before you know it, I will forget what it’s like to have water without diarrhea-inducing bacteria.

I don’t think I will try this strategy. Boiling my water isn’t that much of a hassle, and bottled water is really cheap. So that isn’t much of an issue.

Have you had the bizcochos? Is one better than another? Are they good?

For those that don’t recall, the bizcocho is a type of biscuit/bread that Cayambe is very famous for. Every corner has a place claiming to serve the best bizcochos or the freshest bizcochos (I compare it to the Original Famous Ray’s vs. Famous Original Ray’s pizza debate in New York).

I have really only gone to one bizcocho guy so far. If I spend more time in the city of Cayambe, I can foresee the possibility of a city-wide bizcocho sampling. I would only do this if time allowed.

The thing about eating the bizcocho is that it depends what you eat the bizcocho with. I prefer to dip my bizcochos in yogurt, but other belong to the dinning-in-hot-beverage school of bizcocho consumption. I have yet to attempt this method.

How is the cuisine? Have you learned some new recipes?

The food has been pretty good so far. But I am typically horrible judge of food quality. Unlike my brothers, I am, in this case, blessed without a discerning palate. Unless the food is simply horrendous, I can pretty much stomach anything. And my stomach hasn’t suffered any setbacks since I arrived (I don’t think I can go the entire two years like this, but we can pray, right?).

I have enjoyed most of the food my family has served me. In the morning, they will give me eggs, bread, and juice. For dinner, there is usually some combination of vegetable soup, an omelet, rice, minestrone, and cooked vegetables. We are on our own for lunch, and we go to the restaurant in town where, for $1.50, you get vegetable soup, rice, beans, an egg dish, and fruit juice.

My complaints about the food wouldn’t be the food itself but some questions about how it is prepared. It is my opinion that my family uses too much sugar, salt, and oil. This is most evident when they are making tea, or as I like to think about it, hot sugar water with some spices in it. In a little pot of tea, they add an entire cereal bowl of sugar.

Do the locals shower more, or less, than you have been?

I haven’t done a comprehensive survey of neighborhood hygiene habits, but I have observed the practices of my immediate familia.

I would have to put myself just behind my sister in most baths since I have arrived. There are some people in the family who I don’t know whether they have bathed since I arrived. But this might be unfair because I am out of the house most of the day (which is when the water is at its warmest). But let this be clear, I still have my doubts. I will continue to monitor the situation.

It seems that every other family in town has some sort of working shower. Meanwhile, the bucket bath means I need to plan out my bathing schedule a bit more than I would prefer, and you have to pace all your water usage. The bonus about the bucket bath is that the water is warm. I have heard stories from other volunteers of 30 seconds of lukewarm showers giving way to glacially cold experiences.

Monday, March 09, 2009

Guinea Pig Piss Sells at $2.00/liter

On Friday, we visited an integrated farm near Tabacundo (twenty minutes from Cayambe). Everybody was really excited because it was our first day of real technical trainings. This man, Edwin, owns 2.5 hectares of land (that’s a little more than an acre) and had created a completely sustainable, organic farm. He is a great guy and is always looking for possible solutions and ways to improve his farm. For example, strawberries take up a lot of space on a farm. Because he has such limited space to work with, he is trying to grow them vertically.

Enough with this shmaltzy intro about the farm, let’s get to what I actually learned.

In the morning, we had three sessions that were led by current PCVs (Peace Corps volunteers) and trainers. Our first station was organic fertilizer. We discussed four types of fertilizing styles—compost, manure tea, boil, and bokachi—and broke down the pros and cons of each. Then we talked about what nutrients you need for a good compost: a good balance of nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous. For example, some good natural sources of nitrogen would be greens (chlorophyll is almost pure nitrogen, and if your plants are turning yellow, it might mean they have a nitrogen deficiency), legumes (I don’t think Ashkenazim have to clean the legumes out of their compost before Pesach, but I would ask a higher authority on this one. Actually, putting the legumes in compost would be a great way to clean the legumes out of your house before Passover), IMO, and manure.

The highlight of this session, for me, was using a machete for the first time in my life. I used it to cut a block of brown sugar.

Our next session was about building greenhouses. It will be very hard to remember how to build a greenhouse after a 45-minute session, but it got some of the ideas moving in my head. You use greenhouses to control moisture and temperature. This was a very technical session and would be very difficult to explain on the blog in just a few sentences, but at the end we helped Edwin build his greenhouse by using hoes (azadones) to clean the land. A lot of little worms (cusos) live in the ground. When we found them we were told to put them in a bucket so Edwin could feed them to his ducks. Well, we didn’t put all of them in the bucket.JK. They’re not kosher. But several people did eat them.

Our last session in the morning was about seedbeds. Not the most exciting to write about but if you have any seedbed questions, you can send them my way. Plus I know that you are just kicking yourself to find out why I would know the market value of guinea pig urine.

After a great lunch of homegrown veggies, we began the afternoon sessions. My group’s first stop was the guinea pig barn. If you didn’t know, guinea pig (cuy) is considered a delicacy here. Edwin can get $7.00/cuy, but people only eat them for festivals and special occasions. Traditionally, guinea pigs are kept on the ground in their cages, but this creates a lot of issues for cleaning. Plus, one of Edwin’s philosophy’s is that he wants to get multiple uses out of each component on his farm. So he devised a system in which his keeps the cuys in elevated cages. The cuy crap and piss falls beneath the cracks and he harvests it to use for his compost. He also has an intense system of breeding the cuys to make sure that only the strongest ones remain and the weak are killed and eaten (just like Vadim’s shirt says about Detroit).

Some of the local flower growers have expressed interest in using guinea pig piss as a fertilizer, but Edwin has has some issues in how to collect it (it is tough to put a catheter on the cuys). So he is working on a way to collect the piss and sell it for $2.00 a liter to the local flower growers. I forget how much he projects he can get per week, but it was pretty substantial.

After that, we had a session on pruning and clefting. Clefting is very cool because you essentially take the trunk or branch of one type of fruit and attach the branch of another. You would do this because one species of fruit might have a strong, disease-resist root system but not a great fruit product. Another species would be in the reciprocal position. So now you can get the best of both worlds. Apparently, almost all the commercial apple trees in the US have the same root system.

Then, I planted a tree. Sallah Shabati, anyone?

Our last session was on lombricultura (using worms in your compost). This is a great way to get a compost going and is very easy.

We capped the day with a ritual slaughtering of a guinea pig, per the request of one of the fellow PCTs. They pretty much just pressed the head against the ground until it stopped squeaking. Then Edwin’s wife took the hair and skin of the cuy off and prepared it to be eaten.

Overall, a great first day of technical training.

Sunday, March 08, 2009

The Family Life

I think I am fitting in very well with my new family. But my extended family is very large, and I have trouble remembering their names and faces.

My mom has five siblings (I think all but one of them is married). Her youngest brother is in university in Ibarra to be an electrician. Most of her other siblings have spent time at the farm since I moved in. And many of her siblings have children.

For example, I apparently have a cousin named Kevin. But I’m not sure if that is his name because I think I have also heard him being referred to as Daniel, DeMarco, and Pongi. It’s very unclear.

One thing that is very clear is that my three-year old cousin has one of the best names I’ve ever heard. In fact, I am going to create a feature on the right side of my blog because of it. His name is Pachulo. Think about how great that name is for a second and then you will understand where I am coming from. He is also very cute. So in honor of him, I will start a “favorite words I encounter” section on the right side.

My family’s farm is on the outside of town. It is actually my grandparent’s house. We live in the village itself. There is one main street and, literally, a beaten path that runs perpendicular to it where my house is located. Normally, they have a functioning shower, but it recently broke. So bathing has been a bit of an adventure around here.

To heat the water, we fill a pot with water and put it on the stove. Once it has reached an adequate temperature, we pour it in a big bucket. If the water it too hot, we balance it out with some tap water until we find the optimal temperature. Then I go into the bathroom with the big bucket, a small bucket, some soap, and a shampoo container. The bathroom is not closed off from the elements, and it is very cold outside. So having to bath yourself with a bucket of water in cold weather will take some getting used to, to say the least. But I found it a very refreshing experience the first time. Maybe that’s because I hadn’t really bathed in four days?

Now, if there is one thing that I haven’t really done in the mountains, it would be running. With altitude, going more than a block at any pace above a sashay has me gasping for air. But if there is one thing that I have done, it is sleep. In fact, I am writing this blog post at 9:20 p.m. That is the latest I have been awake since moving to the mountains.

For the last three nights, I have been in bed before 8:30 p.m. That is three more nights of being in bed before 8:30 p.m than I can remember in my entire life. You would have to consult my mom with the last time this happened. The benefit of being able to go to sleep early is that you wake up and see the sunrise, which I have done for the last few days. And it’s not just any sunrise. It’s a stunning one over the Andes. I have been sleeping until 6:00 and can’t sleep anymore. I feel like my dad, who is a real madrugador (someone who wakes up early).

I want to give you some information about Cayambe, where our training is based.

Cayambe is about an hour north of Quito. It has a population of about 30,000 and the downtown area is nice. It is famous for bizcochos, which are a type of bread/biscuit. As soon as you drive into town, you are bombarded with restaurants and cafes that claim to serve the original bizcocho, the best bizcochos, or traditional bizcochos. The town is also famous for a type of string cheese. I don’t know the name of it yet, but I have tried it, and it is good.

The area around Cayambe is one of the world’s leading producers in fresh-cut flower exports. Apparently, there was some international economic agreement with Andean countries that would give free trade on certain products so that they didn’t have to rely on drug money. It seems that Cayambeans have taken advantage of that because when you look down into the valley, it is covered with greenhouses.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

What lies outside your window?



This is the view from my room.

Well, I apologize for how brief that last blog post was. I realize that I need to pre-write my blog posts before getting to the internet café and just upload them with a thumb drive. The six-minute, proof-of-life blog post to recap your first six days in a country just won’t cut it. So I’ll have you know that I wrote this post beforehand.

To update you on my situation. I am currently living with a host family in a training village near the city of Cayambe. I will be here until the end of April. I have been trying really hard to integrate into the community. In this area of the country, there is a large native population, and the communities are often wary of outsiders. Many in the older generation speak Kichwa (you might recognize the Peruvian spelling of Quechua). But the community has been very welcoming so far. I greet every person I pass on the street with a “Buenos dias” or “Buenos tardes” depending on the time of day. I’m indoors by nightfall, so I don’t really have to worry about the “Buenos noches.”

In my family, I have a madre and two siblings. My hermano is eight years old and my best friend. We play futbol (soccer) and watch movies (Madagascar 2) and TV (The Simpsons). Before he leaves for school in the morning, he gives me hug. My sister is in high school. She leaves for school early in the morning and then cooks dinner for the family in the afternoon. Mi madre wakes up at 3:00 a.m. to milk the cows at the family farm and returns in time to get mi hermano ready for school. During the day, she works at the farm or at the garden next to our house. Then in the afternoon, she goes back to the farm and milks the cows again before coming home.

All of the families in this area are in the cow-milking business (there is probably a better word for this, but I can’t think of it now). About five years ago, they built big milk collection sites (Acopios) in these villages. Since then, the families have shifted away from agriculture and into milk. Before they built these facilities, each family would sell their milk to a different milkman at different prices. Now, the price is constant in each village, and there is more stability. Two hundred families in my town are members of the milk business, and they export a combined 4,000 liters per day. Families receive $.34 per liter of milk, and the standard-sized container holds $8.00 of milk. I learned that the milk from my village is transported to a town south of Quito where it is processed into dry milk powder and used by the ministry of health.

My one milking experience to date occurred on Sunday afternoon. I don’t really have a feel for it like mi madre does, who milks the cows twice a day, but I will improve. If the cow-milking doesn’t pan out, there is plenty for me to do around the farm. Last Saturday, I helped harvest a potato-like vegetable, and Sunday, I helped fertilize a field that the cows used to graze in (ie. Shoveled cow manure). Aside from when I made a firepit out of cow manure in Jerusalem, this was the most contact I have had with cowpile. In third place would probably be watching Back to the Future (for the scene when Biff drives into the manure, not because I am trying to compare the film to animal waste. I love that film).

Aside from the milking cows, my family also has some cows who are not old enough to give milk. One of those cows is very small and tan-colored. I will lobby to have it named “Norman.” I’m not sure how the cow-naming process works, but I will figure it out.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

When was the last time you milked a cow?

So, I haven´t forgotten about you. The reason for limited blogging has been limited internet access. In fact, this is the first bit of internet I have had in five days. And in that time so many bloggable things have happened that I know I will be playing catch-up for the next two years.

I´ll give you a brief overview of what we have done until now. Right now, I am sitting in an internet cafe outside of Cayambe, which is in the mountains north of Quito. We are living with families in our training villages. I will write more about that soon.

Last Tuesday, we had staging in Washington, D.C. It´s pretty weird to think that was just a week ago. We received some basic information and did a bunch of icebreakers with the 44 other trainees in my group. A few specific outstanding icebreaker moments were:

We were asked what we did to prepare for our Peace Corps service. One of the trainees said that he achieved inner peace. I said that I got a hair cut.

Another question that we were asked was about something we brought with us that was the most ridiculous. I said a baseball mitt, but, in reality, the most ridiculous thing I brought was a box of matzah ball soup mix.

After successful traveling, we reached Quito and had a few days of orientation. Not really any tremendous stories from that.

Well, I have to catch the bus in three minutes. So, I have to go. To give you a flavor of the kinds of things I have done the last few days:

I milked a cow for the first time in my life.

The shower in my house is broken, so my host mom put some water on the stove, then put that water in a big bucket so I could bathe, which is nice because I hadn't washed my hair in a week.