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.