When she picked me up she brought their horse for me to ride. Awkward situation number one. There was no saddle and it was the skinniest horse ever. I tried to get her to ride it but that didn’t work so I rode the horse while she walked behind, at least she let me take me bag. It was about a 2-3 hour trek up and down this steep dusty trail with minimal conversation. We were at least in a little group of other students and their new mamás. We stopped in a little village for a chocolate popsicle snack then up to the house. Played with the kids for a bit than dinner. Very modest in our dirt floor kitchen with CUY running around. The Ginny pigs live under the wooden oven/stove thing. And I knew what you are thinking … I did not get to eat it. It is actually an expensive delicacy here (13$ vs 2.50 per meal) so they are raising them to sell not to feed gringos that wont appreciate them I guess (although someone on my program had the privilege. His mom picked out the one for the evening and he had to grab it from the rest of the batch! Hand it to her and watch as she popped its little neck, boil it to get ride of MOST of the hair and cooked it in a soup. He said it was not that great, not much meat mostly skin. We also see them being sold on spits on the side of the roads here, not in town but out in the country side).
We went to bed early between 8 and 9 and got up between 6 and 7 because the kids left for school at 730… a well needed break from being the human jungle gym.
Day One, my mom took me, again by horse, about 230 hours away to another town where she worked with the kids in a school there. She said it was an indigenous village and the people there speak quichwa, the native pre-Incan language. This trip threw me for aloop cause there was a 15 year old mom with her 1 year old son. Of course we have that in the states and I have seen it but this instance was a lot for me. It took me the entire ride home to digest and I still don’t know what else to say about it. I mixture of frustration, pity and guilt for the opportunities I have. But then I have to step back and turn around and not judge by our standards, but still that is a hard life, and for him how will it change. But who am I to tell them to change… bah tough
More white rice, lentels, platanos, and tea for breakfast lunch dinner. We fed the pigs twice a day. We played soccer that second night down in the town square… well my little sister wouldn’t let me play, she said they boy were mean. Of course they were all little 13 year olds but I played on the swing with her and some other classmates of mine too. We broke out a disk to play with and they had never seen that before, some of them even got pretty good. Then a little TV and to bed. This was also the night the dad was there, didn’t say much, kinda sketchy, not sure how I feel about him.
Day two we went to give the cows some salt. This included an hour trek down the hill, ½ hour searching for the cows in the pen then! One had fallen and rolled down the hill so my mom tried to yell across the canyon to another farm but nobody was there to help, so we trekked back up again and still didn’t find anybody. By the time we got to the top she said she was tired and that she would deal with it tomorrow so we went to the house and rested… don’t really know what happened to that calf. We rested and I did a little homework. When the kids got home we watched a little tv. Poorly received spongebob squarepants, or bobesponge in Spanish. Fed the pigs, killed a chicken for dinner, and to bed.
Haha you probs want to hear more about the killing of the chicken. Well I wasn’t there for the fatal blow.. glad I didn’t wake up from my descanso in time for that. But I was there for the plucking of the feathers, gutting and putting in the soup pot… oh and the feet and head sin beak were all considered quality parts for soup. I was just preying that they weren’t the best parts that they would give to me, the guest... they weren’t J The soup was actually really good. The chicken was very tough and chewy but not horrible of course. Ya exciting
That night we watched some more spongebob then to bed for our early ride/walk back to la florida to meet up with the other classmates.
All in all a great experience. Tough but I will remember it forever.
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